History Main / FlatlinePlotline

** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'', Big Boss can do a similar trick by using a fake CyanidePill to cause a temporary state of "death". However if you don't use the revival pill before a certain time limit, he dies permanently, causing a TimeParadox.
** Lastly in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' it is possible to lay among a group of corpses after a battle and play dead. This usually causes any passing guards to ignore you.

Not to be confused with FauxDeath -- that's when the character never really dies in the first place -- or with {{Flatline}}. Compare RevivalLoophole, RessurectionGambit. Compare and contrast with DisneyDeath.

Not to be confused with FauxDeath -- that's when the character never really dies in the first place -- or with {{Flatline}}. Compare RevivalLoophole. Compare and contrast with DisneyDeath.

* An early episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has Ash and Pikachu go through this, temporarily turning into ghosts after being crushed under a fallen chandelier. This proves key in helping Ash bond with the ghostly trio of Haunter, Ghastly and Gengar. (Over the course of the series and several movies, Ash undergoes ''several'' more Flatline Plotlines.)

* An early episode of ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' has Ash and Pikachu go through this, temporarily turning into ghosts after being crushed under a fallen chandelier. This proves key in helping Ash bond with the ghostly trio of Haunter, Ghastly and Gengar. (Over the course of the series and several movies, Ash undergoes ''several'' more {{Flatline Plotline}}s.)

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "Free Spirit", [=CryoSync=] Laboratories, working on behalf of the US government, conducted experiments into near-death experiences in order to determine whether those involved would have out-of-body experiences. The government hoped that the resulting disembodied spirits would be able to serve as the perfect spies. However, Project Free Spirit, as it was known, had an unfortunate side effect: it resulted in the three test subjects, Mark Gregory, Alex Hanover and Kevin Lockwood, going insane after being brought to the brink of death and returning so many times. The government ultimately ordered Project Free Spirit to be terminated and the three men were killed while the experiments were still ongoing. Gregory and Hanover's spirits died along with their bodies but Lockwood's spirit survived and he began plotting revenge against Dr. Rachel Harris for disconnecting him.

* In ''TheWalkingDead1936'', Dr. Beaumont uses an experimental procedure to bring John Ellman back to life after he has been wrongly executed. After Dr. Beaumont brings John back, he is desperate to know what lies beyond death. However, Ellman [[OffscreenAfterlife either cannot remember or cannot express (or perhaps is forbidden from expressing) what he experienced]], and anything he does say is frustratingly vague. The one thing he does know is that Beaumont [[UnwantedRevival should not have brought him back]].

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'' involves Orel killing himself in order to talk to God.

* This is done to Sasuke in ''Anime/{{Naruto}}'' after he defects from the Leaf Village in order to raise the power of the cursed seal Orochimaru gave him.

* In ''Descendants of Darkness'', during the King of Swords story arch, [[spoiler: Muraki does this as the ultimate alibi]].

* In ''Anime/OccultAcademy'', Kozue goes through one to try to get a glimpse of the afterlife [[spoiler:and ends up leaving part of her soul behind]].

* One of Batman's plans in ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns'' involved injecting himself with a drug timed to stop his heart after he has beaten Superman in a fight, allowing him to fake his own death after proving to Superman that he can defeat his former friend if it comes to a fight.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/{{Flatliners}}'' is the TropeNamer. In the original 1990 film and the 2017 remake; med students take turns flatlining themselves to experience the afterlife and gain new perspective, but there are unexpected consequences.

* In ''Film/GhostTown2008'', Ricky Gervais's character briefly becomes one of the ghosts he sees.

* In ''Film/DangerDiabolik'', Diabolik's elaborate BatmanGambit to rescue Eva and keep the emeralds that he stole for her involvs ingesting a pill that will make him appear dead for 12 hours but will kill him if he doesn't take the antidote before then. When does Eva bring him the antidote? [[AlwaysClose 11 hours, 57 minutes]].

* In ''Film/TheInvisible'', Nick becomes a ghost, and sees the rest of the world trying to solve or cover up his murder. Except it turns out Nick isn't ''quite'' dead yet, and once his body is found they are able to revive him.

* It is the plot of Bernard Werber's ''Thanatonauts''. The protagonists work on a way to trigger [=NDEs=] ({{Near Death Experience}}s) and to make them progressively longer so as to go further into the afterlife. The book starts as hard-ish science fiction, with several test subjects dying in the process, then proceeds into Werbery philosophical tale with a good dose of silliness when they actually find Heaven and start regularly going there and back.
* Creator/ConnieWillis's ''Passage'' is about a doctor experiment with a drug that can trigger [[NearDeathExperience NDEs]], although it's not dangerous at all. That is until the doctor takes it and finds herself on the ''Titanic''. It's much better than it sounds.
* Terry Bisson's short story ''Necronauts''. The main character is an artist hired to produce paintings of his experiences during the [=NDEs=].

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', ghosts are effectively echoes sticking around to take care of unfinished business, not necessarily the actual spirit or soul (or what not) of the deceased. So, when one was kicking his ass, [[spoiler:Harry came up with the plan to die just long enough for a ghost to be created, then have his friends resuscitate him so that he could ''team up with his own ghost'' to beat the baddie.]]

* Happens inadvertently to Teatime in ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'', who takes a fatal fall in the Tooth Fairy's realm and is instantly transported back to the Disc due to death being impossible where he'd been. He lands in the Great Hall of Unseen University, where Ridcully, not realizing he's the villain behind the current troubles, revives him with a back-thumping method he'd used on baby goats in his pre-Archchancellor farm days.
* In ''[[Literature/{{Stardoc}} Beyond Varallan]]'', [[spoiler:Cherijo]] does this in order to break up with [[spoiler:Xonea]] (since that's about the only way one ''can'' back out of a Jorenian engagement). Justified in that [[spoiler:not only is she [[FromASingleCell essentially immortal]], but]] it's decidedly rough on her.

* In Ted Dekker's supernatural thriller ''Adam'', the protagonist does this ''twice'' [[ItMakesSenseInContext to gain clues from the near-death experiences]].
* Played for laughs in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', where intergalactic rockstar Hotblack Desiato is spending a year dead for tax purposes, communicating with his staff through his ghost shaking a glass or other items.
* Dennis Wheatley's "The Ka of Gifford Hillary" is an entire novel based around this trope. The lead character spends most of the book on the Astral Plane, unable to interfere in dreadful things he witnesses, and ends up being buried alive.

* Series/TheATeam does this at the start of the last season, by getting shot by a firing squad with replaced, nonlethal bullets.
* The ''Series/{{Medium}}'' episode "Things to Do in Phoenix When You're Dead" had a doctor doing this so he could [[spoiler:travel as a ghost to see rich people doing bad things and then blackmail them]].
* An episode of ''Series/TruCalling'' called "Haunted".

* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' keeps dancing close to this line.

* In the ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode "Void", Lana Lang experimented with a kryptonite drug to have a near-death experience so that she could talk to her deceased parents, but never managed to talk to them directly although she apparently saw them from a distance. In the course of the episode, Lex Luthor and Clark Kent are also injected with the drug to stop them interfering, Lex being confronted by his mother who criticises him for his current dark path and Clark seeing his recently-deceased father who warns him that Lionel Luthor knows Clark's secret.
* Exactly the same idea as ''The Frighteners'' had been inverted about 20 years earlier by ''Series/RandallAndHopkirkDeceased''. In that case, they needed the man they were interrogating to have a near-death experience so Hopkirk (the dead one) could talk to him.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'' tries this once. Except they almost forget one important bit... [[spoiler:Kryten: MR LISTER!!!]]
* Parodied in an episode of ''Upright Citizens Brigade''; Anton is trying to improve his chess-playing skills by hooking himself up to a machine that briefly renders him clinically dead every time he makes a bad move. It doesn't work out well.

* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': At least once a season; for example, there was a spell that could be used to banish ghosts that could only be spoken ''by'' a ghost, requiring one of the sisters to 'die' so that they could cast the spell and be revived later
* ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'' had an episode featuring this trope - where a group of medical students [[spoiler:induced cardiac arrests in themselves and then gradually increased the amount of 'flatline time' on each occasion to try and make themselves more resistant to death. Then one of the medical students decides to murder another by not reviving him and it goes on from there....]]
* ''Series/ForeverKnight''. In "Near Death", doctors are conducting illegal experiments in flatlining. VampireDetective Nick Knight decides to take part as well, in order to find if he's damned forever.
* Done in ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' to Agent May after some incorporeal entities "infected" her brain, causing her to see them everywhere and sending her adrenal system into overdrive. Simmons resorts to "killing" her to stop the adrenal overdrive, but an EMP forces them to get creative reviving her.
* The TV miniseries ''Series/HouseOfFrankenstein1997'', featuring various horror-staple monsters, had a scene where a man carries a dying wolf (his werewolf girlfriend) into the ER and forces the doctors at gunpoint to attend to the animal. He lays her on the operating table, then insists that they ''let her die'', at which point she reverts to human form. They rush to resuscitate her; upon awakening, she remains human and is cured of the curse, as it's the ''wolf'' that died.
* In a season 3 episode of ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'' Will has himself flatlined in order to make a connection to a certain abnormal running amok at the time. This is presented as a last resort after performing a Bollywood-style dance fails.
* In one episode of ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'', the only way to break a spell is to make Uther cry, and the only way to make Uther cry is to kill Arthur. He'll be just fine provided he gets the antidote within 30 minutes. 29 minutes later...
* In the ''Series/LaFemmeNikita'' episode "Mandatory Refusal", Madeline is captured by an enemy unit. She is entirely unimpressed, and forces them to treat her well by somehow stopping her own heart; her captors, aware of exactly how screwed they will be if they don't have her to bargain with, give in to her demands immediately.
* ''Series/TheOA'': Has this as a major plot element. [[spoiler:Prairie claims that while she was kidnapped, she and four others were repeatedly subjected to experiments in which they were drowned and brought back to life to study what happens when someone dies. She also claims that sometimes when she died, she went to another dimension to gain knowledge necessary to escape]].
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': The Iron Men consider it a holy experience to drown a be revived due to worshiping the Drowned God. When Euron is crowned King of the Iron Isles, he is drowned and then revived by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "Free Spirit", [=CryoSync=] Laboratories, working on behalf of the US government, conducted experiments into near-death experiences in order to determine whether those involved would have out-of-body experiences. The government hoped that the resulting disembodied spirits would be able to serve as the perfect spies. However, Project Free Spirit, as it was known, had an unfortunate side effect: it resulted in the three test subjects, Mark Gregory, Alex Hanover and Kevin Lockwood, going insane after being brought to the brink of death and returning so many times. The government ultimately ordered Project Free Spirit to be terminated and the three men were killed while the experiments were still ongoing. Gregory and Hanover's spirits died along with their bodies but Lockwood's spirit survived and he began plotting revenge against Dr. Rachel Harris for disconnecting him.
* In the ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' episode "Staircase to Heaven" Dr Grace is part of a group making a scientific study of near-death experiences, which is derailed when one of their members has an ''actual'' death experience.
* On ''Series/AdamRuinsEverything'', in the "Death" episode, Emily gets hit by the [[RunningGag Little Bugs]] truck, and winds up in the hospital in critical care. She has an out-of-body experience, where Adam shows her that it's ''not'' possible with current technology to be immortal, upload one's brain onto a computer, or become a HumanPopsicle and be thawed out and revived when there's a cure for whatever illness/injury. He also shows her that the funeral industry is a ''huge'' [[HonestJohnsDealership ripoff]] that plays on grieving family members' emotions, and introduces her to Caitlin Doughty (the mortician behind "Ask a Mortician" web video series), who discusses "natural burial." Finally, he introduces her to a doctor who explains the importance of advance directives. Meanwhile, Murph has to decide whether or not to keep her on life support...and she decides she's going to leave so as not to be a burden on him. [[spoiler: She comes back when he mentions that he was planning to give her tickets to a Rhonda Rousey meet-and-greet.]]
* In ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' the team resorts to temporarily flatlining John to get a life-sucking bug to detach from his neck. Though their field defibrillator fails to revive him, forcing them to stick him in the gate buffer until they figure out how to get back to Atlantis.
* Done by ''Series/{{Lucifer|2016}}'' to find a dead poisoner in Hell and discover the antidote to what he'd given to Chloe. After Lucifer gets stuck in his own personal Hell his mom goes in after him.
* Raven in ''Series/The100'' gets SuperIntelligence at the cost of increasingly lethal seizures, but eventually figures out she can "reset" her brain by drowning herself in a tub of ice water and setting up a MagicalDefibrillator to restart her heart a few minutes later.
* One episode of ''Series/CriminalMinds'' had an unsub doing this to his victims, drowning them so that he could revive them and ask them what near-death experience they had. He'd been diagnosed with fatal cancer and wanted to know what was coming for him. The deaths he caused were accidental.

* In ''Film/{{Ghost Town|2008}}'', Ricky Gervais's character briefly becomes one of the ghosts he sees.
%%* Happened in ''Film/{{Constantine}}''.

* In the Italian film ''Film/DangerDiabolik'' (the final episode of [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]]), Diabolik's elaborate BatmanGambit to rescue Eva and keep the emeralds he stole for her involved ingesting a pill that would make him appear dead for 12 hours, but would kill him if he didn't take the antidote before then. When does Eva bring him the antidote? [[AlwaysClose 11 hours, 57 minutes.]]

* The subject of an episode of ''Series/ForeverKnight''. Nick too crosses over, in order to find if he's damned forever.

* In ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Barge Of The Dead", B'Elanna didn't actually die, but she had a near-death experience and ended up in Klingon Hell. Then after she got revived she asked the Doctor to put her in another near-death experience, because she wanted to save her mother from Klingon Hell (which she knew full well existed).
** In another episode, Neelix has a crisis of faith when he is killed during an accident and is brought back to life by Borg technology, but doesn't experience the afterlife he expected from his culture. Chakotay has to talk him out of suicide when Neelix feels that he can't live knowing that there is nothing afterwards.