History Main / Dreamville

* In ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' season one episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1959S1E30AStopAtWilloughby A Stop at Willoughby]]", the depressed protagonist dreams on the train ride home from work that he has stopped off at an idyllic town called Willoughby in TheGayNineties. [[spoiler:When at last he reaches his [[DespairEventHorizon breaking point]] and gets off the train to stay in the town forever, it is revealed that he actually just [[DrivenToSuicide died jumping from the real-world train]] and the town's name is actually the name of the funeral home that collects his body, Willoughby & Son]].

* In ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' season one episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E30AStopAtWilloughby A Stop at Willoughby]]", the depressed protagonist dreams on the train ride home from work that he has stopped off at an idyllic town called Willoughby in TheGayNineties. [[spoiler:When at last he reaches his [[DespairEventHorizon breaking point]] and gets off the train to stay in the town forever, it is revealed that he actually just [[DrivenToSuicide died jumping from the real-world train]] and the town's name is actually the name of the funeral home that collects his body, Willoughby & Son]].

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLorax2012'', Thneedville appears to be a comfortable idyllic suburban city, but the introduction to the film hints that there are elements of a CrapSaccharineWorld hiding beneath the happy exterior. All the trees in the city are made in factories, powered by 96 batteries, and pollution is bad enough that Wesley taking a swim in one of the city's lakes gave him a permanent SicklyGreenGlow. Residents have to [[PayingForAir buy fresh air]] from the O'Hare air company. [[spoiler:The city is eventually revealed to be set in a barren, dead wasteland, caused by the reckless harvesting of the Truffula trees for the creation of Thneeds by the Onceler's company]].
[[/folder]]

* After Turner gets blown up in the beginning of ''Literature/CountZero'' he spends a few months in a simulation of a suburban New England childhood while undergoing surgery.

** After getting "saved" from a [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything library-planet]] infested by {{Living Shadow}}s during the previous episode, Donna wakes up in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Forest of the Dead]]" to find herself in 21st-century suburbia with no memory of her time with the Doctor. In a series of {{Jump Cut}}s from her initial stay at a hospital, this quickly progresses to her getting married, giving birth to twins and seeing them age to about five. All is well, up until a veiled figure reveals that something is wrong: no time is passing between cuts, she's been given FakeMemories to compensate, and her children are completely identical to all the other kids in the neighbourhood. [[spoiler:It turns out that Donna has been digitized and uploaded to [[BenevolentAI the Library's central computer]] in an attempt to save her from the aforementioned Living Shadows, just like all the other visitors to the library; unfortunately, the computer is now malfunctioning as a result of all the people taking up space in its memory (hence why everyone's still trapped in cyberspace) and is now [[NightmareOfNormality living its own suburban delusion of being a little girl watching the Doctor's adventures on TV]].]]

** Mindy St Clair's neighbourhood in The Medium Place is a typical 1980s-styled house in a mostly-empty grassland, since she is the only resident of the Medium Place. It is both pleasurable and tormenting in equal measure, despite the rather idyllic exterior and setting.

** After being captured by Zinyak, the Boss wakes up in a luridly colourful suburb reminiscent of 1950s-era sitcoms, complete with bouncy music, enthusiastically overpolite townsfolk and even canned laughter. Violence is initially out of the question, dangerous driving is impossible, [[ClusterBleepBomb swearing is censored]], and the Boss is [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul initially brainwashed into enjoying every minute of it]] -- to the point that Male Voice 3 goes from gravelly Cockney to chirruping Received Pronunciation the moment he arrives. Eventually, the brainwashing breaks down and townsfolk begin randomly dissolving into pixels, revealing that the Boss has been trapped in a Zin MindPrison specifically designed to torture them. The only way to break out is to cause enough chaos to break the scenario, resulting in [[LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand the music winding down]] and [[OminousVisualGlitch glitches creeping into the program]].

* In {{Series/Angel}}, Wolfram and Hart's "Holding Dimension" is one of these.

* In ''Series/Angel'', Wolfram and Hart's "Holding Dimension" is one of these.
* A bit of a weird example with ''[[Series/Arrow]]'': when Thea finds herself trapped in a suburbia that doesn't seem quite real, it's not an artificial reality but [[spoiler:an actual physical installation deep underground, designed to withstand an attempt to eradicate all life on Earth with nuclear weapons.]]