Basic Trope: A character dreams of eating food, only to find that they were chewing on something else (such as their pillow) instead.
- Straight: Archer starts chewing on his pillow in his sleep, because he's having a dream about eating a giant marshmallow.
- Exaggerated: Archer has a dream where he's in a realm of food. He ends up eating everything in his room.
- Downplayed: Archer wakes up to find that he bit his pillow at one point.
- Justified:
- Archer, being a tiger-man, is prone to My Instincts Are Showing.
- Archer is already an Extreme Omnivore as it is.
- Archer is prone to Sleepwalking.
- Inverted:
- Archer has a dream about spitting things out, which he later finds actually happened.
- Archer dreams that he's resting his head on a pillow and wakes up to find that in real life his head was resting on a cake.
- Subverted: Archer dreams about eating a giant marshmallow and is shaken awake by his college roommate Bob. We're led to assume that it's because he's eating his pillow, but actually, the pillow is intact and Bob is waking Archer up so he doesn't end up late for class.
- Double Subverted: ...But that was a Dream Within a Dream, and when Archer wakes up, he has taken a bite out of his pillow.
- Parodied: The reason this happened was because Archer was already using a giant marshmallow as a pillow.
- Zig-Zagged: Archer dreams about eating a giant marshmallow and Bob shakes him awake... so he isn't late for class. Only, the "waking up" was also a dream... but he still hasn't eaten his pillow.
- Averted: Nobody assumes they're eating food in their sleep.
- Enforced:
- "We need to have Archer's instincts show."
- Rule of Funny
- Lampshaded: "Why didn't I wake up when I started chewing on my pillow?!"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: The villain, Alice, knows Archer has a tendency to chew on his pillow in his sleep, so she puts poison on his pillow.
- Defied: Hiro immediately informs Archer, "Hey, you stupid tiger, you're dreaming! Spit out your pillow!"
- Discussed: "What if I start eating my pillow or something?!"
- Conversed: "I don't think people would eat their pillows in real life."
- Implied: Archer's pillow looks chewed-up and he doesn't own a dog.
- Played for Drama: Archer eats something that was plot-relevant, such as the MacGuffin.
- Played for Horror: Archer is a werewolf, and one of the symptoms is chewing on things in his sleep.
Back to Marshmallow Dream. Hey, where's my pillow?
