Basic Trope: A character has a dream where they're in a state of undress.
- Straight: Bob dreams that he's in school. His classmate Alice starts laughing and pointing at him. He looks down and finds himself either in his embarrassing banana-print boxers, or completely naked, or any other type of underwear!
- Exaggerated:
- Bob's dream involves everyone being naked or in their underwear.
- Bob is arrested for public nudity in his dream.
- The entire story is about Bob’s naked dream.
- Downplayed:
- Bob dreams that he's wearing his pajamas in public.
- Bob is naked in the dream but nobody else notices.
- Bob has a dream where his pants keep falling down.
- Justified:
- Bob's been worried lately over how classmates view him, so naturally his brain is going to add those anxieties into his dreams.
- Bob is embarrassed and that emotion is in his dreams.
- Bob fell asleep reading a book in which someone is not wearing pants.
- Bob had some sort of Wardrobe Malfunction in public recently and now feels embarrassed about how people see him because of that.
- Inverted:
- Bob is an animal who wears no pants and dreams he is wearing pants.
- Bob dreams that everyone but him isn't wearing pants.
- Subverted:
- Bob's dream has one of his friends give him pants as soon as he realizes he isn't wearing any.
- Bob thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.
- Double Subverted:
- The dream takes a turn for the worse when Bob then loses those pants and is laughed at by everyone.
- ...Then, Bob wakes up, revealing that it was a Dream Within a Dream.
- Parodied:
- Bob is a nudist who has a nightmare about being clothed in public.
- Bob is told that the time he dreamed he went to school naked wasn't a dream.
- Bob is unfazed by his nudity.
- Zig Zagged: Whenever Bob has a dream, it varies whether or not he's in a state of undress, the dreams where he is in a state of undress varying over whether he's missing his pants, in his undies, or straight up nude and whether or not he's humiliated by the situation.
- Averted: Bob is fully clothed in his dreams, and is only unclothed in appropriate situations.
- Enforced: "We need to show that Bob is a very nervous and self-conscious person, and I feel that we can best demonstrate that by having a scene where he dreams he's naked in public."
- Lampshaded: "Why do I keep dreaming that I'm naked in public?"
- Invoked: A being who has power over dreams makes it so that a person dreams they are in a state of undress.
- Exploited: Some bullies who hear about the dream take advantage of Bob's apparent insecurities by pulling pranks on him that result in him being naked or pantsless in public.
- Defied: Bob goes without sleep to deny the chances of dreaming he's naked or in his underwear.
- Discussed: "One thing I don't get is why people are always dreaming they're in the nude. You'd usually think that the dreams would involve them seeing other people naked."
- Conversed: "My guess is that the state of undress is intended to symbolize the dreamer feeling threatened by personal problems they don't have the nerve to talk about."
- Implied: Bob has a nightmare where everyone is pointing and laughing at him before he looks down in horror. We either don't see him below the waist or we only see a closeup of his face.
- Deconstructed: Bob's nightmares of being nude in public cause him to develop severe gymnopobia.
- Reconstructed: After some counseling, Bob remembers that dreams do not always reflect reality and develops a more reasonable stance on nudity.
- Played For Laughs: Bob becomes aware that he's in a dream and decides to get even with the people laughing at him by making it so they're naked, too.
- Played For Drama:
- Being naked in public is just the beginning of the horrors Bob experiences in the nightmare. He's then subjected to a lot of terrifying torture, his vulnerability and helplessness being called attention to by the fact that he's in his birthday suit the whole time.
- Bob is a sexual assault survivor reliving his pain and humiliation. He dreams of being groomed and assaulted by his abuser and being humiliated by his peers. Him walking around naked showcases his vulnerability and shame.
- Played For Horror: Bob is being haunted by a Freddy Krueger ripoff, who strips him naked in his dream and has people taunt him before having them kill or assault him.
Back to "Not Wearing Pants" Dream
