History Main / YourWorstNightmare

* The ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' episode "Fear Strikes up a Conversation" played with this trope. Sabrina, nervous about giving a speech in front of all of Westbridge High, uses a spell to remove her fear--only for it to become a living shadow that followed her everywhere. While she was immune to its effects, it caused everyone around her to become overly paranoid: Libby, terrified of never winning another beauty pageant, constantly applied makeup; Harvey, worried about being injured, clung to walls rather than walking normally. To defeat her fear, Sabrina's [[TricksterMentor|Quizmaster]] leads her on a kind of JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, where she encounters her worst hidden fears, including being take advantage of for being too nice, not getting into a good college, and being outed as a witch. She conquers them all and goes through a door to discover her deepest fear...delivering her speech. She does so successfully, and overcomes her fear--who turns out to be Steve Allen. And once having overcome her fear, she then transforms herself into her Quizmaster's worst fear [[spoiler:a clown]] to torment him in a bit of well-earned payback.

* The ''Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch'' episode "Fear Strikes up a Conversation" played with this trope. Sabrina, nervous about giving a speech in front of all of Westbridge High, uses a spell to remove her fear--only for it to become a living shadow that followed her everywhere. While she was immune to its effects, it caused everyone around her to become overly paranoid: Libby, terrified of never winning another beauty pageant, constantly applied makeup; Harvey, worried about being injured, clung to walls rather than walking normally. To defeat her fear, Sabrina undergoes a kind of JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, where she encounters her worst hidden fears, including being take advantage of for being too nice, not getting into a good college, and being outed as a witch. She conquers them all and goes through a door to discover her deepest fear...delivering her speech. She does so successfully, and overcomes her fear--who turns out to be Steve Allen.

* ''WesternAnimation/ExtremeGhostbusters'' had "Fear Itself", an episode devoted to a ghost that did this. Turned out [[spoiler:it was a defense mechanism - the ghost was very small and ''very'' scared of ''everything''. The crew don't bother to bust it, since its terror of them has rendered it as close to catatonic as a ghost can get.]]

* ''TheChroniclesOfNarnia: Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' included an area of ocean known as the Dark Island "where dreams come true". In this case, "dreams" meant "dreams" not "wishes" or "daydreams". And "dreams" includes "nightmares".

* This is the power of the boggart species in ''Literature/HarryPotter''. The fears seen range from mundane (Hermione being told off by a phantom teacher for failing a test) to [[{{Tearjerker}} poignant]] (Molly Weasley seeing a vision of her dead sons). Harry's worst nightmare, interestingly, is the Dementor - a creature that spreads fear by its very presence, meaning his worst fear is fear itself.

** Batman often uses this phrase when a criminal asks what he is.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' Fanfic ''FanFic/Moonlight'', this is what every pony affected by the the mysterious being that is putting ponies to sleep has happen to them, from things that are affecting them recently to nightmares in their past.

* The second story arc of IDW's ''ComicBook/{{My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic|IDW}}'' comic sees the Mane Six being tormented by evil spirits with nightmares revolving around their worst fears, like Twilight's fear of disappointing her mentor Princess Celestia, or Applejack being afraid of letting down her family.

** Zigzagged in "Perchance to Dream". The Mad Hatter's dream machine traps Batman in an InescapableDream, but it's actually what he would consider a perfect life. His parents are alive, he's engaged to Selina Kyle - who isn't Catwoman - and someone else is Batman. However, when he realizes that its all a farce, he refuses to live a lie, and leaps off a building, causing himself to wake up, as his mind cannot perceive a scenario where he is killed. When he confronts the Hatter and demands to know ''why'', the villain breaks down in tears and admits that he wanted to give Batman his own dream life just so that he never appears in his own life ever again.
** Played straight in "Over the Edge"; after being doused with the Scarecrow's toxin in a fight, Batgirl fell into a deep slumber, and in her dreams, believed her own death occurred in the battle, and then [[UndeadNarrator was forced to watch her greatest fear played before her eyes, a war between Batman and her father as a result of it, all because she had kept her heroic identity secret from him until that point.

* In the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' universe, there is an epic monster known as a dream larva, a major threat usually sealed away in some other dimension. It is either a literal child of a god of dreams or a god's nightmare that has been so powerful that it absorbed a spark of his power and become sentient. In either case, its essentially Freddy Kruger on steroids, capable of messing up dreams of entire worlds at once. It also has a reality-warping power to assume the shape of everyone's worst nightmares [[AppearanceIsInTheEyeOfTheBeholder simultaneously,]] so most mortals get heart attacks just seeing it.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "The Menagerie," the illusion-casting Talosians attempts to bring the captured Capt. Pike to heel by momentarily creating the agonizing illusion that he is in {{Hell}}. Furthermore, they warn him that he if doesn't behave, then they'll dig deeper into his mind for the ''really'' nasty stuff!

* In ''KamenRiderDouble'', the Nightmare [[MonsterOfTheWeek Dopant]] torments people in their dreams, putting them into comas. In order to battle him, the protagonists transform into Double and ''then'' go to sleep, since the transformation places one person's consciousness in another's body. This creates an interesting fake-out moment, as a dream version of the character appears in addition to the real one, something the Dopant didn't anticipate.

* The second story arc of IDW's ''ComicBook/{{MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic|IDW}}'' comic sees the Mane Six being tormented by evil spirits with nightmares revolving around their worst fears, like Twilight's fear of disappointing her mentor Princess Celestia, or Applejack being afraid of letting down her family.

* In part of ''NightmareInspector'', [[WhiteHairedPrettyBoy Tsukishiro]], Hiruko's rival baku, alters people's dreams to make them more terrifying, and tastier to eat. Mind you, most of them were already having nightmares already, but Tsukishiro made them much worse.

* In the season 3 premiere of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', [[BigBad King Sombra]] turns out to have set a trap like this to protect anypony else from getting to the Crystal Heart. Twilight Sparkle falls into it, and sees a vision where Princess Celestia angrily tells her she failed her test and she should just give up on her magical studies. Spike manages to free Twilight, only to fall into it himself and be treated to a vision where Twilight tells him he's not needed anymore as her assistant and tries to send him away.

* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDragonJakeLong'' had this as an episode, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the nightmare was only realesed becuase Jake tried to cheat on a test.]]

** This is inversely done to the Sand Man via the girls when he gets fed up with constantly having to put people to sleep and get no sleep for himself, thus leaving him to decide to just force everyone to sleep at once. The girls find out that they have the power to communicate through dreams and use this to give the Sand Man so many nightmares that he never wants to sleep again. Yeah...

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "Only A Dream", the Justice League faces John Dee, AKA Doctor Destiny, a criminal accidentally given PsychicPowers by an experiment, who uses his new abilities to torture and kill his ex-wife in her dreams, then goes on to torment our heroes. He bites off a bit more than he can chew, though, when he taunts Franchise/{{Batman}}, who's powering through with willpower and coffee.

* In the ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' episode "Doppelganger", an entity jumps from an alien crystal to Sheppard, then from him through various cast members, causing vivid nightmares starring a sociopathic Sheppard. The entity only scares people at first, until [[YourMindMakesItReal killing]] [[spoiler: the psychiatrist Dr. Heightmeyer]] in a [[spoiler: falling dream where she hit the bottom.]] The sociopathic Sheppard which only acted on everyone else's worst fears (Heightmyer's fear of heights, Keller's fear of Alien etc.) eventually re-entered his own consciousness and its revealed his worst fear is ''himself'' which proceeds to taunt him about his [[{{ILetGwenStaceyDie}} failures]], self-loathing and beat him to a pulp.
** In a similar episode Sheppard hallucinates his arch enemy Koyla kidnapping and torturing him for hours. Again it turns out his worst nightmare isn't Koyla but that he's inadequete and deserves to be punished. There's a reason Sheppard is the BrokenAce.

* In the ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' episode "Doppelganger", an entity jumps from an alien crystal to Sheppard, then from him through various cast members, causing vivid nightmares starring a sociopathic Sheppard. The entity only scares people at first, until [[YourMindMakesItReal killing]] [[spoiler: the psychiatrist Dr. Heightmeyer]] in a [[spoiler: falling dream where she hit the bottom.]]

* {{Batman}} villain Scarecrow has used just about every possible variation of this trope in his lengthy career. Sometimes his involvement is left as a surprise, and his motives vary from revenge to simply studying the effects of fear.

* In JasperFforde's ''Well of Lost Plots'', Aornis unleashes her memories of Crimea on Literature/ThursdayNext. [[spoiler:She didn't think that maybe Thursday had worse nightmaries.]]

** If it weren't for the fact that it's Batman, that would be a NoodleIncident; as it is, it's kind of like a pre-fired ChekhovsGun.

* ''TheChroniclesOfNarnia: TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' included an area of ocean known as the Dark Island "where dreams come true". In this case, "dreams" meant "dreams" not "wishes" or "daydreams". And "dreams" includes "nightmares".