History Main / ThisIsNotAFloor

** In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', Moist has a ghostly vision of the post office at its height and splendor. During this vision, he's walking around, and he realizes that the floor ahead of him in the vision is where the hallway he's in, in the present, abruptly ends with a long drop. One of the previous postmasters had been found, dead of a fall, right under where the hallway is, so Moist realizes this is what had happened.

* While he occasionally does the opposite, Wile E. Coyote is known for his painting of a bridge in front of a chasm. The road runner [[RealityWarper takes the bridge]], Coyote tries to chase it, rips through the picture and falls.

* ''Manga/{{Needless}}'' inverts this with a character who can turn things invisible - large projectiles, most of the floor except the small patch on which the heroes are standing, the wall between him and them...the trick is to keep them from realizing what he's doing.
* Something similar happens in ''Anime/{{Fractale}}'': the system maintaining a HardLight town flickers off, and several people fall through the fake floor to their deaths. [[WhatAnIdiot Why they were dumb enough to build a non-physical floor several stories above the ground is another matter.]]

* Used to great annoyance in some ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games, most egregiously the 3D ones, in dungeons that use the [[SeeThruSpecs Lens Of Truth]] or local equivalent.
* Old gamers of the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' series may remember ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'' and its annoying fake floors, which can only be detected if you fell through them or if you made obsessive use of Holy Water to figure out which floors aren't fake.

[[folder:{{Anime}} & {{Manga}}]]
* Shows up twice in ''{{Paprika}}'', first from the outside, as a character rants about "[[WordSalad the fifth grade class with the photographic zoom lens]]" and runs through a full-length window, then from the inside, with the main character snapping out of it just in time to avoid going over a balcony.

* ''[[{{Needless}} NEEDLESS]]'' inverts this with a character who can turn things invisible - large projectiles, most of the floor except the small patch on which the heroes are standing, the wall between him and them...the trick is to keep them from realizing what he's doing.
* Something similar happens in ''{{Anime/Fractale}}'': the system maintaining a HardLight town flickers off, and several people fall through the fake floor to their deaths. [[WhatAnIdiot Why they were dumb enough to build a non-physical floor several stories above the ground is another matter.]]

* This is part of Mysterio's M.O. in ''{{Spider-Man}}'' comics and cartoons.

[[folder:Film]]
* Peters of ''Film/EventHorizon'' was killed in this fashion when the evil ship created an illusion in her mind of a bridge across an open shaft with her son on the other side, resulting in her falling to her death on the gravity chamber floor.

* [[spoiler: Lasciel]] in the [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Dresden Files]] book ''Dead Beat'' pulls this on Harry, filling an apartment with illusionary [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes flame]] and putting an illusionary fire escape outside the window before breaking the illusion to show that it ''could'' easily kill Harry, [[IfIWantedYouDead but doesn't want to.]]
* In two ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books (''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'' and ''Discworld/MovingPictures'') the Tower of Art at the University is the scene for this trope. In both cases, the hero has to ascend a spiral staircase inside a crumbling 800foot tower, trusting to their senses that the stairs are still there under their feet - this is not a given. The trick is to close your eyes and really believe the stairs are still intact and can carry your weight - even when they are not.

* While Calesta, the BigBad of the ''ColdfireTrilogy'' is incapable of hurting people directly, his illusion powers make it easy for people to not notice a real danger, or a way to avoid said danger. At one point he makes an entire city fail to notice an incoming tidal wave.
* A version of this is used to perform a nearly perfect murder in the Literature/FatherBrown series. The murderer simply informs his (blind) lover that he is holding the elevator for her, then heads up a floor (the elevators are essentially silent), heads out onto his balcony where several hundred people can testify to his location, and waits for the lover to run into the now-empty elevator shaft.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

** ''RoyalPains'' does a similar version, where a "haunted" client can't tell the difference between a floor three inches below or thirty feet below.

* Inverted in ''Series/StargateSG1'' when the heroes have to cross a narrow bridge over a deep chasm. One of them falls...and lands unharmed on top of the illusory hole.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3rd Edition suggested in the Dungeon Master's guide that an effective trap would be an illusory floor over a pit of acid.
** [[CastingAShadow Shadow magic]] creates illusions that are [[YourMindMakesItReal just real enough]] to affect people who don't disbelieve them - like floors that work for gullible meat shields but drop the stronger-willed SquishyWizard into a spike pit.

* Old gamers of the ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' series may remember ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'' and its annoying fake floors, which can only be detected if you fell through them or if you made obssessive use of Holy Water to figure out which floors aren't fake.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpidermanTheAnimatedSeries'', Spider-Man inverted this with one of Mysterio's holocubes by projecting a gaping chasm below Rhyno, making him panic and flail around.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', one of the op-art tile patterns in the palace turns out to be a pit.

Trope name references Magritte's ''[[TheTreacheryOfImages Ceci n'est pas une pipe]]''. See also LeapOfFaith for a way to invert the trope. For the video game version of this, see FakePlatform.

* A version of this is used to perform a nearly perfect murder in the Father Brown series. The murderer simply informs his (blind) lover that he is holding the elevator for her, then heads up a floor (the elevators are essentially silent), heads out onto his balcony where several hundred people can testify to his location, and waits for the lover to run into the now-empty elevator shaft.

* One case in the original {{CSI}} involved a woman who'd jumped off a high-rise apartment balcony in her bikini. She'd been hypnotized to think she was taking a dip at the beach.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3rd Edition suggested in the Dungeon Master's guide that an effective trap would be an illusionary floor over a pit of acid.

* In ''SpidermanTheAnimatedSeries'', Spider-Man inverted this with one of Mysterio's holocubes by projecting a gaping chasm below Rhyno, making him panic and flail around.

[[folder:RealLife]]
* The famous Blackpool Tower, in the English seaside resort, stands nearly 500 feet tall. In its upper reaches, it has a perfectly walkable floor with secure side walls. [[InvertedTrope Only it's all made out of perspex]]. You are faced with a test of your nerve and susceptibility to vertigo, in walking across what at first glance appears to be empty space with a very long drop to the promenade below. A whole gallery of images ''[[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Blackpool+Tower,+walk+of+faith&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=mXg7UaLmCMSP7Aabz4GoBA&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=845 here]]''.
* A psychological experiment performed on very young kittens was to separate them from their mother and place them in a box where the only way out was a completely clear perspex tunnel suspended about four feet above ground level. Their mother was placed at the other end where the kittens could see, hear, and smell her. This tested both the kittens' and the mother's senses. The kittens were faced with discovering they could safely negotiate a passage that was apparently not there. Would they be able to perceive it and overcome their fear, given the incentive of getting back to Mother. And of course the mother cat, with greater experience, was equally free to discover for herself she could walk the same passage to get her kittens back.
** A similar experiment was conducted with human babies, done with a long ledge where the center was a clear plastic "bridge" over a gap, with their mothers on the other side.
[[/folder]]

* The famous Blackpool Tower, in the English seaside resort, stands nearly 500 feet tall. In its upper reaches, it has a perfectly walkable floor with secure side walls. Only it's all made out of perspex. You are faced with a test of your nerve and susceptibility to vertigo, in walking across what at first glance appears to be empty space with a very long drop to the promenade below. A whole gallery of images ''[[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Blackpool+Tower,+walk+of+faith&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=mXg7UaLmCMSP7Aabz4GoBA&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=845 here]]''.

* Old gamers of the ''{{Castlevania}}'' series may remember ''Simon's Quest'' and its annoying fake floors, which can only be detected if you fell through them or if you made obssessive use of Holy Water to figure out which floors aren't fake.

* In two ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books (''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'' and ''Discworld/MovingPictures'') the Tower of Art at the University is the scene for this trope. In both cases, the hero has to ascend a spiral staircase inside a crumbling 800foot tower, trusting to their senses that the stairs are still there under their feet - this is not a given. The trick is to close your eyes and really believe the stairs are still intact and can carry your weight - even when they are not.

* In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'': A Novel of Literature/{{Discworld}}, this happens to unsatisfactory postmasters (and, very nearly, Moist.)
** In fairness this wasn't an illusory floor, it was just a door into a pit with a very long drop at the bottom.
** Also in two ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books (''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic'' and ''Discworld/MovingPictures'') the Tower of Art at the University is the scene for this trope. In both cases, the hero has to ascend a spiral staircase inside a crumbling 800foot tower, trusting to their senses that the stairs are still there under their feet - this is not a given. The trick is to close your eyes and really believe the stairs are still intact and can carry your weight - even when they are not.

* A psychological experiment perpetrated on very young kittens was to separate them from their mother and place them in a box where the only way out was a completely clear perspex tunnel suspended about four feet above ground level. Their mother was placed at the other end where the kittens could see, hear, and smell her. This tested both the kittens' and the mother's senses. The kittens were faced with discovering they could safely negotiate a passage that was apparently not there. Would they be able to perceive it and overcome their fear, given the incentive of getting back to Mother. And of course the mother cat, with greater experience, was equally free to discover for herself she could walk the same passage to get her kittens back.

Trope name references Magritte's ''[[TheTreacheryOfImages Ceci n'est pas une pipe]]''. See also LeapOfFaith for a way to invert the trope.

* [[spoiler: Lasciel]] in the [[TheDresdenFiles Dresden Files]] book ''Dead Beat'' pulls this on Harry, filling an apartment with illusionary [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes flame]] and putting an illusionary fire escape outside the window before breaking the illusion to show that it ''could'' easily kill Harry, [[IfIWantedYouDead but doesn't want to.]]

* In at least two ''{{Discworld}}'' books (''The Colour of Magic'' and ''Moving Pictures'') the Tower of Art at the University is the scene for this trope. In both cases, the hero has to ascend a spiral staircase inside a crumbling 800foot tower, trusting to their senses that the stairs are still there under their feet - this is not a given. The trick is to close your eyes and really believe the stairs are still intact and can carry your weight - even when they are not.

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'' 3rd Edition suggested in the Dungeon Master's guide that an effective trap would be an illusionary floor over a pit of acid.

* The famous Blackpool Tower, in the English seaside resort, stands nearly 500 feet tall. In its upper reaches, it has a perfectly walkable floor with secure side walls. Only it's all made out of perspex. You are faced with a test of your nerve and susceptibility to vertigo, in walking across what at first glance appears to be empty space with a very long drop to the promenade below.
* A psychological experiment perpetrated on very young kittens was to separate them from their mother and place them in a box where the only way out was a completely clear perspex tunnel suspended about four feet above ground level. Their mother was placed at the other end where the kittens could see, hear, and smell her. This tested both the kittens' and the mother's senses. The kittens were faced with discovering they could safely negotiate a passage that was apparently not there. Would they be able to perceive it and overcome their fear, given the incentive of getting back to Mother. And of course the mother cat, with greater experience, was equally free to discover for herself she could walk the same passage to get her kittens back.