History AllJustADream / Literature

* ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'':
** This is played with in [[Series/{{Goosebumps}} the TV]] ending to "[[Literature/StillMoreTalesToGiveYouGoosebumps Awesome Ants]]". The protagonist’s experience turns suspiciously nightmarish as the town is suddenly abandoned, there is a storm outside, and the ants are growing to enormous proportions. Just before he gets killed by one, he wakes up at home and all seems fine. Then he gradually remembers the reality of the situation: in the real world ants are actually mountain-sized, and keep humans secluded in the human equivalent of ant farms and force them to live on small pellets of blue food. In the book the ants just grew that big rather than always having been so.
** For a true MindScrew, count how many times this happens in "Literature/ILiveInYourBasement". Unlike your standard use of this trope, each time makes things ''more'' confusing and dreamlike.

* Chapter 39 of ''Literature/AtlantaNights'' reveals that the rest of the book was all a dream, and the main character is on death row. There are 41 chapters, and the last two [[AnachronicOrder follow the same plotline as]] [[PlotHole the first 38 chapters]].

* ''LightNovel/IHadThatSameDreamAgain'': The last chapter reveals that everything before then was an extended dream of Nanoka's as an adult, calling into question just how much of her time spent with Skank-san, Obaachan, and Minami actually happened and how much was just her own life experiences bleeding into the dream and merging with her memories of them.

* Many scholars interpret ''Literature/TheAeneid'', the [[NarrativePoem epic Latin poem]]/propaganda piece commissioned by Octavian to Creator/{{Virgil}}, as the [[URExample earliest example]] of a story being "all just a dream". Halfway into the poem, Aeneas [[ToHellAndBack visits the underworld]] to be instructed by his dead father in the foundation of Rome, after which he is confronted with two possible gates to exit back up, "one said to be of horn, whereby the true shades pass with ease, the other all white ivory agleam without a flaw, and yet false dreams are sent through". His father then sends him up through the ''ivory gate''. This would imply that all of Aeneas' subsequent adventures leading up to and including the foundation of glorious Rome are all but a "false dream", contrary to Octavian's wish.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'': Happens in-story in ''The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya''. They're making a movie, and events have unfolded that require the title character to in some way admit that the film is fictional. Koizumi suggests to end the movie with an All Just a Dream ending, thus forcing Haruhi to admit that the movie is impossible.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' story ''Literature/TheWeeFreeMen'':

* ''Literature/ThePilgrimsProgress'' by John Bunyan subverts this: The very first sentence is: "As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a Dream." That this is All Just a Dream is reinforced throughout, to the very last sentence, which is: "So I awoke, and behold it was a dream." The book was written in 1675. Dream frames were a common medieval trope to explain that "I made this all up."

* Creator/RobertBloch's "Literature/TheStrangeFlightOfRichardClayton": Several times Clayton lands on {{UsefulNotes/Mars}}, only to die and realize that the ship hadn't landed yet. [[spoiler:Clayton didn't even leave Earth; the rocket's engines failed in a way that made it too dangerous to approach for a week and the constant shaking was driving Clayton insane.]]

** This is played with in [[Series/{{Goosebumps}} the TV]] ending to "Awesome Ants". The protagonist’s experience turns suspiciously nightmarish as the town is suddenly abandoned, there is a storm outside, and the ants are growing to enormous proportions. Just before he gets killed by one, he wakes up at home and all seems fine. Then he gradually remembers the reality of the situation: in the real world ants are actually mountain-sized, and keep humans secluded in the human equivalent of ant farms and force them to live on small pellets of blue food. In the book the ants just grew that big rather than always having been so.
** For a true MindScrew, count how many times this happens in "I Live In Your Basement". Unlike your standard use of this trope, each time makes things ''more'' confusing and dreamlike.

* Polish author Creator/StanislawLem:
** ''The Futurological Congress'' features its narrator accosted by powerful mood-altering drugs that cause powerful hallucinations while he sleeps (perhaps they could just be called dreams?). He awakens from hallucination within hallucination, sometimes by degrees and sometimes suddenly, with such frequency that less than halfway through the book it becomes virtually impossible to tell whether he is really awake (one of the major themes of the book).
** In ''Observation on the Spot'' Lem references ''The Futurological Congress'' and lampshades the trope. The protagonist tries to wake from the dream - explicitly mentioning his wakings up during the Congress. He fails, because his observation on the spot was not his dream.
** Also, in ''Literature/TalesOfPirxThePilot'', the first story features this. Pirx's first spaceflight was just a simulation, he didn't know that though.

* Played with in Lovecraft's [[Literature/TheDreamQuestOfUnknownKadath "Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"]], where the fact that it's a dream is established by the beginning (and in the title). However, the fact that it's a dream is irrelevant (because Randolph knows it's a dream, and makes use of his lucid dreaming skills to make his way through the Dreamlands). Subverted to a degree because the Dreamlands also exist in a real sense outside of the minds of dreamers. Also inverted because our reality is the dream of [[EldritchAbomination Azathoth]], and can cease to exist if it awakes.

* Played with in Lovecraft's [[Literature/TheDreamQuestOfUnknownKadath "Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath"], where the fact that it's a dream is established by the beginning (and in the title). However, the fact that it's a dream is irrelevant (because Randolph knows it's a dream, and makes use of his lucid dreaming skills to make his way through the Dreamlands). Subverted to a degree because the Dreamlands also exist in a real sense outside of the minds of dreamers. Also inverted because our reality is the dream of [[EldritchAbomination Azathoth]], and can cease to exist if it awakes.

* ''Literature/WorldsOfShadow'': One character is convinced the events of the story are a dream, and suffers a mental breakdown as a result since it becomes a full on psychological delusion.

* Many scholars interpret ''Literature/TheAeneid'', the [[NarrativePoem epic Latin poem]]/propaganda piece commissioned by Octavian to Creator/{{Virgil}}, as the [[URExample earliest example]] of a story being "all just a dream". Halfway into the poem, Aeneas [[ToHellAndBack visits the underworld]] to be instructed by his dead father in the foundation of Rome, after which he is confronted with two possible gates to exit back up, "one said to be of horn, whereby the true shades pass with ease, the other all white ivory agleam without a flaw, and yet false dreams are sent through". His father then sends him up through the ''ivory gate''. This would imply that all of Aeneas' subsequent adventures leading up to and including the foundation of glorious Rome are all but a "false dream", contrary to Octavian's wish. Possibly Virgil's subtle way of GettingCrapPastTheRadar.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': Flipped in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: City of the Dead''. Zak Arranda dreams that he's home in his room on Alderaan, and thinks for a moment that the last six months of traveling with his sister and distant uncle since Alderaan was destroyed were all a dream! But of course ''this'' dream [[BadDreams quickly becomes much worse]].

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' story ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen'':

* One of the classic uses of All Just a Dream in children's literature is ''[[Literature/AliceInWonderland Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]''. In its sequel ''Through the Looking Glass'' though, she is assured that ''she'' is just the Red King's dream.

* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'', ''Literature/AMagesPower'': Eric fears this is the case when he wakes up in his apartment and not a second has passed during his stay in Tariatla. Then [[TricksterArchetype Tasio]] delivers his MagicStaff and SpellBook to his front door.