History Main / UpTheRealRabbitHole

** "[[MatterReplicator Replicated food]] doesn't taste the same as real food" is a sentence that irks some Trekkies, because there is no difference between food that's been grown and food that's been synthesized save for its origins.

* Related: Holograms in ''Franchise/StarTrek'' are mostly programmed not to realize that they are programs and not to recognize characters referring to the Real World, and will become depressed and/or ticked off if a malfunction results in them becoming aware of this. [[AIIsACrapshoot Which it does. Often.]]

And even if the main characters treat everyone in the other world as people, there's still the stupefying habit of ''referring'' to their homeworld as "the real world". This seems like it would be incredibly rude, yet [[MoralDissonance nobody ever calls them on it]]. Even more bizarre is when the natives themselves start doing it. Of course, the question of what to call either universe would be tricky, since the distinction had no reason to come up before the two worlds began interacting. A common solution is the PlanetEngland naming convention, though that's still protagonist-oriented because it's arbitrarily based on the country ''they'' first visited (and it ought to sound to most natives like, well, "Planet England" or "The Johannesburg Universe" might sound to us). Still, the main point of naming is to reduce confusion to a minimum; as long as the other world's natives don't ''mind'' this isn't the most of your worries.

** In the case of Digimon, though, it does make somewhat sense to call the Digital World that - [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the world is, in fact, digital]]. However, the "real" world would be more accurately described as the Material World, or the Protein Based World, as that is a more accurate description of what it is. Both worlds are "real", but one is digital and one is material. Considering in every show, manga, and in fact every continuity but Anime/DigimonSavers, the main cast are kids, it is [[JustifiedTrope justified]] that they would simplify it as "real".

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[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* In chapter 251 of ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', Negi refers to "our" world as "the real world" (In the MagicWorld, it's known as "the old world"). He corrects himself immediately afterwards.

** Grant Morrison wrote ''Comicbook/JLAEarth2'', wherein a heroic version of Lex Luthor arrives from the MirrorUniverse and refers to the main DC world as "[[TitleDrop Earth 2]]."

* Done rather bizarrely in the case of ''FanFic/MyInnerLife'' - the author insists that the story documents a "second life" she leads while she dreams, a life which she insists is "very real" and seems to identify with more than her waking life.
* The Franchise/{{Tron}} example below is {{Lampshaded}} and just as quickly {{Averted}} in ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/series/46436 Endgame Scenario]].'' Tron sarcastically refers to the User world as the "real" one, and [[VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh Jet]] bristles, firing back that the Program world is just as "real" as the human one.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' Perpetual Testing Initiative, Cave refers to his Earth as Earth-1 or Earth Prime. One other Cave also refers to an Earth-1, but since there are multiple test subjects from other universes in there, it's unexplained if he means your character or someone else. Dark Cave also refers to the first Cave as Cave Prime, though this might be for the purposes of avoiding confusion. Interestingly enough, the world this Cave is talking about wouldn't be the "real" world from the perspective of the player, since that Cave has an assistant named Greg instead of Caroline and he also shuts down the [=GLaDOS=] project after hearing the ramblings of an AI Cave.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}''. The fantastic beings are aware that ''their'' reality is just a phantasm and there's a real world ''out there''. And they're OK with that, taking things and customs that drift from the outside, for example the sport of soccer. The same thing is true for the humans: only humans that reject the "real world" can stay in Gensokyo, but it’s not that much of a problem considering that most of Gensokyo’s human population have lived there from birth and have never even seen the real world and probably have no interest in ever going there.

* In ''{{Webcomic/Erfworld}}'', Parson [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0018.html initially believes]] that it's all a hallucination, and later he notes [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0086.html the various odd parallels]] between Erfworld and Earth as supporting evidence. His reluctance to accept Erfworld on its own terms might have something to do with his being stuck in an apparently [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/erf0084.html hopeless situation.]] Later, the viewpoint is inverted by Wanda's statement, "You didn't wish for this world, Parson Gotti. It wished for you."

* Averted in the ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' novels. In later books, Kyon [[spoiler: ends up in a timeline without time travellers, aliens or espers. He considers how selfish it is to want to change things back, that the people in the new timeline have just as much right to exist. He does it anyways, but often "wakes up late at night, with their faces in his mind."]]

* ''[[http://www.jump-leads.com/ Jump Leads]]'' takes the assumption of infinite parallel universes to its extreme conclusion: agents visiting parallel universes need not worry about anything except fulfilling their missions and self-preservation, because "We have, bluntly, universes to burn."

** Grant Morrison wrote a JLA story where a heroic version of Lex Luthor arrives from a MirrorUniverse and refers to the main DC world as "Earth 2."

* Since the characters in ''Series/OnceUponATime'' have both fake memories of growing up in mundane reality and hearing versions of their Enchanted Forest lives told as fairy stories, ''and'' the knowledge that their old world was recorded in Henry's book by the Author, other "realms" have similar books, and the non-magical world doesn't work like that, they become quite comfortable referring to it as "the real world".

* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}''. The fantastic beings are aware that ''their'' reality is just a phantasm and there's a real world ''out there''. And they're OK with that, taking things and customs that drift from the outside, for example the sport of soccer. The same thing is true for the humans: only humans that reject the "real world" can stay in Gensokyom but it’s not that much of a problem considering that most of Gensokyo’s human population have lived there from birth and have never even seen the real world and probably have no interest in ever going there.

** In ''Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld'' and especially the sequels, the wizards consider the Disc is the real world and "Roundworld" is an oddity that sits on a shelf in Rincewind's office. They respect that the inhabitants of Roundworld might see this differently, though. Plus, somewhere on Roundworld there's an author named "Terry Pratchett" with a neat idea for a story...

* In gamer lingo, RL [[CaptainObvious refers to Real Life]], and is used when something outside the game is mentioned or requires attention ("BRB RL"). So far so good. However, some gamers have taken on to use the term to describe different portions of their actual lives, as if one part of their lives is more real than others. This can get especially odd if they refer as "real world" to the non-work, non-school time of their lives, which is often spent playing the aforementioned games.

* HarryPotterAndTheCursedChild: Most of the characters (even those in the alternate timelines) acknowledge that the canon timeline is worth returning to because it is in some way significantly better to that alternate one. Scorpius, however, clearly sees his original timeline as the "real" one, with the alternate timelines as mistakes to be "fixed". He makes the following distinction which, once you've already made a few time jumps, starts to seem a little shaky:

* In a not-dissimilar way, in ''Series/{{Life on Mars|2006}}'', nobody from 1973 ever appeared to take Sam Tyler seriously if he mentioned being back in time, or anything relating to his pre-car-crash existence. In ''Series/AshesToAshes'', Alex Drake is quite sure that the whole experience of being in 1981 is a hallucination, and repeatedly says so out loud, but, again, nobody bats an eyelid or suspects that she's deranged.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom,'' Danny and the others talk about the 'real world' and the 'ghost world'. Even some ghosts refer to the human world as the 'real world', despite it not being clear if they were ever living people.

Interestingly, with AlternateUniverse works this trope will come in play much less and protagonists will rarely, if ever, call their own universe "the real world". Perhaps it's because the AlternateUniverse they visit bears plenty similarity to their own, so the issue is that the protagonists/writers are subconsciously thinking [[WhatMeasureisANonHuman world that runs on magic / has different laws of science]] = [[RealityIsUnrealistic not a real world]]. Or perhaps it's because instead of calling their world "the real world" it's more common to call the world they're from "[[TheEarthPrimeTheory Earth Prime]]". Again, this can be justified if TheMultiverse actually works as such, with every other universe ultimately able to be traced back to the one the protagonists live in, but quite often "''Earth Prime''" is used simply because from their point of view, their universe's timeline is the "right" one and every other universe is just a deviation. So, expect the protagonists to go 'In this world, [[ElvisLives Elvis is still alive]]' when you could easily flip it around and say 'In this world, Elvis has died instead of living to a ripe old age as he's supposed to'.

Interestingly, with AlternateUniverse works this trope will come in play much less and protagonists will rarely, if ever, call their own universe "the real world". Perhaps it's because the AlternateUniverse they visit bears plenty similarity to their own, so the issue is that the protagonists/writers are subconsciously thinking [[WhatMeasureisANonHuman world that runs on magic / has different laws of science]] = [[RealityIsUnrealistic not a real world]].

And even if the main characters treat everyone in the other world as people, there's still the stupefying habit of ''referring'' to their homeworld as "the real world". This seems like it would be incredibly rude, yet [[MoralDissonance nobody ever calls them on it]]. Even more bizarre is when the natives themselves start doing it. Of course, the question of what to call either universe would be tricky, since the distinction had no reason to come up before the two worlds began interacting. A common solution is the PlanetEngland naming convention, though that's still protagonist-oriented because it's arbitrarily based on the country ''they'' first visited (and it ought to sound to most natives like, well, "Planet England" or "The Johannesburg Universe" might sound to us). It also won't work if the "other" world is an AlternateUniverse with all the same countries. Thus, confusion is left to a minimum as long as the other world's natives "correctly" recognize our universe as the primary one.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}''. The fantastic beings are aware that ''their'' reality is just a phantasm and there's a real world ''out there''. And they're OK with that, taking things and customs that drift from the outside, for example the sport of soccer. However, it's a serious problem with humans: only humans that reject the "real world" can stay in Gensokyo.
** It’s not that much of a problem considering that most of Gensokyo’s human population have lived there from birth and have never even seen the real world and probably have no interest in ever going there.

* In the crossover ''ComicBook/JLAAvengers'' comic, during a dream-state where in ComicBook/TheAvengers and the [[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]] regularly meet up, the heroes argue which Earth is Earth 1.

* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' has its protagonists refer to "the real world" so much that the commercials started making fun of it. In this case, it was more that "Digital" was a kind of PureEnergy as opposed to Matter, which was referred to as "Real".

* In gamer lingo, RL [[CaptainObvious refers to Real Life]], and is used when something outside the game is mentioned or requires attention ("BRB RL"). So far so good. However, some gamers have taken on to use the term to describe different portions of their actual lives, as if one part of their lives is more real than others.
** This can get especially odd if they refer as "real world" to the non-work, non-school time of their lives, which is often spent playing the aforementioned games.
*** For this reason, many college professors have come to refer to life outside of academe as "the civilian world" instead.

* The Literature/FactionParadox book ''Dead Romance'' has an extreme version of this - the main character's world is just a small bottle universe sold to the {{Time Lord}}s. Upon escaping to the universe "above" (outside the bottle), she begins to realise, that may be yet another bottle universe. So she starts a quest to find the uppermost universe - the true Universe.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom,'' Danny and the others talk about the 'real world' and the 'ghost world'. Even some ghosts (who [[FridgeLogic should identify more with the ghost world]]) refer to the human world as the 'real world'.
** FridgeBrilliance: Since at least some of the ghosts were once human ([[FlipFlopOfGod maybe]]) they might still think of that as the "normal" reality.