History Main / AndYouWereThere

* ''Film/{{Nightwish}}'': At the end, the protagonist wakes up from her nightmare to find that two {{Psycho Supporter}}s from her dream were a janitor and security guard in the real world, respectively.

** The [[Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShowLetsDoTheTimeWarpAgain 2016 remake]] starts with a FramingDevice of people going into a cinema to watch the movie. Riff Raff and Columbia's actors appear hear as a couple (the guy who the Usherette makes take his feet off a seat). In the main movie Frank and co. and a couple Transylvanians appear in a funeral procession after the wedding.

** The commentary confirms that this was a nod to the TropeNamer with the photographer's voice sped up to sound like a munchkin and the movie was supposed to be BlackAndWhiteToColor but ExecutiveVeto stopped that.

* In ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow'', during the Wedding scene, much of the bridal party is made up of actors who later become the Transylvanians, of note are: Riff Raff (Creator/RichardOBrien), Magenta (Creator/PatriciaQuinn), and of course, Doctor Frank N Furter (Creator/TimCurry) in the back, nearest the church. Tim Curry actually turns away from the camera, apparently so he won't be ''as'' recognised, but, if you attend a Shadow Cast, they tend to comment on their appearance, with lines like, "Even a Virgin recognises Dr. Frank," and, "Hey, Frank, Riff's front! Hey, Riff, Frank's back!"
** In an inter-movie And You Were There, several cast members from ''Rocky Horror'' portray similar characters in the continuation of Janet and Brad's life, ''Film/ShockTreatment''.

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* ''Manga/MiracleGirls'' episode 41 does this with ancient Egypt. It is suggested that the characters in the present are reincarnations of the characters in the past. Although the Egyptians are drawn like the modern-day characters, Mika and Toni don't recognize a physical resemblance, which would make sense since Egyptians and Japanese probably wouldn't look alike.

* ''Manga/AngelSanctuary'': Something similar happens at one point in the manga. Setsuna awakes in school, the former story appears to have been a dream. He immediately meets Kira and some former dead guys happy and alive again, as well as Sara, but she is only his girlfriend, not his sister. [[spoiler:Comes out soon, that this whole sequence is the dream, Sara still his sister and all guys dead as they were before..]]
* ''[[Manga/HellsAngels Hells]]'': After her adventure in Hell, Rinne wakes up in the hospital, her adventure seemingly a dream and quickly forgotten. The next day, she passes by several people who resemble the people she met in Hell, then she saves a little girl who resembles her friend Steela from being hit by a car. She instinctively calls the girl Steela, but the girl says that is not her name and introduces herself. Still, this causes Rinne's memories to return, then she is seemingly contacted by the spirit of the real Steela.
* While it never outright says this trope is happening, the ''Anime/JapanAnimatorExpo'' short "ME!ME!ME!" shows items in Shuu's room that suspiciciously resemble what shows up in the DisneyAcidSequence that makes up the rest of the short. The Meme clones appear to be girls on his TV, a battlesuit he wears looks like a plastic model he built, and [[spoiler: the most notable aspect: both the sweet Hana-chan and villainous HANA resemble the girlfriend he drifted apart from.]]

* ''ComicBook/NiGHTSIntoDreams'' had Madame Puffilla, Claris's strict music teacher, as a counterpart to Puffy in the waking world.

* In ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', the foes of Calvin's [[HerCodeNameWasMarySue imaginary alter egos]] are patterned on people he doesn't get along with in his own life: his parents, his teacher Miss Wormwood, his classmate Susie Derkins, his babysitter Rosalyn, etc.

* The sea creatures Tom meets in the animated part of ''WesternAnimation/TheWaterBabies1978'' are voiced by people he met in the live action {{Bookends}}.

* When the end of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegoMovie'' reveals that [[spoiler:it's all in the imagination of a child playing with Lego. President Business turns out to be based on the child's father, both played by Creator/WillFerrell.]]

* ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' is the TropeNamer and [[TropeCodifier Codifier]]. All of Dorothy's friends in Oz are played by the same actors that play Dorothy's Kansas friends. This connection was acknowledged in the movie (the connection does not exist at all in the original novel), of course, in the line above. In this case, it's intended to show that it is AllJustADream.
** Stage versions based on the movie extend this to Aunt Em and Uncle Henry by by having their actors play Glinda and the Door Guard respectively.
** And, by extension, ''The Forbidden Kingdom'', which is just ''Wizard of Oz'' as a martial arts epic.
** ''Film/ReturnToOz'' played this trope as well.
** ''Film/OzTheGreatAndPowerful'' does the same with its own cast of Kansas and Ozian characters [[spoiler:including making Glinda a double for the one woman Oscar has genuine feelings for.]]
** ''Film/TheMuppetsWizardOfOz'' sticks closer to the original book by ''not'' claiming it was AllJustADream, but still has Dorothy's friends in Oz resembling people she knows in the real world (since she's just auditioned for Franchise/TheMuppets).
** ''Film/TheKentuckyFriedMovie'' ends the segment "A Fistful of Yen" this way, even placing the main character in bed with Auntie Em and Toto.
** ''Film/UnderTheRainbow'' ,which is set during the making of the ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', has Billy Barty portraying [[spoiler: a Nazi agent in the movie where it all turns out to be a dream that Rollo Sweet has after falling off a roof. After Rollo regains conciousness, a Hollywood agent portrayed by Barty shows up to recruit for the ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'']]

* Hans Conreid voiced both Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in the Creator/WaltDisney animated feature ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'', and their character designs are clearly deliberately similar. As a matter of fact, in theatrical and cinematic versions of ''Peter Pan'', Captain Hook and Mr. Darling are almost always played by the same actor.
** This is part of the point of the story. "Never-Never Land" is a fantasy version of the real world.
** This is true in 2003's ''Film/PeterPan'' in which Jason Issacs played Mr Darling and Captain Hook (the first live-action film adaptation to ever do so).
** ''Film/{{Hook}}'', a sequel to the ''Peter Pan'' story, has a ShoutOut at the end when the adult Peter returns to Earth: He wakes up in Kensington Park and encounters a man sweeping trash; he's played by Bob Hoskins, who is Smee in the Neverland scenes. More subtly, the voice of the plane's ''captain'' as the Banning family heads to England at the beginning is provided by Dustin Hoffman -- who later appears as Hook himself.
** Considering that Smee was shown fleeing alone with whatever loot he could carry, it's entirely possible that he simply set himself up in a safe, uneventful job in the normal world, or possibly had held such double identity for quite some time.

** In an inter-movie And You Were There, several cast members from ''Rocky Horror'' portray similar characters in the continuation of Janet and Brad's life, ''Film/ShockTreatment''

* ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'': Played more subtly than most other examples as rather than people, it's the objects in Sarah's room that she encounters in the Goblin King's world (as well as her dog), such as the Sir Didymous doll on her bed. The only person to appear in both the realistic and fantastic setting is possibly Bowie as Jeremy (only seen in a photo), the man Sarah's mother ran off with and as Jareth, the Goblin King.
* In Creator/TimBurton's version of ''Film/AliceInWonderland2010'', this trope is played with a bit: most obviously, the sisters remind Alice of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum. Less explicit is the fact that both the Hatter and Hamish have red hair, and the Hatter [[{{Foil}} represents everything that Hamish is not.]] The caterpillar is implied to represent her father, which is probably why he was named "Absalom". There's a nod to Hamish's mother representing the Queen of Hearts, and some have seen parallels between the Knave and Alice's sister's fiance.
* In ''Film/{{Spider}}'', the title character begins remembering flashbacks of his mother (played by Miranda Richardson.) Gradually, the actresses playing every other female character are replaced in their respective roles by Richardson to demonstrate Spider's hallucinations.
* In ''Film/StarWreckInThePirkinning'', the same actor plays Fukov (in the ''Franchise/StarTrek''-verse) and Festerbester (in the ''Series/BabylonFive''-verse) as a ShoutOut to Walter Koenig playing both [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Pavel Chekov]] and [[Series/BabylonFive Alfred Bester]].
* In ''Film/TheAdventuresOfBaronMunchausen'', the actors playing the... actors in the theater troupe also play characters within the Baron's "real" adventures.

* ''Film/{{Nightwish}}'': At the end, the protagonist wakes up from her nightmare to find that two {{Psycho Supporter}}s from her dream were a janitor and security guard in the real world, respectively.
* In ''Film/TheManWhoInventedChristmas'' many of the characters Dickens creates are based on, and played by, people he comes across while looking for inspiration.
* The 1978 film version of ''[[Literature/JacobTwoTwo Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang]]'' does this, with the the judge of Jacob's trial resembling the grocery store clerk that jokingly asked the police to arrest Jacob for his tendency to say things twice, Jacob's lawyer being the friendly looking customer with a lollipop that was at the store during the incident, the guards at the child prison basically being the other two customers at the store during the incident sporting features based on what they were holding at the time, and the members of Child Power basically being Jacob's older twin siblings.

* ''Film/AliceInWonderland1949'' has a FramingDevice in which Creator/LewisCarroll is telling the story to Alice Liddell. The people in Alice's life have counterparts in the main Wonderland story (played by the same actors). The Queen is the Queen of Hearts, the Vice Chancellor is the White Rabbit, Alice's father Dr. Liddell is the Cheshire Cat, and Lewis Carroll is the Knave of Hearts. The film makes a point in drawing parallels between the characters from the real world and those of Wonderland. The Vice Chancellor is described as "hopping about", Dr. Liddell "purrs" when he speaks, and Carroll steals one of the Queen's tarts to give to Alice (as the Knave of Hearts would later take the tarts of the Queen of Hearts).

* In Lewis Carroll's ''Literature/ThroughTheLookingGlass and what Alice Found There'' (the sequel to ''Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland''), the eponymous character believes that the Red and White queens are the looking-glass versions of her cats.
** In Real Life, Carroll based many of the characters in both stories on his friends.

** In the ''Typhon Pact'' crossover, when Kira is in the wormhole, she also has a vision of the Benny Russell reality, in which her counterpart Kay Eaton helps Benny's girlfiend Cassie Johnson get him out of the institute. This is paralleled to [[spoiler: Sisko being released from his obligations by the Prophets]]. In the final chapter, Sisko has a vision in which he shifts from talking to Kira and Kasidy to being Benny talking to Kay and Cassie from moment to moment.
* Played with in ''Literature/TheFortyFirstWink'' as Marty creates a dream-version of his coworker Kate to assist him in navigating his nightmare. Then, when he finally wakes up, [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane he finds she had the exact same dream from the point he conjured her...]]

* Happens practically OncePerEpisode on ''Series/{{Scrubs}}''; JD's daydreams put his coworkers into a number of absurd situations (and costumes). This includes characters from ''Film/{{Grease}}'', ''Theatre/WestSideStory'', and ''Franchise/StarWars'', as well as occasional scenes that {{parody}} a traditional DomCom.
* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Far Beyond the Stars" features Sisko as a 1950's African-American pulp-fiction writer named Benny Russell, with his crew-mates (and enemies) taking roles as his co-workers and other denizens of his neighborhood. The ending, as well as the episode "Shadows and Symbols," [[MindScrew leaves open the question]] as to which reality is actually real. The latter features a CuckooNest scene in which Benny's asylum shrink is played by Legate Damar's actor.
** When The Prophets (who are both EnergyBeings and SufficientlyAdvancedAliens) want to communicate with a character, they usually present themselves as various characters from the series walking around in various familiar environments.
** ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and ''Series/StargateSG1'' had episodes where Bashir and Carter, respectively, saw the other characters appear as aspects of their own personalities.
** The most famous, but not the only example from that show -- there was a holodeck ''Film/JamesBond'' spoof that played as visions of other selves.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'':
** In the episode "Jetrel", Neelix sees in a dream the various people who have been killed on his home planet of Talax as various members of the ''Voyager'' crew, all blaming him for their deaths.
** Episode "Memorial" has the crew affected by traumatic memories of crimes of war [[spoiler:induced by an alien artifact]] with the characters seeing themselves commiting such crimes in the past.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Q makes the crew of the ''Enterprise'' into the characters of Myth/RobinHood in episode "Qpid". In any case, most episodes with Holo Deck malfunctions in the Star Trek franchise work as this trope de facto; the main characters assume different (but normally similar) roles in non sci-fi settings like Westerns, Historical Dramas, Detective Noir stories, etc., whether the characters are aware of the situation or they are in some sort of AlternateIdentityAmnesia depends on the episode.

* ''Series/TheXFiles''. In "Triangle", Mulder discovers the luxury liner Queen Anne in the Devil's Triangle, only it's back in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and his friends and enemies are spies, sailors or Nazi soldiers fighting over the vessel. Various aspects of their 'contemporary' selves are reflected: Skinner is apparently a Nazi but turns out to be on Mulder's side, Assistant Director Kersh is shown chained in the engine room, forced to steer the course set by the CSM who is naturally the Nazi BigBad. Scully is a spy who is [[AgentScully initially skeptical]] of Mulder's claims to be one of the good guys, yet comes through for him in the end. Scully also reflects Mulder's unrequited feelings for her -- she wears a [[LadyInRed red cocktail dress]] but punches Mulder in the jaw when he gives her a NowOrNeverKiss. In the end Mulder [[AllJustADream wakes up in a hospital bed]] surrounded by his friends, including A.D. Skinner who responds "Yeah, and my little dog Toto" when Mulder says ButYouWereThereAndYouAndYou. Other {{Shout Out}}s include setting the events in 1939 when ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' came out in cinemas, and the "Lady Garland" boat after actress Creator/JudyGarland.
* An episode of ''Series/SirArthurConanDoylesTheLostWorld'' had Malone find himself in London and facing UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper, but his friends are a cop, doctor, etc.
* The Series/{{Leverage}} episode "The Van Gogh Job" does this: as the guest-star narrates a UsefulNotes/WW2 story, scenes are shown from said story, with the main cast playing most of the important characters.
* This was used during "The Wizard Of Song" episode from ''Series/TheFreshBeatBand''

* ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'': when Mr. Carlson has YetAnotherChristmasCarol the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future are Jennifer, Johnny, and Venus. Carlson calls them out on it.
* ''Series/StargateUniverse'' had the episode "Cloverdale" in which Matthew Scott, infected by an alien organism, vividly hallucinates an alternative life in which he's just returned to his hometown from a tour of duty (on Earth) to marry Chloe. Greer is his best buddy (and best man), Eli is Chloe's brother, Young has been promoted from father figure to literal father and Rush is a Justice of the Peace. Every other major character except Wray shows up in smaller roles: Brody as a restaurant owner, Volker as a pharmacist, Telford as a cop, Park as a bridesmaid, Becker as a groomsman and, appropriately enough, Johansen as a paramedic and James as Scott's ex.
* ''Series/TheNanny'': The animated Christmas episode "Oy to the World" has Fran and Brighton Sheffield working with Santa Claus, being played by Maxwell Sheffield, with his chief elf [[ElvishPresley Elfis]] played by Niles the butler and his secondary elves played by Maggie and Gracie Sheffield, as they try to stop the Abominable Snowman, or rather, "the Abominable Babcock" since she's being played by C.C. Babcock.
* On ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Marshall tells the story of how he learned the "Slap of a Thousand/Million Exploding Suns" from three slapping masters, which are played by Robin, Lily and Ted. They even have {{Meaningful Name}}s: Robin is Red Bird, Lily is White Flower, and Ted is The Calligrapher (calligraphy is one of his hobbies).
* In the ''Series/FallingSkies'' episode "Strange Brew" Tom is trapped in a LotusEaterMachine, is living life with his family before the aliens invaded (in a nice continuity nod, they even remembered Hal's girlfriend from that time). Anne is a woman everyone thinks he's having an affair with and Dai is her angry husband. Pope (who still doesn't like Tom), Marina, and the alien Cochise (as a human) are fellow professors, with Anthony as the Dean and Jeannie as his TA. Maggie (who aspires to be an ActionGirl) and Lourdes are students, and the latter is implied to be having an affair with Pope. Weaver is a crazy homeless person, but may actually be a defense created by Tom himself, as Karen appears as a police officer chasing him off.

* In the series finale of the SoapOpera ''Series/SunsetBeach'', supercouple Meg and Ben finally wed after three years of drama. The scene concludes with Meg's mother waking her up--on her wedding day. The series started with Meg fleeing her cheating fiance and moving to the titular town for a fresh start, telling viewers that the last three years of the show have a dream. When she goes downstairs, she is greeted by her friends and family, all of whom have been characters on the show. This is obviously a reference to ''Oz'', especially since Meg is from Kansas. Then, Meg wakes up ''again'', next to Ben, revealing that ''that'' was a dream and she's been HappilyMarried to Ben all along.

* A common framing device in several episodes of ''Series/ElChapulinColorado''; a character has a problem, call for Chapulin's help and he tells a story (normally a comedic version of some historical event and/or literary work) with the characters of the present taking the roles of protagonists or antagonists accordingly.
* ''Series/WeirdScience'' has several episodes that are a parody of famous movies including ''Film/TheGodfather'' and ''Film/FantasticVoyage'', almost averted in that they're not dreams but Lisa's RealityWarper powers working at least temporarily, so every character believes that the role they are playing is real. But the series goes back to the status quo every week.
* Whenever an episode of ''Series/{{JAG}}'' was set in different time setting (usually a character was being told a story by someone else via {{Flashback}}), they would use the existing cast to fill in the roles of the new characters. Whenever a story centered on Harm's father, a fighter pilot during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar, he would be placed by the same actor, plus a mustache. One episode in particular played with this: [[ActionGirl Mac]] has been researching a case where an Age of Sail captain was court martialed for summarily hanging several crewmen suspected of planning a mutiny. She ends up having a dream about the investigation, with her fiancé Mic playing the role of the Captain, Mac playing his wife, and Harmon Rabb (Mac's [[UnresolvedSexualTension unresolved love interest]] eventually revealed (just before the hanging) to be playing one of the mutineers, naturally segueing into Mac [[CatapultNightmare jumping awake]] to [[AnxietyDreams ponder the implications.]]
* The ''{{Series/Blackish}}'' episode "Pops' Pops' Pops" does this when Pops [[SeparateSceneStorytelling tells a story]] about the Johnson family history.
* Use as a horror story in Episode "USS Callister" of ''Series/BlackMirror'': a lonely software engineer uses his highly advance VirtualReality program to make his own version of a Star Trek-expy using people he knows as counterpart characters. But things get really creepy and is not PlayedForLaughs at all.
* The series finale of ''Series/WalkerTexasRanger'' includes two parallel stories, one taking place in the present and one taking place in the Old West. They feature the same dozen or so actors playing similar (though not quite identical) characters.
* An episode of ''Series/TheCosbyShow'' has Rudy read a story that she drew and wrote, with members of the cast taking on the roles of the characters in the story.
* In an episode of ''Series/BeverlyHills90210'', Brenda Walsh find the diary of a girl that habited the same house at the end of TheSixties, hidden in her room. Then she imagines everything the diary narrates with her friends, family and acquaintances as the characters of the history. At the end Brenda locates and meet the owner of the diary, who shows her the pictures of the people mentioned in those texts, who are obviously very differently from how Brenda had imagined them.
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' has "Vegas", a Series/{{CSI}}-like episode in an alternate universe filmed in Las Vegas.
* An episode of ''Series/LoisAndClark'' had an old security guard tell about how he was betrayed by his girlfriend and business partner, and sent up the river. Cue a flashback with Clark Kent as the young security guard, Lois as the girlfriend, and Lex Luthor as the partner she leaves him for. (This episode was also right before the season one finale, which capped off the Lex/Lois courtship).
* The ''Film/MuppetsHauntedMansion'' HalloweenSpecial has Gonzo and Pepe skipping the Muppet Halloween party to spend a night in the Haunted Mansion, with the ghosts taking on Muppety forms as a result of responding to Gonzo and Pepe's "Sympathetic Vibrations" and choosing to materialize in AFormYouAreComfortableWith.
* Done fairly often on ''Series/NorthernExposure''. One episode features an old man telling Joel the story of Cicely's founding in 1909. Creator/RobMorrow/Joel Fleischman played Creator/FranzKafka(!) while the other regulars appear as counterpart characters, often with very similar names (Maggie O'Connell, for example, becomes Mary O'Keefe).
* The ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' episode "The Gang Cracks the Libery Bell" is told in the setting of 1776, with all the characters being their normally horrible, wrong selves (with Cricket as an English colonel), occasionally making attempts to speak in the vernacular of the day, badly. At multiple points, the characters note that "it's 1776" to justify crime, and the last scene of the story makes it perfectly clear they're all just making it up.
* ''Series/{{MacGyver|1985}}'' does several dream episodes along these lines, including a pair of episodes with a period version of [=MacGyver=] in the Old West and the two-parter "Good Knight, [=MacGyver=]" in which the modern [=MacGyver=] imagines himself transported to the days of King Arthur (with Arthur "played" by [=MacGyver=]'s boss Pete).
* ''Series/PressGang'' devoted much time to the tempestuous romance of leads Lynda (Julia Sawalha) and Spike (Dexter Fletcher). One episode has a flashback to Spike's parents meeting for the first time -- played by Julia Sawalha and Dexter Fletcher.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E114IDreamOfGenie I Dream of Genie]]", George P. Hanley's co-workers Ann and Roger Hackett and his boss E.L. Watson appear in each of his three fantasies in different roles. In the first fantasy, Ann is the glamorous film star Ann Alexandra and George's unfaithful wife, Roger is her co-star and lover and Watson is the film director. In the second fantasy, Ann is George's secretary, Roger is his chauffeur and Watson is the president of his alma mater. In the third fantasy, Ann is a woman who wants President Hanley to pardon her son for falling asleep on duty, Roger is a three-star general who warns him that he must attack the approaching alien ship and Watson is a member of his staff.

* The filmed version of ''Theatre/JosephAndTheAmazingTechnicolorDreamcoat'' has a FramingDevice of the show being performed before a group of schoolchildren. Many of the characters are played by their teachers.
* In the Matthew Bourne version of ''Theatre/TheNutcracker'' dancers who portray the orphans and the Dross family reappear in Sweetieland. The Drosses become the royal family, the orphans become various different sweets such as marshmallows, liquorice allsorts, gobstoppers etc. Clara's twin friends reappear as a pair of cupids to help her [[spoiler: win back the Nutcracker who has run off with [[RoyalBrat Princess Sugar]].]]

* This winds up being a major plot point in ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'', [[spoiler:with several of the characters shown in the Dream World such as Space Boyfriend, Sweetheart and even the main heroes being based on people Sunny knew of in Faraway Town.]]

* ''VideoGame/SonicStorybookSeries'': Almost everyone except the main antagonist and Sonic' ExpositionFairy are alternate versions of all of Sonic's friends. [[spoiler:Merlina from ''Black Knight'' counts as both exceptions.]] He starts to get used to it halfway through ''Black Knight'' - rather than confuse Gawain with Knuckles, he simply mocks him with comparisons, and when he meets up with Percival he doesn't even mention Blaze; he just raises his blade and accepts the challenge to duel.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': In the third movie, ''Bender's Game'', the characters are dropped into an alternate, fantastical universe where each has a different backstory and motive. This setup was partly in reference to ''Film/TheWizardOfOz''.
* On ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'':
** Another example of this trope is in the parallel between the victorian guild and the modern cast. Colonel Venture = Dr. Venture (both are related), Eugene Sandow = Brock (muscular bodyguards to a Venture), Samuel Clemens = Pete White (both have white hair and dress in white), Creator/OscarWilde = The Alchemist (both are FlamboyantGay intellectuals), Fantomas = Phantom Limb (again, related), Aleister Crowley = Dr. Orpheus ("wizards" with a penchant for the theatrical).
** In the 4th season episode where Dr. Orpheus goes inside Rusty's mind (not to be confused with the 4th season episode where Brock and the boys go inside Rusty's body), he meets "Eros" and "Thanatos", who look and sound like Billy Quizboy and Pete White, respectively.

* There's an episode of ''WesternAnimation/LittleBear'' where the characters double as Literature/LittleRedRidingHood characters.
* The French educational series from the ''Once Upon a Time...'' franchise (about inventors, explorers, etc.) have the FramingDevice of a friendly, bushy-bearded old man giving a history lecture to a group of modern-day kids. All the characters in the "historical" parts of the episodes look just like adult versions of these kids. Invariably, the two ruffians in the group lend their faces to the "bad guys" of the history parts, the other kids play the "good guys", and the old man himself appears as a mentor, tribe chieftain, etc.
* One episode of the 2007 ''WesternAnimation/{{George of the Jungle|2007}}'' had George having a dream with all of his friends representing forces of nature.
* [[BizarroEpisode The Bloo Superdude episodes]] in ''WesternAnimation/FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends'':
** In the first one, Bloo tells the story of the Superdude to Mac and he interprets his friends at Foster's as characters in his story, while in reality, the story is just an exaggeration of the events that happened prior to the episode.
** In the second one, Bloo is sick and he ''hallucinates'' into thinking that he IS the Superdude and his friends are the (mostly villainous) characters the Bloo Superdude fights.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheFlumps'' episode "Moon Shot", Pootle Flump falls asleep while his siblings are off fetching a picnic, and dreams of traveling to the Moon. There he meets a pair of aliens who are having a picnic, and notes that they seem familiar somehow; they have the same character models as his brother and sister, only with alien headgear instead of their usual.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'' does this in "D.W.'s Name Game" with an OffToSeeTheWizard sort of plot. In the story, after Arthur and D.W. trade insults, events culminate with Arthur shocking her by calling her "Dora Winifred" (her real name) and her being sent to bed. She has a dream in which she consults "The Great Thesaurus" and Arthur is cast in the role of the Wicked Witch. When she finally wakes up, she tells her family "And you were there, and you, and you were there too." At which point, the Thesaurus (a dinosaur) appears outside her window, saying his CatchPhrase, "Ah, sheesh." Notably, though, neither Mr. Read nor Mrs. Read were actually in D.W.'s fantasy in any form.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfsAChristmasCarol'', which is an animated YetAnotherChristmasCarol story, has lookalikes of Smurfette, Brainy, and Hefty playing the roles of the Three Smurfs of Christmas.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' classic show had several episodes like this with the Smurfs re-telling several classic works like ''Myth/RobinHood'', ''Literature/TheThreeMusketeers'' and ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' with the Smurfs as the characters. Technically the Smurfs are making a play in a theater but the audience's imagination turn the scenarios and dresses into the real thing.
* The Orson Acres section of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' has several episodes about Orson RealityWarper-level imagination reading books and turning everyone into characters of said story, including among others Literature/SherlockHolmes, Literature/JamesBond and Literature/MobyDick.

* Mixed with PortalBook, an episode of ''WesternAnimation/PeterPanAndThePirates'' has the Lost Boys listening to the story of ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' until Tinkerbell makes a spell transporting them all, and the Pirates, into the story assuming fitting roles (including Wendy as Alice, John as the White Rabbit, and Captain Hook as the Queen of Hearts).

* Episode "A Tale of Two Siblings" of ''WesternAnimation/{{Babar}}'' has Alexander telling a story to his baby sister Isabelle. Apart from the scenarios that became like child drawings, all other characters are imagined as characters from the show, though in very unusual (and even humilliating) roles.
* The entire concept behind ''WesternAnimation/BobbysWorld'' as the show is based around sketches of Bobby's imagination using the recurring characters of the series in his own versions of famous movies and TV shows.
* Similar to ''WesternAnimation/BobbysWorld'', most of the ''WesternAnimation/MuppetBabies'''s episode where the characters imagining themselves remaking famous movies, with each cast member more or less matching the personality of the original characters ala [[WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends Orson Acres]].

* The entire point of ''WesternAnimation/TheBackyardigans'', though they only imagine themselves as being in different settings in each episode.
* This was occasionally done on ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}''.
** The Passover special had the babies act out the story of Moses while Tommy Pickles' maternal grandfather Boris Kropotkin told them the story.
** "Finsterella" had Chuckie imagine himself in the role of Cinderella, with his sister Kimi and Angelica Pickles as his stepsisters and Tommy as his "fairy bob-brother".
** There was a duology of direct-to-video films titled ''Tales from the Crib'', which had the babies act out the stories of "Snow White" and "Jack and the Beanstalk", with the framing device consisting of the babies being read the stories by their babysitter Taffy.
* The series finale of ''WesternAnimation/TheLooneyTunesShow'' has Bugs telling Daffy a story which is basically Superman's mythos with Bugs as Sups, Marvin the Martian as Brainiac, Elmer as Luthor and Daffy as Zod.
* The central cast of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' is often worked into the central cast of whatever they're parodying in the "WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror" episodes (such as the episode where Bart has [[YouWannaGetSued the Shinning]]) or other ThreeShorts specials: one has the family starring in [[Literature/TheBible Bible]] stories, another has them in {{Tall Tale}}s, other episodes featured Homer as literary characters like [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus]] or the [[Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo Count of Monte Fatso]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' episode "Scroogerello", Scrooge has a dream during a terrible cold and after misstreating his servants and nephews. He dreams of himself as (a male) Cindirella, with Flintheart Glomgold as the stepfather, the Beagle Boys as the stepbrothers, Mrs. Beakley and Webby as fairy godmothers, the nephews as the car drivers, Launchpad as a frog prince, Gyro as the king and Goldie as the princess. When he wakes up he sees the errors of his ways and apologize to everyone.

* In ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople: Episode 5: 8-Bit is Enough,'' Strongbad wakes up like this. However, [[spoiler:Trogdor almost immediately shows up and roars at everyone.]]

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/RockosModernLife'' in the episode "Short Story". After a crazy dream inspired by his insecurities about being short, Rocko wakes up to find folks he knows who appeared in his dream, and goes through the usual spiel, but the last person in line turns out to be [[CreatorCameo series creator Joe Murray]]:
-->'''Rocko:''' And you... um, I don't think I've ever seen you before.\\
'''Murray:''' You're [[OffModel off-model]], kangaroo-boy.

* Parodied in the 2003 ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' series, when Leo wakes Michelangelo:
-->I had the oddest dream. And you were there, and the [[Film/TheWizardOfOz tin man, and a wizard, and a cowardly lion...]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS2E10BartGetsHitByACar Bart Gets Hit by a Car]]" when Bart awakes after being hit by a car to find Homer, Marge and Lisa surrounding him, along with bottom-feeding attorney Lionel Hutz grinning cheesily at him. Seeing as Bart had just been to Hell, his remark that he saw the others there is particularly hilarious. He's such a [[EnfantTerrible horrible child]].
-->'''Bart:''' I had the most wonderful dream! You were there, and you, and you... ''[to Hutz]'' You, I've never seen before.
* Played literally in ''Mater's Tall Tales,'' a [[WesternAnimation/PixarShorts series of Pixar shorts]] set after ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}''. Each short begins with Mater regaling Lightning [=McQueen=] and the Radiator Springs residents with a story about an exciting career he used to hold (firefighter, bullfighter, drift racer). Halfway through, Mater would turn to [=McQueen=] and say "Don't you remember? You was there too!", then continue the story with [=McQueen=] as either a ButtMonkey participant or helping Mater while he's in a bind. Each story ends with a [[TheStinger stinger]] that suggested the story wasn't ''completely'' fabricated...

* ''Series/TheXFiles''. In "Triangle", Mulder discovers the luxury liner Queen Anne in the Devil's Triangle, only it's back in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and his friends and enemies are spies, sailors or Nazi soldiers fighting over the vessel. Various aspects of their 'contemporary' selves are reflected: Skinner is apparently a Nazi but turns out to be on Mulder's side, Assistant Director Kersh is shown chained in the engine room, forced to steer the course set by the CSM who is naturally the Nazi BigBad. Scully is a spy who is [[AgentScully initially skeptical]] of Mulder's claims to be one of the good guys, yet comes through for him in the end. Scully also reflects Mulder's unrequited feelings for her -- she wears a [[LadyInRed red cocktail dress]] but punches Mulder in the jaw when he gives her a NowOrNeverKiss. In the end Mulder [[AllJustADream wakes up in a hospital bed]] surrounded by his friends, including A.D. Skinner who responds "Yeah, and my little dog Toto" when Mulder says the And You Were There bit. Other {{Shout Out}}s include setting the events in 1939 when ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'' came out in cinemas, and the "Lady Garland" boat after actress Creator/JudyGarland.

* ''VideoGame/SonicStorybookSeries'': Almost everyone except the main antagonist and Sonic' ExpositionFairy are alternate versions of all of Sonic's friends. [[spoiler:Merlina from ''Black Knight'' counts as both exceptions.]] He starts to get used to it halfway through ''Black Knight'' - rather than confuse Gawain with Knuckles, he simply mocks him with comparisons, and when he meets up with Percival he doesn't even mention Blaze; he just raises his blade and accepts the challenge to duel.

* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': In the "Murder at the Kogetsukan" event, the protagonist Ritsuka Fujimaru gets his consciousness sent into another person's while he is dreaming. While in control of the person, Ritsuka has to solve a murder mystery, but it is complicated because he sees everyone as one of his Servants. This leads to misunderstandings because the people's relationships do not always match their Servant counterparts.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{MAD}}'' sketch "[[WesternAnimation/ToyStory The Buzz]] [[Film/TheBourneIdentity Identity]]" parodies this at the end when Buzz Lightyear wakes up from the crazy dream that made up most of the sketch, complete with everyone randomly turning into the ''Wizard Of Oz'' characters for a moment ([[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext It...Kinda Makes Sense In Context]]):

* One episode of the 2007 ''WesternAnimation/GeorgeOfTheJungle'' had George having a dream with all of his friends representing forces of nature.

** Both ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' and ''Series/StargateSG1'' had episodes where where Bashir and Carter saw the other characters appear as aspects of their own personalities.

** When The Prophets (who are both EnergyBeings and SufficientlyAdvancedAliens) want to communicate with a character, they usually present themselves as various characters from the series walking around in various familiar ambients.

* The 1978 film version of ''[[Literature/JacobTwoTwo Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang]]'' does this, with the the judge of Jacob's trial resembling the grocery store clerk that jokingly asked the police to arrest Jacob for his tendency to say things twice, the guards at the child prison basically being the customers at the store during the incident sporting features based on what they were holding at the time, and the members of Child Power basically being Jacob's older twin siblings.

** In the ''Typhon Pact'' crossover, when Kira is in the wormhole, she also has a vision of the Benny Russell reality, in which her counterpart Kay Eaton helps Benny's girlfiend Cassie Johnson get him out of the institute. This is paralleled to [[spoiler: Sisko returning from the Celestial Temple]]. The final scene is portrayed as happening to Kay and Cassie, and Kira and Kasidy Yates, simultaneously.

** ''The Muppets Wizard Of Oz'' sticks closer to the original book by ''not'' claiming it was AllJustADream, but still has Dorothy's friends in Oz resembling people she knows in the real world (since she's just auditioned for Franchise/TheMuppets).

* In the Literature/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch novel ''Warpath'', during Kira Nerys' vision quest her imaginary troops implicitly correspond to the people she interacts with in the real world, in a similar manner to Sisko's "Benny Russell" visions. The names are the most prominent clue, being anagrams of the usual characters' names.

* ''ComicBook/{[Vampirella}}'': Issue #2 of the "[[StorybookEpisode Feary Tales]]" miniseries has Vampirella being transported into a version of the Snow White story. There she meets fairy tail versions of her friends, Adam vs Helsing and Mordecai Pendragon.

* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Far Beyond the Stars" features Sisko as a 1950's African-American pulp-fiction writer named Benny Russell, with his crew-mates (and enemies) taking roles as his co-workers and other denizens of his neighborhood. The ending, as well as the episode "Shadows and Symbols," [[MindScrew leaves open the question]] as to which reality is actually real.

* The Amy Racecar issues of ''Comicbook/StrayBullets'' are done in this style, with the titular {{Anti Hero}}ine being Virginia's thinly-veiled AuthorAvatar. The stories usually parallel events in the main storyline, complete with supporting characters who are very obviously based on Virginia's friends, family and even enemies.

* The Amy Racecar issues of ''Comicbook/StrayBullets'' are done in this style, with the titular {{Anti Hero}}ine being Virginia's very thinly-veiled AuthorAvatar. The stories usually parallel events in the main storyline, complete with supporting characters who are very obviously based on Virginia's friends, family and even enemies.

* The Amy Racecar issues of ''Comicbook/StrayBullets'' are done in this style, with the titular {{Anti Hero}}ine being a very thinly-veiled AuthorAvatar of Virginia. The stories usually parallel events in the main storyline, complete with supporting characters who are very obviously based on Virginia's friends, family and even enemies.