History Main / OntologicalMystery

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'':
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E79FiveCharactersInSearchOfAnExit Five Characters in Search of an Exit]]": An Army major, a ballerina, a hobo, a clown, and a bagpiper wake up in a cylindrical grey room, with no memory of their lives before that moment, and a deafeningly loud, gonglike noise occasionally makes the room shake wildly. All make guesses about where they are and why. Limbo, a dream, space, and hell itself are mentioned. Where and what they are is revealed -and turns out to be entirely unexpected.
--->'''Ballerina:''' We don't know who we are, we don't know where we are. Each of us woke up one moment, and here we were in the darkness. We're nameless things with no memory — no knowledge of what went before, no understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.
%%"Stopover in a Quiet Town", and the pilot episode "Where is Everybody?"

** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E14Clues Clues]]": The ''Enterprise'' crew is revived by Data after having been rendered unconscious by a NegativeSpaceWedgie. It quickly becomes apparent that they were unconscious much longer than they had thought, that Worf has somehow sustained a major injury, ship's records have been tampered with, and that [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Data is desperately trying to cover up]] whatever happened during the lost time.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E14Conundrum Conundrum]]": The characters' memories are erased and they are left with no contact with the outside world. They need to figure out the purpose of the ship, their roles on it, and the validity of their apparent mission to destroy a planet. Their only initial clues are their positions on the bridge and the design of the ship.

* Congratulations. Whoever you are, wherever you are, you are part of the [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters very, very large]] EnsembleCast who was born into one of these.

* ''Film/{{Unknown}}'': A group of men wake up locked in a warehouse with amnesia, and their circumstances and injuries suggest that they've been fighting each other. They must figure out what's going on, who's on who's side and what's at stake.

* The Website/SCPFoundation has the amended file for SCP-031. When checking the database, a researcher found that, unknown to her or her predecessors, the Ryuugong Hotel was not only hosting SCP-031, but also SCP-1427. Wondering if the Koreans were using the hotel as a detention facility, it soon transpired that any team sent in would ''only'' see evidence of the anomaly they were looking for, and absolutely no trace of the other, including other investigation teams. The Korean branch of the Foundation had no idea either SCP was being kept at the hotel, and they couldn't find traces of ''either'' SCP or ''either'' team. Just as soon as the researcher begins pushing for an explanation, [[YankTheDogsChain she unceremoniously leaves her post due to health problems]].

* The Website/SCPFoundation has the amended file for SCP-031. When checking the database, a researcher found that, unknown to her or her predecessors, the Ryuugong Hotel was not only hosting SCP-031, but also SCP-1427. Wondering if the Koreans were using the hotel as a detention facility, it soon transpired that any team sent in would ''only'' see evidence of the anomaly they were looking for, and absolutely no trace of the other, including other investigation teams. The Korean branch of the Foundation had no idea either SCP was being kept at the hotel, and they couldn't find traces of ''either'' SCP or ''either'' team. Just as soon as she begins pushing for an explanation, [[YankTheDogsChain she unceremoniously leaves her post due to health problems]].

** "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S2E5DemonWithAGlassHand Demon With a Glass Hand]]" opens with amnesiac protagonist Trent wandering through a city while fending off attackers. He reflect on his predicament in an InternalMonologue.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1963'': "[[Recap/TheOuterLimits1963S2E17TheProbe The Probe]]", the last episode of the original series. A group of plane crash survivors find themselves in a mysterious closed environment full of lab equipment, stalked by a grotesque monster, with no idea how they got there or how to get out. It turns out that [[spoiler:they were brought aboard an alien space probe, the monster is a huge, mutated microbe, and they're released when they manage to communicate with the aliens]].

* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}''. Although the characters themselves don't ask questions relating to how they, a [[SchizoTech bunch of sentient cyborgs, came to be living a primitive lifestyle on a tropical island ]], WordOfGod has stated that this was a major source of the series' appeal in the early years, as the viewer would be curious as to how this situation came about. The Matoran were unaware that they were suffering from mass amnesia, so they were just as surprised as the viewers were when their origins were slowly revealed over the next few years of storyline.

* ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' follows a girl named Tulip, who finds herself trapped on a bizarre train full of puzzles and pocket dimensions, trying to find her way home with the help of a robot named One-One. By the start of the pilot episode, she'd already been stuck there for a week, with no idea how she got there or why there are glowing numbers on her hand.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': In "[[Recap/RedDwarfSIIThanksForTheMemory Thanks for the Memory]]", the characters wake up with no memory of the last four days. Lister and the Cat each have a foot in a cast. Four pages have been torn out of Lister's diary, the ship's black box is missing, and the jigsaw puzzle Lister had been working on is finished. They have to track down the black box and play back its recording to find out what happened.

** "Clues": The ''Enterprise'' crew is revived by Data after having been rendered unconscious by a NegativeSpaceWedgie. It quickly becomes apparent that they were unconscious much longer than they had thought, that Worf has somehow sustained a major injury, ship's records have been tampered with, and that [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness Data is desperately trying to cover up]] whatever happened during the lost time.
** "Conundrum": The characters' memories are erased and they are left with no contact with the outside world. They need to figure out the purpose of the ship, their roles on it, and the validity of their apparent mission to destroy a planet. Their only initial clues are their positions on the bridge and the design of the ship.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'':
** "Five Characters in Search of an Exit": An Army major, a ballerina, a hobo, a clown, and a bagpiper wake up in a cylindrical grey room, with no memory of their lives before that moment, and a deafeningly loud, gonglike noise occasionally makes the room shake wildly. All make guesses about where they are and why. Limbo, a dream, space, and hell itself are mentioned. Where and what they are is revealed -and turns out to be entirely unexpected.

* ''Series/RedDwarf'': In "Thanks for the Memory", the characters wake up with no memory of the last four days. Lister and the Cat each have a foot in a cast. Four pages have been torn out of Lister's diary, the ship's black box is missing, and the jigsaw puzzle Lister had been working on is finished. They have to track down the black box and play back its recording to find out what happened.

* ''Literature/{{Riverworld}}'' by Philip José Farmer has apparently everyone ever born trapped between a desert and a river, with their intact memories from birth to death in our real world. If you happen to die again, you wake up again in a different spot along the river. Later books provide an unconvincing rationale for this.

-->-- '''Music/TalkingHeads''', [[Music/RemainInLight "Once in a Lifetime"]]

* The first ''Film/SawI'' movie. In later movies it is already established who is behind all of it, but the OntologicalMystery still applies to specific (groups of) characters.

[[folder:LARP]]
* The "amnesia game" is one of the most common types of theatre-style live-action roleplaying games. Only the DecadentCourt is more popular.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The plot of the 2007 ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind." Homer spends the episode trying to regain his memories of the previous night. [[spoiler:InvokedTrope because Homer accidentally learned about a surprise party the town was holding for him, and asked Moe to concoct a GargleBlaster that would [[LaserGuidedAmnesia un-spoil the surprise for him]].]]

* ''Film/{{Unknown}}'': A group of men wake up locked in a warehouse with amnesia, and their circumstances and injuries suggest that they've been fighting each other. They must figure out what's going on, who's on who's side and what's a stake.

** However, the prequel mostly averts this by [[SequelEscalation expanding]] the narrative and focusing on the PunchClockVillain operators, [[spoiler: one of whom is a genius that figures out all the Cube's secrets]].

%%* ''Film/{{Identity}}'': All the guests are trapped in the motel during a bad rainstorm that knocked out the power lines, ensuring that no one can call for help.[[spoiler: The ontological mystery part is, that everything is happening in the mind of a single person who suffers from multiple personality disorder (each of the ten guests represents one personality).]]

%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. Please add context before uncommenting.

* ''Anime/TheBigO'' Roger Smith is a negiotator in a domed city (implied to be [[spoiler: a futuristic New York City]]) where everyone came down with a case of unexplained LaserGuidedAmnesia forty years ago. The outside world is seldom referred to, but it's implied to be largely an unexplored wasteland.

%%* ''Anime/{{Megazone 23}}''

* ''Anime/GargantiaOnTheVerdurousPlanet'': A teenage boy has been fighting a brutal race of [[OctopoidAliens space mollusks]] for literally his whole life, when he finds himself flung through a wormhole to Earth...which is now largely flooded and was thought to be uninhabitable. After some {{Breather Episode}}s of him settling into a relaxed civilian lifestyle, [[CerebusSyndrome things start get getting foreboding]].

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': Humanity has spent the last century holed up within three massive Walls, protected from the Titans that appeared seemingly out of nowhere and devoured mankind to the brink of extinction. No one knows where the Titans came from, or even how the Walls that protect them were constructed -- the cult that worships them claims they were a divine gift. Information on the outside world is strictly controlled by the government, and people with interest in exploring outside the Walls are labeled as heretics.
** Oh, and [[spoiler:there are Titans in the freaking walls, too]]. Which is a hint as to this whole business, but still...
* ''Anime/LogHorizon'' is a more direct instance of this trope as unlike other 'trapped in an MMORPG' series's, the ''Elder Tale'' game didn't use any kind of special VR-Interface (just a standard keyboard/mouse/microphone setup), leaving the characters at a loss as to how they got transported into the game at all, or how they might get home.
* Several of these drive the story in ''Manga/OnePiece'', the biggest of which is the nature of the "One Piece" treasure itself. There's also the "Void Century", a hundred-year gap in recorded history that ended with the World Government coming into power.
* ''Manga/ThePromisedNeverland'' starts in a peaceful orphanage that the children are only allowed to leave when they are sent to their "foster family" - [[PeopleFarm i.e sent to be killed and eaten by monsters.]] The protagonists learn the truth about what their orphanage really is and they do have access to books and scientific knowledge, but they have no idea what those demons are, what happened to humanity, or what awaits them if they manage to escape.
* ''Anime/KemonoFriends'' starts with an amnesiac girl in a savannah. There are several other girls with [[LittleBitBeastly animal traits]]. Also {{blob monster}}s, robots, and semi-functional machinery. Slowly uncovering just what's going on is much of the series' appeal.

%%* As is the ''Film/SourceCode''.
* The first ''Film/SawI'' movie. In later movies it is already established who is behind all of it, but the OntologicalMystery still applies to specific (groups of) characters.

%%* ''The Exterminating Angel''
* ''Film/TheFountain'' portrays RealLife as an ontological trap that can only be escaped through death. TheProtagonist refuses to accept this and, having eaten from the bark of the mythical tree of life at the fountain of youth, becomes [[WhoWantsToLiveForever doomed to outlive the rest of humanity because he's trapped in a spaceship on the edge of a dying star.]]
%%* ''Film/{{Paycheck}}''
* ''Film/EdenLog''. A man wakes up in the middle of a dark cave, not knowing how he got there, and trying to find his way out.
%%* ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'', which bears a few similarities to ''[[Film/EdenLog Eden Log]]''.
%%* ''Film/AlienCargo''
%%* ''Film/HouseOf9''

%%* ''Film/{{Memento}}''
* ''Film/{{Exam}}'' has the characters at a job interview in which they are presented with a 'test' that turns out to be a blank sheet of paper. They have to work out what the problem is and then solve it, and they're all rivals for a highly sought after job. If any of them leave the room, they lose the chance. Panic rises and things get violent...

%%* ''Film/{{Captivity}}'',
* For ''Film/{{Inception}}'', one of the clues that you're in a dream is when you can't remember how you got to where you are.
* ''Film/{{Chariot}}''. Seven passengers wake up on an airliner flying high above the United States. The door to the cockpit is locked and no-one responds when they knock on it. No-one has any idea how they got there, but it has something to do with an Operation Chariot, designed to protect crucial people in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.
* ''Film/HorseGirl'': The plot is driven by Sarah's quest to understand what is going on in the world around her, and why she has missing memories and keeps finding herself in strange places with no memory of how she got there.

* The Creator/HPLovecraft short-story "The Outsider": a man has lived his whole life in a dark castle beneath an all-enclosing forest that blocks out the sky. Yet, he feels strangely that he has not always been there...
* Creator/WilliamSleator's ''Literature/HouseOfStairs'': five teenagers wake up in the titular House of Stairs. It's a giant complex of interlocking stairs and platforms, but none of the stairs lead out; they only connect to other parts of the maze.
* ''Literature/{{Issola}}'': A couple of people our protagonist considered completely indestructible have gone missing. Not even Sethra Lavode, who very much deserves her ShroudedInMyth status, can find them by herself. She knows how to get Vlad there, and he arrives to find his two friends stuck in unbreakable, seamless chains in an empty room with no exits that appears to be on another planet. The plot hinges on figuring out how the hell the bad guys managed it, and why.
%%* ''Literature/{{Minotavr}}'' (Minotaur).
* ''The Helmet of Horror'' by Victor Pelevin. Several people wake up in rooms connected only by a chat-like computer system; each room opens into a labyrinth. Some labyrinths are real, some metaphorical, and one is accessible only through dreams.

* ''Literature/TheTrial'' by Creator/FranzKafka
-->Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., he knew he had done nothing wrong but, one morning, he was arrested. [[spoiler: At the end he finds out that he is guilty of life and original sin. Once he realizes the nature of his crime, he submits willingly.]]
* Also by Kafka, ''Literature/TheCastle''. A surveyor is summoned to the town surrounding a tremendous castle of [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Obstructive Bureaucrats]], and nobody is sure why; the protagonist thinks he knows who he needs to talk to so he can find out, but first he has to get an appointment with the undersecretary and convince him to give him an appointment with the regular secretary... and so on. He is inexplicably appointed two childish assistants that mostly just make fun of him. The book was never finished, so it's not clear if there ever was an ending.

* ''Literature/{{Riverworld}}'' by Philip José Farmer has apparently everyone ever born trapped between a desert and a river, with their intact memories from birth to death in our real world. If you happen to die again, you wake up again in a different spot along the river. Later books provide an unconvincing rationale for this.
* One of the many themes in ''Literature/HouseOfLeaves''. It's also one of the less {{Mindscrew}}y themes, which should give you some idea of what the book is like.

* In the Creator/FredricBrown short story ''Literature/HallOfMirrors'', a 25-year-old man suddenly finds himself fifty years in the future. In a locked room, with a letter addressed to him on the desk. Reading it, he learns that he is actually 75 years old, but has just de-aged himself, which erased his memory of the last fifty years. The letter is from his older self, and it includes the horrifying explanation of ''why'' he has done this. And may have to do it again, fifty years from now.
* Creator/PiersAnthony's ''Literature/{{Mercycle}}''. The characters are not locked in a room, however, they are compelled into the task of riding bicycles under the ocean with no idea who hired them and for what purpose. It's pretty much ''Film/{{Cube}}'' in the sea.
* ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'' begins with Dante lost in a dark forest with too little memory to explain how he got there beyond being extremely tired when he left the true path. He only escapes the forest thanks to the intercession of Beatrice, who reveals that Dante's deviations came as a result of seeking to replace his dead love with lesser, counterfeit goods.
* Scott Sigler's ''The Generations Trilogy'' begins with a group of young adults who have no memory of their past waking up trapped in coffins engraved with their names. After breaking out of the coffins, they find themselves in dimly-lit and unimaginably vast ruins, full of skeletons and dust at every corner.
* ''[[Literature/CordycepsTooCleverForTheirOwnGood CORDYCEPS: Too clever for their own good]]'' [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/6178036/chapters/14154868]] opens with one of the main characters waking up in a hospital room with no idea how he got there and no idea who he is. As the story's summary puts it, "This turns out to be the ideal state of affairs, and is swiftly ruined."
* ''Literature/{{Piranesi}}'', by Creator/SusannaClarke, starts with the title character, an AmnesiacHero, living — essentially trapped — in a gigantic, possibly infinite, house full of huge statues and only one other living person. References and small items suggest a connection to our world; Piranesi gradually discovers the truth, as best he can.

%%** ''Endgame'' also, with a JustBeforeTheEnd flavor to it.
%%* ''Theatre/SixCharactersInSearchOfAnAuthor'' is Luigi Pirandello's way of making the ''theater itself'' into an Ontological Mystery.
%%* ''Theatre/RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead'': Repeatedly discussed by the titular characters
* The second half of the fourth Bottom Live show has Richie and Eddie inexplicably falling into a steel dome and thus the two of them have to figure out how to escape and get back to their show for the second act.
* Christopher Stasheff's one-act play "The Actor's Nightmare" features a hapless accountant named [[AlanSmithee George Spelvin]] waking up in the nightmare that all actors experience: No idea what play he's in, what character he plays, or what his lines are -- and the curtain is about to go up.

* ''VideoGame/{{Countdown}}'' by Access Software opens with the protagonist waking up in a mental asylum without memory.

* ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest:''
--> '''Ego:''' How did I get here? I remember... Nothing.

* ''5 Days a Stranger'' from the ''VideoGame/ChzoMythos'' series. Trilby's perfectly innocent attempt to rob a deserted mansion turns into a nightmare when he and several others are trapped inside by an unknown force.
%%** VideoGame/TwelveThirteen
* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' begins with the amnesiac [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Nameless One]] waking up in a mortuary in the otherworldly city of Sigil. Piecing together who the Nameless One is makes up most of the story.
* ''VideoGame/TheNeverhood'' begins with our hero Klaymen trapped in a room (see above) with no information, and goes from there. Justified in that you later find out [[spoiler: he had just been created and doesn't ''have'' any backstory.]]
* ''eXperience112'' (''The Experiment'' in America), the player is trapped in a control room with no memory how he got there. Notable in that you do not leave the room -- you use its controls to manipulate another character into solving puzzles for you.
* In ''VideoGame/EternalSonata,'' Frederick Chopin views all of the events that transpire in the game as nothing more than a dying dream. Finding out whether or not that's true is a major element to the story.
* ''VideoGame/TheWhiteChamber:'' You wake up in a coffin [[spoiler: on a space station.]] You can leave, but you'll die of asphyxiation.
* ''VideoGame/{{Theresia}}'' for the DS fits this perfectly, with the main character slowly regaining her memories throughout the game, and the house is filled with deadly traps.
* ''VideoGame/SilentHill4: The Room'' - the only chapter in the series in which the protagonist didn't willingly enter.
* This style is one of the [[OlderThanNES oldest computer games:]] ''[[http://www.freearcade.com/Zplet.jav/Advent.html Adventure,]]'' originally copyright 19'''73'''; ''[[http://www.freearcade.com/Treasure.jav/Treasure.html Adventures in 4 dimensions,]]'' originally copyright 1979, updated in the early 90's; and ''[[http://www.freearcade.com/Zplet.jav/Count.html The Count]]'' which was originally written for the UsefulNotes/TRS80, which was only sold from 1977 to 1981.
* Creator/{{From Software}}'s [[VideoGame/DemonsSouls So]][[VideoGame/DarkSouls uls]][[VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}} borne]] series frequently uses elements of this, as part of its minimalist style of storytelling that relies heavily on StoryBreadcrumbs. Most of them do start with cutscenes that vaguely describe what's going on in the world, while leaving out many important details that are up for you to discover.
** Out of all of them ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'' plays this the most straight, since it has no such expository cutscene. It simply begins with your character receiving an injection of mysterious blood and then waking up some time later to find the clinic abandoned and city overrun with beasts and mad hunters, with no immediate explanation of how things got that way. You'll have to rely on the StoryBreadcrumbs to find out.
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'', if you press the islanders on how they arrived on the island or the outside world, they're unable to respond and get migraines.
** The beginning of ''VideOGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'': Link is sent into a parallel world after being transformed into a Deku Shrub and finds himself in the middle of a strange town, unable to escape because there are guards in every exit blocking his path. He needs to find out exactly where he is, what is going on and how to return to normal in three in-game days' time before the world ends. Afterwards, the game plays like a regular ''Zelda'' game.
** At the start of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', Link wakes up in a strange cave called the Shrine of Resurrection with no knowledge of [[AmnesiacHero who he is]], how he got there, or why he's being guided to specific locations. While you eventually get a chunk of exposition at the end of the tutorial section explaining the basic gist of the backstory and Link's role, there are still lots of recoverable memories, old diaries, and NPC interactions that give you a much more complete picture of what happened.
* The prologue of ''VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent''. The rest of the game is about rediscovering your past identity and past actions. [[spoiler:Which are far from pleasant.]]
* The goal in ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose'' is to learn of Jennifer's past and come in terms with it.
* Videogame/{{Submachine}}, a point-and-click adventure series has infinite layers of complexities and strange dimention-warping room-escape-esque games. Even when in a literally infinite open space, you still cannot escape.
* In ATLUS' game ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'' every one of the sheep in the Nightmare World start off completely oblivious, including Vincent. Many conversations on the landings involve trying to discover who the rumored witch is, why they are there, and whether or not there even is an exit. The only sure exit from these nightmares [[spoiler:is death]]. [[spoiler:The trials themselves are highly symbolic of maturity, dealing with Vincent's unwillingness to take responsibility]].
* The main characters of ''Videogame/LevelUp!'' are a girl with no backstory and a guy with no memories [[CrashIntoHello who lands on her fence.]]
* ''VideoGame/FragileDreamsFarewellRuinsOfTheMoon'' is a variation of this. It can be summed up as "[[TheLastManHeardAKnock the last man on earth]] went outside."
* ''VideoGame/{{Second Sight}}'': The player character wakes up in what looks like a hospital room with amnesia and is trying to find out who he is and why he is there.
* ''VideoGame/OperatorsSide'' begins with your character mysteriously waking up in a space station's control room after a monster attack, not knowing how he got in there or where his girlfriend is, with his only link to the outside world being a cocktail waitress named Rio.
* ''VideoGame/TheStarshipDamrey'', for the 3DS you wake up from Cold Sleep with amnesia, you can't get out of your box, and you need to explore the eponymous ship using remote controlled robots. It uses a lot of NothingIsScarier.
* ''VideoGame/SystemShock'' and the sequel, ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'', both begin this way. In the first game, you awaken from a coma aboard Citadel Station. In the latter game, you are brought out of cryo aboard the starship ''Von Braun''. While you are initially left to piece together clues in the first game, the second game starts you off with being in contact with MissionControl from the word go. [[spoiler: Of course, you don't know who is actually on the other end of the radio, and she's not telling you everything.]]
* ''VideoGame/BioShock1'' has your character narrowly survive a plane crash, seeking shelter in the underwater city of Rapture. [[LateToTheTragedy Which has gone completely to hell.]] Similar to ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'', you have a MissionControl [[spoiler: who is not entirely honest with you.]] Its sequel ''VideoGame/BioShock2'' and its DLC ''The Minerva Den'', has two Big Daddies that can strangely use Plasmids.
* ''VideoGame/TheWitness'': The player starts at the end of a dark metal tube shelter underground, opening doors to climb up onto a castle's patio. [[spoiler: The normal ending returns the player to the same spot, undoing all of the work they have done. The hidden GoldenEnding as well as hidden in-game audio reveal this area to be the starting point of an elaborate virtual reality simulation.]]
* Each main game in the ''Franchise/DanganRonpa'' series focuses on a group of elite high school students who wake up trapped in a ClosedCircle (in the first game, it's a school; in the second game, it's a cluster of deserted islands). Though much of the plot centers around solving murder mysteries as a result of the [[DeadlyGraduation killing game]] they've all been unwillingly recruited into, the students (especially the PlayerCharacter) are simultaneously striving to learn about their surroundings, unmask the mastermind and find alternate ways to escape.
* ''VideoGame/TheSpectrumRetreat'' begins with the protagonist waking up at the Penrose hotel, having apparently been there for almost a month (if not longer), and the game is concerned with how he came to be there and how to get out.

* Nageki's situation in ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend''. He has no memories, is restricted to a handful of rooms, and most people are "[[InvisibleToNormals ignoring]]" him.
--> I feel uncomfortable. Where did I come from? Where was I born? The fact that I am trapped in here is the least of the mysteries plaguing my mind. Nervous. I'm nervous.
* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'':
** Makoto Naegi, the devoted, optimistic teenager of a secretive, unbiased wit, is invited by a lottery to Hope's Peak Academy, labelled as the "Ultimate Lucky Student". Right after he enters the facility, his consciousness begins to warp into something incomprehensible. As soon as he returns from his light state of catatonia, he finds himself in a classroom that he doesn't know if it's truly inside the academy he just entered, or if it's a different classroom. After visiting the entrance of the academy and finding the Ultimate students residing there, Monokuma summons them all to the gymnasium. By Monokuma's announcement, he follows suit, and after reaching the intended area, Monokuma announces the Killing Game concept.
** [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair Hajime Hinata]], someone who admires Hope's Peak Academy in a similar vain to Makoto, transitions from outside the entrance to the academy by randomly having his consciousness fizzle between where he currently is to an isolated door that leads him into a locked classroom containing students presumed to be from the academy. Usami, their teacher, bounces up from behind the pedestal, lifts down the classroom walls and announces the field trip. Confused, Hajime goes catatonic and is woken up by Nagito, who expositions everything and introduces the cast to Hajime. Usami then summons everyone to the beach for a gift and an opportunity fror all to swim with one another. Monokuma's sudden appearance interrupts everyone, and he demands them to go to the centre island, where he announces the Killing Game and usurps Usami's role, renaming her "Monomi" and then executing her with a Monobeast unit.
** [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony Kaede Akamatsu]], a hopelessly average female student who doesn't have a rich family, or a talent of any class, exits and falls out of a locker, finding herself in an awkward classroom she doesn't recognise. Shuichi Saihara falls out of the locker next to her with as much confusion and as little specialty as she does. When leaving the area, they encounter a series of Exisals that lure then into the gym, where they find 14 other normal people, making up 16, the number Rantaro makes a point about. The Exisals that chased the duo into the gym are revealed to be Monokmua Cub units. They proceed to give the students outfits so they're less normal, and give them their "first memory". A light is shone on the cast and their memories are returned to them, Kaede and Shuichi returning to the lockers. Both of them introduce themselves to the rest of the students, and are ordered to visit the gym again by the Monokuma Cubs, where Monokuma announces the Killing Game.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Fleep}}'': one person, in a phone booth, sealed in concrete.

* ''Webcomic/TheEnds'' has as a central plot element the question of whether the inhabitants really exist or are simply living out a self-inflicted hell created when they blew themselves up in a nuclear apocalypse.

* ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'' starts off with the three protagonists stuck in a locked room, but rapidly grows to encompass an imaginary universe, demonic mafia kingpins and a army of courtesan angels. In the end, the goal of the three main characters is to escape the office building they are trapped in and reach the streets of the Real World.

%%* ''{{Voices}}'' starts out as this.
* ''Webcomic/ABeginnersGuideToTheEndOfTheUniverse''. You are alone in a house which is floating in a void. Also, you have [[ThePowerOfCreation godlike powers]]. What the hell?
* ''Webcomic/{{Superego}}'' has ten individuals trapped in an AbandonedHospital [[spoiler:in the middle of an abyss]], and they have to work together to get out.
* The Seedlings from ''Webcomic/{{morphE}}'' wake up in crates with no idea how they got there and are made prisoners of a rich and beautiful mage who wishes to train them in the art of magic (or kill them, whichever is more convenient). The first moment the survivors get alone they begin comparing notes to find out how and why they got in this situation. Best they could manage is that all but one of them were local to Chicago.

* ''Webcomic/TheComplex'' opens with:
--> You wake up in a room. You don't remember where you are, or anything really. Except that your name is Tim. And you like video games.

* All three games on ''Website/{{Addventure}}'' begin with the protagonist finding himself in a void or in a strange room.

* The premise of Season 1 of ''WesternAnimation/TheHollow'' is that Adam, Kai, and Mira find themselves in a bizarre world full of monsters and strange people with no idea who they are or how they got there. [[spoiler: It turns out that they're voluntary participants in a virtual reality game. Their memories being blocked is part of the challenge.]]

* The "amnesia game" is one of the most common types of theatre-style live-action roleplaying games. Only the DeadlyDecadentCourt is more popular.

* ''[[Literature/CordycepsTooCleverForTheirOwnGood: CORDYCEPS: Too clever for their own good]]'' [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/6178036/chapters/14154868]] opens with one of the main characters waking up in a hospital room with no idea how he got there and no idea who he is. As the story's summary puts it, "This turns out to be the ideal state of affairs, and is swiftly ruined."

* ''Literature/{{CORDYCEPS}}: Too clever for their own good'' [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/6178036/chapters/14154868]] opens with one of the main characters waking up in a hospital room with no idea how he got there and no idea who he is. As the story's summary puts it, "This turns out to be the ideal state of affairs, and is swiftly ruined."

* ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'' starts off in a rather simple locked room version of this, but rapidly grows to encompass an imaginary universe, demonic mafia kingpins and a army of courtesan angels. In the end the main character goal is to escape the office building they start off mysteriously trapped in and reach the streets of the real world.
* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': A young boy starts a multiplayer video game and finds himself and his house are suddenly TrappedInAnotherWorld, while back on Earth [[spoiler:meteors are destroying civilisation]]. That's only the beginning...

* ''Series/WandaVision'': Wanda and Vision find themselves living in Westview, an idyllic sitcom world, a StepfordSuburbia. However, unlike most examples, it doesn't appear that either Wanda or Vision ''want'' to know how they got there or how to get out, being perfectly content to live (semi-)normal lives as part of a sitcom world. However, reality seems to be encroaching, showing that people ''outside'' of Westview want to know what's happening.

* ''Series/WandaVision'': A pastiche of vairous sitcoms with a horror twist as a couple from the ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' moves into the neighborhood of their dreams, but it turns out but something's not right, and it quickly becomes apparent that things are not as they seem in their StepfordSuburbia...

* ''Series/WandaVision'': A pastiche of vairous sitcoms with a ''PsycologicalHorror'' Twist as s a couple from the MarvelCinematicUniverse moves into the neighborhood of their dreams, but it turns out but something's not right, and it quickly becomes apparent that things are not as they seem in their StepfordSuburbia...