History Main / SimulatedFantasyPostApocalypticReality

[-[[caption-width-right:350:"Here it is. All you wanted. A world full of sunshine and sweets, where your cat Genna did not die, where your father and mother Joseph and Anne did not pass away, and where you have a TVTropes themed shirt. All you need to do is put the headset on."[[note]]Art made by Tropers/CardboardBot for the trope[[/note]]]]-]

[-[[caption-width-right:350:"Here it is. All you wanted. A world full of sunshine and sweets, where your cat Genna did not die, where your father and mother Joseph and Anne did not pass away, and where you have a [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers TVTropes themed shirt.]] All you need to do is put the headset on."[[note]]Art made by Tropers/CardboardBot for the trope[[/note]]]]-]

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': The Islands ministries episode "[[Recap/AdventureTimeS8E10ImaginaryResources Imaginary Resources]]", Jake, Finn, and [=BMO=] end up on a lost colony of humans who have survived [[WorldWarIII the Great Mushroom War]] where all the citizens have become hopelessly addicted to virtual reality, leaving the entire city and their basic needs to be taken care of by robot drones. Jake "unplugs" everyone, only for them to find that the human population has become so used to living in {{Cyberspace}} that they have no clue how to function in reality.

* ''VideoGame/{{Soma}}'':

* The ultimate reveal of ''VideoGame/ThirteenSentinelsAegisRim'' is that [[spoiler: the entire world the game takes place in is a simulation and everyone except the 13 main characters are virtual. There's no time travel; the different eras are all different, separated sectors of the simulation. In reality, Earth has already been destroyed and humanity is extinct; the simulation was supposed to train the main characters with the knowledge to repopulate humanity when the ark ship would have landed on a new suitable planet, but the process was interrupted when a virus was introduced to the system, causing the appearance of the Deimos in the simulated world.]]

Though there are no shortage of {{Lotus Eater Machine}}s AfterTheEnd, there can also be
functional artificial environments designed to shelter ordinary citizens while they wait for the world to recover from the apocalypse... or there can even be hellish {{Mind Prison}}s and {{Black Bug Room}}s that can make the real world look positively pleasant by comparison.

* ''VideoGame/Prey2017'': [[spoiler: The ultimate twist of the game is that you're not actually Morgan Yu, and your experiences on Talos I were just a virtual reality simulation based on the experiences of the real Morgan. In reality, the AlienInvasion that Morgan feared has already come to pass, and Earth has been left in [[AlienKudzu Coral]]-infested ruins by the [[OminousObsidianOoze Typhon]]. Meanwhile, ''you're'' actually a captive [[HumanoidAbomination Typhon entity]] that Alex Yu is attempting to teach empathy via simulations in a desperate attempt to save the human race. Depending on how you performed over the course of the game, the experiment can end in success or failure - the former offering you the opportunity to make peace with Alex on behalf of the Typhon... unless you feel like [[IgnoredEpiphany ignoring the epiphany]] and furthering humanity's extinction.]]

* In ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'', while [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture the world in the year 2044]] hasn't been completely destroyed, it's definitely not improving in anyway, so with [[{{Cyberspace}} The OASIS]] being the most sophisticated MMORPG/Virtual Reality simulator ever built, it makes sense that most of the world population uses it for day to day life and to escape the problems of the real world, including our main character.

* The music video for Porter Robinson's "Anime/{{Shelter|2016}}" depicts Rin, a girl stuck in a simulation she can control [[ArtInitiatesLife with a drawing tablet]], which is aboard a spaceship created by her father to survive a planetary collision.

* Touched upon in ''LightNovel/{{Overlord}}''. Satoru Suzuki, the protagonist, was a [[{{Salaryman}} lowly office worker]] in a dystopian future in the year 2138, a bleak hellscape where nature has been all but destroyed, the atmosphere is poisoned beyond any possibility of recovery, the government plays second fiddle to [[CorruptCorporateExecutive fantastically corrupt]] {{Mega Corp}}s and human life is dime a dozen to the point that seeing orphans slowly dying in the streets is not an uncommon occurrence. The fantasy world Satoru finds himself [[TrappedInAnotherWorld trapped]] in is not a simulation, but his new persona, that of the powerful [[OurLichesAreDifferent undead caster]] Momonga/Ainz Ooal Gown, and the characters who end up accompanying him hail from the virtual reality MMO ''YGGDRASIL'', a game that occupied essentially every moment of Satoru's life not taken up by work, food or sleep. The wretched dreariness of Satoru's real life, in conjunction with the fact that essentially all of his friendships and most of the happy moments in his life have occurred in a hollow fantasy, is what forms the crux of his character, and when it turns out that his new undead body [[EmotionSuppression numbs his feelings]], it is [[SlowlySlippingIntoEvil only a matter of time]] for this profoundly broken man to [[BecomingTheMask become]] the EvilOverlord he used to merely roleplay.

** In ''Backwards'', Lister -- [[MerlinSickness regressed to his teenage years]] due to the years he spent in the Backwards universe -- becomes obsessed with VR gaming to cope with life aboard Starbug, which is now even more tense than usual due to Red Dwarf's disappearance. As with the episode "Gunman Of The Apocalypse", this becomes the basis for saving Kryten from the Armageddon Virus when he tries to combat it in his Western fantasy world. [[spoiler: However, unlike the episode, the story ends with the virus being purged from the system too late to save Kryten, Rimmer, or Starbug, forcing Lister and the Cat to flee for another dimension -- leaving the human race effectively extinct in the universe they just left.]]
** ''Last Human'' is set in [[TheMultiverse a completely different dimension]], but with a similar history to the main one, complete with the apparent extinction of the human race. Three million years later, [=GELFs=] escaped from human captivity have built their own nation in a remote asteroid belt and now use virtual reality as a form of punishment: individuals found guilty of crimes against the GELF State are sentenced to [[MindPrison Cyberia]], a PenalColony where their bodies are left to float in a suspension lake while their minds are imprisoned in simulations designed be as uncomfortable, awkward, and depressing as possible, [[PrisonEpisode as Lister discovers first-hand]]. [[spoiler: The twist is that the GELF State is [[JustBeforeTheEnd on the brink of its own apocalypse]]: the asteroid belt is being drawn towards the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Omni-Zone]], and in order to survive the crossing, the [=GELF=]s need to terraform a planet and move their population to it... but the terraforming can only be enacted by godlike entities born from multiple sentient minds -- taken from Cyberia's inmates.]]

* The music video for Porter Robinson's ''Anime/{{Shelter}}'' depicts Rin, a girl stuck in a simulation she can control [[ArtInitiatesLife with a drawing tablet]], which is aboard a spaceship created by her father to survive a planetary collision.

->''The world is dead. I haven't seen the sun or anything green in years. Some of us are still fighting the cyborgs over control of the corpse, but so many more have just given up. I hear life in the pods isn't so bad, that it's like a hazy, pleasant dream. But I don't want hazy and pleasant. I want my own mind and freedom, no matter how terrible reality is.''

[[caption-width-right:350:"Here it is. All you wanted. A world full of sunshine and sweets, where your cat Genna did not die, where your father and mother Joseph and Anne did not pass away, and where you have a [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers TVTropes themed shirt.]] All you need to do is put the headset on."[[note]]Art made by Tropers/CardboardBot for the trope[[/note]]]]

* Not exactly post-apocalyptic, but one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Jellystone}}'' has Auggy and Yakky playing a VR game where you have to hug and kiss everyone, run by [[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones the Great Gazoo]], looking like a SugarBowl. When Yakky [[https://youtu.be/nkmskOetJZI?t=72 takes off her VR visor]], she sees the town in a state of complete chaos -- they've been unknowingly zapping everyone with lasers the whole time they were playing, wrecking everything in the process.

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/TheEndOfTheWorld: Revolt of the Machines'', the post-apocalyptic stage of "Logical Conclusions" features many survivors of the nuclear apocalypse being brainwashed into mind-slaves by the ultra-nationalistic {{cyborg}}s -- assuming they're not valuable enough to be [[UnwillingRoboticization converted into cyborgs themselves]]. When not at work, these mind-slaves spend their days podded up in a collective MindPrison, bombarded with patriotic imagery and pleasant sensations in order to ensure their compliance. However, scenario notes indicate that the cyborgs are also building an immersive VR environment for "deserving citizens", based on an [[{{Dreamville}} idealized, Rockwellian vision of 1950s America]].

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In the segment "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E2WordplayDreamsForSaleChameleon Dreams For Sale]]", a woman connects herself to a LotusEaterMachine called a Dreamatron to escape her reality. She enjoys a simulated picnic so much that she opts to stay in the simulation rather than return to her real life. The Dreamatron burns out and she [[GoOutWithASmile dies smiling]]. [[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/TheEndOfTheWorld: Revolt of the Machines'', the post-apocalyptic stage of "Logical Conclusions" features many survivors of the nuclear apocalypse being brainwashed into mind-slaves by the ultra-nationalistic {{cyborg}}s -- assuming they're not valuable enough to be [[UnwillingRoboticization converted into cyborgs themselves]]. When not at work, these mind-slaves spend their days podded up in a collective MindPrison, bombarded with patriotic imagery and pleasant sensations in order to ensure their compliance. However, scenario notes indicate that the cyborgs are also building an immersive VR environment for "deserving citizens", based on an [[{{Dreamville}} idealized, Rockwellian vision of 1950s America]].
[[/folder]]

-->--"Logical Conclusions - Post-Apocalypse," ''TabletopGame/TheEndOfTheWorld: Revolt Of The Machines''

In other words, the key aspect of post-apocalyptic VR is not escapism: the participation of the main characters need not be voluntary - and it's entirely possible to see unwilling visitors to the simulation being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the VR headsets.

!!Examples

[[folder: Anime & Manga]]
* ''Anime/ExpelledFromParadise'': in the wake of a "Nano Hazard" that has ruined the surface of the Earth, the surviving population has put its faith in DEVA - a virtual reality paradise that human beings are digitized and uploaded to. Residents are granted immortal lives free of aging, disease, hunger, or any kind of physical suffering... but unfortunately, they're constantly under the watchful eye of DEVA's Central Security, are limited in what they can do by the amount of memory allocated to them, and are rated on their performance: high-rated individuals are rewarded with more memory, but those who are judged to not be contributing enough are archived in order to save memory - essentially imprisoning them in a very small space for the rest of eternity.

[[folder: Audio Plays]]
* In the AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho What-If episode "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoUnboundE4HeJestsAtScars He Jests At Scars]]" it's ultimately revealed that [[spoiler: the [[SplitPersonalityTakeover Valeyard]]'s time-spanning empire and its capital of Chronopolis is just a simulated reality created inside the TARDIS. Outside, his attempts at altering history in his favor have caused a ''[[ApocalypseHow/ClassX4 universal scale]]'' apocalypse, to the point that the TARDIS is keeping the Valeyard and Mel paralyzed in its console room so their movements can't make anything worse while the rest of the universe recovers, allowing the Valeyard to live out his fantasies in a simulation while Mel tries to restore the Doctor's personality. Unfortunately, in the final scene, power drain forces the TARDIS to switch off the simulation; the story ends with [[DownerEnding Mel and the Valeyard trapped for all eternity in the console room]], [[AndIMustScream unable to move or even speak]].]]

[[folder: Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/BatmanLastKnightOnEarth'' begins with Bruce Wayne waking up in Arkham Asylum, and for a while, it seems as if his experiences as Batman have just been an elaborate fantasy... but then he happens to notice AGlitchInTheMatrix, and the truth is soon unveiled: the world has been reduced to a post-apocalyptic ruin as a result of an unspecified cataclysm, all the heroes are either dead or have given up, and Alfred has been keeping Bruce trapped in a simulation in order to keep him from trying to be a hero - even preparing a recreation of Wayne Manor and a stretch of Gotham City for him to have an ordinary life in. With Bruce unwilling to remain in the comforting illusion now that he knows the truth, Alfred sadly allows him to leave for the wasteland of the real world...

[[folder: Film - Live-Action]]
* ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' is set in a sunless post-apocalyptic wasteland caused by a war between machines and humanity. Most of the human race is now serving as batteries for the machines while their minds are kept occupied by the eponymous virtual reality simulation, a MindPrison based on the world as it was over a century ago. However, the rebel humans that have been freed from the Matrix still use simulations throughout their lives, not only to train and fight back against the machines, but - as ''VideoGame/EnterTheMatrix'' demonstrates - simply for the sake of fun.

[[folder: Literature]]
* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}: The Ellimist Chronicles'' features the Ketran people being subjected to an apocalyptic invasion by the Capasin that nearly wipes out the entire species, followed up by outright extinction after the Ketran refugees try to find a home for themselves on [[TheAssimilator Father]]'s world. The only survivor, Toomin, is captured by Father and imprisoned inside his HiveMind to serve as his opponent in endless games of strategy, all of which take place in imaginary worlds conjured from the memories of Father's many victims. As a reward for cooperating, Toomin's allowed to spend time in a comforting illusion of his life as it would have been if the invasion had never happened, but if he refuses to play, he'll be woken up and [[ForcedToWatch forced to witness the real world]] - an apocalyptic CorpseLand where all his loved ones are floating dead around him - until he agrees to cooperate. [[spoiler: This remains the status quo until Toomin finally figures out how to beat Father at his own games, allowing him to claim all his knowledge for himself and begin his transformation into the Ellimist.]]
* ''Literature/{{Colony}}'' begins JustBeforeTheEnd, with Eddie O'Hare leaving the dying Earth aboard the ''Willflower'' - only to suffer fatal injuries and be preserved as a head in a jar. Generations later, with Earth well and truly dead and the ''Willflower'' the last surviving refuge of the human race, Eddie is rebuilt as a cyborg... but in order to ease him into the unpleasant reality of his new existence, he's awoken in a utopian illusory world where everything is calming and tranquil before the crew finally break the news to him.

** As with the series, ''Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers'' features Lister emerging from stasis three million years in the future to find that he's the last human in the universe. When copies of the illegal VR game [[TheMostDangerousVideoGame Better Than Life]] are found on Red Dwarf, the Cat plays out of curiosity, while Lister and Rimmer start playing in [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy a drunken attempt to rescue him]]... only for all three to have their memory of starting play erased by the game, leaving them trapped in [[LotusEaterMachine worlds based on their deepest desires]]. Once Kryten reveals the truth, however, [[PrefersTheIllusion the three decide to continue playing]] despite the fact that it will eventually kill them - in Lister's case because he can't bear to leave his happy life in Bedford Falls with his wife and children in favor of the dull, joyless, post-apocalyptic real world. [[spoiler: After Rimmer's subconsciousness ruins the game in ''Better Than Life'' and finally forces them to leave, the post-apocalyptic nature of the setting is brought into sharp relief when the four of them stumble upon the ruins of Earth floating in Deep Space, having long since been repurposed as [[LandfillBeyondTheStars Garbage World]] by an uncaring human race before [[RoguePlanet slipping out of the solar system entirely]].]]
** In ''Backwards'', Lister - [[MerlinSickness regressed to his teenage years]] due to the years he spent in the Backwards universe - becomes obsessed with VR gaming to cope with life aboard Starbug, which is now even more tense than usual due to Red Dwarf's disappearance. As with the episode "Gunman Of The Apocalypse", this becomes the basis for saving Kryten from the Armageddon Virus when he tries to combat it in his Western fantasy world. [[spoiler: However, unlike the episode, the story ends with the virus being purged from the system too late to save Kryten, Rimmer, or Starbug, forcing Lister and the Cat to flee for another dimension - leaving the human race effectively extinct in the universe they just left.]]
** ''Last Human'' is set in [[TheMultiverse a completely different dimension]], but with a similar history to the main one, complete with the apparent extinction of the human race. Three million years later, [=GELFs=] escaped from human captivity have built their own nation in a remote asteroid belt and now use virtual reality as a form of punishment: individuals found guilty of crimes against the GELF State are sentenced to [[MindPrison Cyberia]], a PenalColony where their bodies are left to float in a suspension lake while their minds are imprisoned in simulations designed be as uncomfortable, awkward, and depressing as possible, [[PrisonEpisode as Lister discovers first-hand]]. [[spoiler: The twist is that the GELF State is [[JustBeforeTheEnd on the brink of its own apocalypse]]: the asteroid belt is being drawn towards the [[NegativeSpaceWedgie Omni-Zone]], and in order to survive the crossing, the [=GELF=]s need to terraform a planet and move their population to it... but the terraforming can only be enacted by godlike entities born from multiple sentient minds - taken from Cyberia's inmates.]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead Forest Of The Dead]]," it's revealed that the [[GreatBigLibraryOfEverything Library]]'s population was saved from the apocalyptic release of the Vashta Nerada by its [[BenevolentAI central computer CAL]] - "saved" in the sense that she literally saved them to her hard drive, where they could live in a comforting virtual reality scenario while they waited to be rescued. Unfortunately, the Library was officially quarantined afterwards, meaning that nobody has even approached the planet for a hundred years, leaving everyone trapped in the VR neighborhood - including [[NightmareOfNormality CAL]] herself [[GlitchEpisode thanks to the strain on her memory]].

** "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonIIBetterThanLife Better Than Life]]" serves as the first and most prominent of these, with the eponymous Total Immersion Videogame quickly being seized upon as the perfect escape from the post-apocalyptic bleakness aboard ''Red Dwarf:'' the game allows players to do anything they want, including making their dreams come true. Unfortunately, Rimmer's self-loathing ruins the gaming experience, turning the whole thing into a nightmare.
** "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVBackToReality Back To Reality]]" is set on an ocean world where a monstrous squid created by evolution-enhancing techniques has wiped out all life on the planet, including the researchers who were testing the enhanced evolution in the first place. The Boys From The Dwarf soon discover that the squid's ink is a hallucinogen so powerful that it plunges them into a shared dream designed to attack their self-esteem and [[DrivenToSuicide drive them to suicidal despair]]. Ironically, this particular delusion begins with them waking up to find that their experiences on Red Dwarf were just a four-year-long VR gaming experience.
** Early in "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIGunmenOfTheApocalypse Gunman Of The Apocalypse]]", Lister starts obsessively playing VR games in an effort to cope with life aboard Starbug during their search for the currently AWOL Red Dwarf... which becomes a bit of a problem when they're supposed to be in SilentRunningMode to avoid Simulants and Lister is busy playing a Film Noire gumshoe game so he can shag the game's FemmeFatale. However, Lister's stockpile of games come in handy when Kryten has to battle the Armageddon Virus in a Western-themed MentalWorld, allowing Lister and the others to use characters from the game ''Streets Of Laredo'' in order to help him.
** Early in "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIStokeMeAClipper Stoke Me A Clipper]]," Lister is so bored and horny from the lack of female company in the post-apocalyptic future that he resorts to cheating in an Arthurian VR game just so he can have sex with Guinevere. Once again, it becomes more practical later in the episode when Ace uses the VR simulator in an attempt to unlock Rimmer's true potential.
** "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIBeyondAJoke Beyond A Joke]]" kicks off with Kochanski taking Lister and the Cat on a virtual adventure in ''Pride And Prejudice'' - only for Kryten to get annoyed at the lack of appreciation for the lobster he was cooking them for dinner and violently sabotage the game.

* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': in "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS2E23TheThaw The Thaw]]," a once-thriving colony has been wiped out by an apocalyptic combination of solar flares, magnetic storms, and major glacial freeze. The last survivors of this disaster have put themselves into cryogenic stasis and have spent the last nineteen years waiting for the chaos to subside while their minds are kept stimulated by a shared virtual reality environment. Unfortunately, it's quickly discovered that the survivors have been trapped in VR long after it should have been safe to leave; upon entering the simulation, the ''Enterprise'' crew discovers that the survivors have been imprisoned and tortured by a MonsterClown manifestation of their own fear - and soon find themselves becoming the Clown's latest playthings.

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* In ''TabletopGame/TheEndOfTheWorld: Revolt Of The Machines'', the post-apocalyptic stage of "Logical Conclusions" features many survivors of the nuclear apocalypse being brainwashed into mind-slaves by the ultra-nationalistic {{cyborg}}s - assuming they're not valuable enough to be [[UnwillingRoboticization converted into cyborgs themselves]]. When not at work, these mind-slaves spend their days podded up in a collective MindPrison, bombarded with patriotic imagery and pleasant sensations in order to ensure their compliance. However, scenario notes indicate that the cyborgs are also building an immersive VR environment for "deserving citizens", based on an [[{{Dreamville}} idealized, Rockwellian vision of 1950s America]].

[[folder: Video Games]]

*** In the main plot, your quest to find your father eventually leads you to Vault 112: here, the residents have spent the last two hundred years plugged into virtual reality, the current simulation being [[{{Dreamville}} Tranquility Lane]], an idyllic 1950s suburbia. Compared to ruins of Washington outside, it's a paradise... except that the Vault's Overseer, [[PsychopathicManchild Dr Stanislaus Braun]], routinely uses his [[VirtualRealityWarper power over the simulation]] to torture the residents for his own amusement. Worse still, your dad's ventured inside and can't escape, forcing you to follow him in. [[spoiler: The only way to escape is to play along with Braun's sick games... or make use of a CorruptedContingency to break Braun's control of the simulator, put his victims out of their misery, and leave Braun trapped alone in virtual reality - [[AndIMustScream forever]].]]

*** Nellis Air Force Base is still equipped with a full set of virtual reality loungers, though you're not allowed to use them. These were originally used as flight simulators by the air force prior to the nuclear war; two hundred years later, the Boomers continue using them as flight sims - even though they have no aircraft and the only possible use for the loungers is escapism. [[spoiler: Unless you can get them access to an antique bomber, which will eventually be put to use on the behalf of your chosen faction during the endgame.]]

** The game is set in the aftermath of a comet striking the Earth in the year 2104 and wiping out the entire human race; the only survivors are the inhabitants of [[UnderwaterBase Pathos-II]]. Soon after, researcher Catherine Chun developed a means of copying the minds of the base personnel into a utopian virtual world known as the ARK - essentially an ArtificialAfterlife designed for a satellite-mounted computer. It was meant to be a method of preserving the human race after its extinction, but a crisis has prevented it from being launched into space; as such, it's up to Simon and Catherine to find the ARK and complete the launch. [[spoiler: The game ends with Simon successfully copying himself to the ARK and launching it... only to find too late that what was sent up was a ''copy,'' not a transfer: while the other Simon and Catherine get to enjoy eternity in a virtual paradise, ''our'' Simon is trapped alone at the bottom of the ocean for what little remains of his life.]]
** Pathos-II's Warden Unit (AKA [[MechanicalAbomination the WAU]]) has also created its own virtual world for similar reasons, but with a much more disturbingly organic twist. The WAU was designed to preserve humanity by any means available, and has gone into overdrive following the comet collision, using methods that human beings ''might'' not find desirable - either copying their minds into robot bodies or keeping their bodies in a horrific state of living death. At Delta, the WAU's proxies have been violently abducting human base personnel and forcibly incorporating them into life-support systems made of MeatMoss while their minds are lulled into a dream state where their desires come true. Simon himself briefly experiences this after being captured by [[TheHeavy Terry Akers]], finding himself in a dream of being back in 2015 and in a committed relationship with [[TheLostLenore Ashley]].

[[folder: Webcomics]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E19WeirdmageddonPart2EscapeFromReality Weirdmageddon Part 2: Escape From Reality]]" reveals that, while Bill Cipher has been unleashing Weirdmageddon and transforming Gravity Falls into a postapocalyptic WorldOfChaos, Mabel has been imprisoned in a magical bubble containing "Mabeland," a dreamworld existing outside of reality where all her dreams can come true. Naturally, she's very happy there, so Dipper's biggest challenge in this episode is to get Mabel to come back to reality.