Some of these aren't really a good fit for this category. The idea with Plato's Allegory is that the world you've always known (or thought you knew) is an illusion. Movies like The Matrix and Truman Show are good examples as the main characters in both stories were born into fake realities and had no basis for comparison. But the very next example, Brazil, is not a good fit. The "reality" of the dream was different from the reality of his life which he has lived up to that point.
Hide / Show RepliesI agree, this isn't a catch all for any delusion or imagined world. Critical parts of the allegory are 1. the protagonist has never known anything else but the cave and 2. the protagonist leaves the cave and finds themselves misplaced in reality. As said above, The Matrix and The Truman Show are definitely examples,many of the rest have nothing to do with this trope at all.
But... that's not even what the allegory is. It's an allegory, a metaphor. It's not that every single person in the world believes the cave to be all there is - the shadows on the cave are what the world seems like to someone who isn't educated (e.g. a lot of strawmen, Insane Troll Logic that someone told you that you never thought to question, really, really inaccurate ideas about what goes on in places you've never been to.) The idea of being dragged out of the cave and forced to acknowledge facts you would rather not is where the word "education" comes from ("leading out" from the cave). It's actually pretty immature to misunderstand this to the point that you think it means The Matrix.
Edited by lavendermintrose I made this Idolized Julius Kingsley icon back when Akito first came out, and now that the crossover is actually happening, I don't care.