History Main / YouWakeUpInARoom

If the piece begins InMediasRes and the character wakes up in a room, and the '''audience''' has no idea where they are or what has gone before (or the character has only limited knowledge, possibly having been [[WhatDidIDoLastNight drunk the night before]], or something [[TapOnTheHead bad happened to him]], or he's in an alternate reality that [[WorldGoneMad only the audience]] seems to pick up on) that may be sufficient to meet this trope. If a character was seen in action and then passes out only to wake up safe but in an unfamiliar place, that's WakingUpElsewhere. Compare GoodMorningCrono and WakingUpAtTheMorgue. For extra points, may overlap with WhiteVoidRoom.

If the piece begins InMediasRes and the character wakes up in a room, and the '''audience''' has no idea where they are or what has gone before (or the character has only limited knowledge, possibly having been [[WhatDidIDoLastNight drunk the night before]], or something [[TapOnTheHead bad happened to him]], or he's in an alternate reality that [[WorldGoneMad only the audience]] seems to pick up on) that may be sufficient to meet this trope. Compare GoodMorningCrono and WakingUpAtTheMorgue. For extra points, may overlap with WhiteVoidRoom.

If the piece begins InMediasRes and the character wakes up in a room, and the '''audience''' has no idea where they are or what has gone before (or the character has only limited knowledge, possibly having been [[WhatDidIDoLastNight drunk the night before]], or something [[TapOnTheHead bad happened to him]], or he's in an alternate reality that [[WorldGoneMad only the audience]] seems to pick up on) that may be sufficient to meet this trope. Compare GoodMorningCrono and WakingUpAtTheMorgue. See also UnfamiliarCeiling and WakingUpElsewhere, where the character knows most of what happened except the part where they got to the room. For extra points, may overlap with WhiteVoidRoom.

If the piece begins InMediasRes and the character wakes up in a room, and the '''audience''' has no idea where they are or what has gone before (or the character has only limited knowledge, possibly having been [[WhatDidIDoLastNight drunk the night before]], or something [[TapOnTheHead bad happened to him]], or he's in an alternate reality that [[WorldGoneMad only the audience]] seems to pick up on) that may be sufficient to meet this trope. Compare GoodMorningCrono and WakingUpAtTheMorgue. For extra points, may overlap with WhiteVoidRoom.

* ''You Find Yourself In A Room'' by 2DArray, where this phrase is reiterated during many prompts.

* ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' starts off this way, with the PlayerCharacter awaking in a trashed hostel room, surrounded by empty booze bottles, stripped to their socks and underpants, with a killer hangover and complete blackout amnesia. Amongst the first "quests" presented to the player is getting a look at yourself in the mirror, and trying to get your tie down from the loft ventilator. It isn't until you manage to stagger out into the hall that you find out you're a detective from a fellow guest, then you discover that you were investigating a murder, and things just sort of escalate from there...

* In Webcomic/AwfulHospital, it's a hospital room.

[[folder:Comics]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

[[folder:Film]]

* This is the ''modus operandi'' for the "Jigsaw Killer" in ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'': nearly every victim wakes up in a room, and the punishment for failure (when it's not [[DeathTrap immediate and messy death]]) is usually turning it into a SealedRoomInTheMiddleOfNowhere.
* ''Film/{{Pandorum}}''... in a hypersleep capsule.
* In ''Film/{{Cube}}'', its sequel ''Film/Cube2Hypercube'', and its prequel ''Film/CubeZero'', all the victims of the cube wake up in a cube-shaped room with no memory of how they got there.
* The teleplay ''Film/TheCube'' (unrelated to the above series) where a man awakes in a solid white room with people coming in and out doing various wacky things, but he cannot get anyone to tell him where he is or why he's there, he's only told that somewhere on the wall is a hidden door made just for him.

* Occurs in both ''Film/TheHangover'' and its sequel.
* In ''Film/{{Circle}}'', fifty people wake up in a pitch black room featuring only a chess-like floor circled around a device in the center. It turns out that not only will someone die every two minutes, but the people in the room are voting who dies next by manipulating a mechanism on the floor.

* {{Deconstructed}} in the ''Website/TurkeyCityLexicon'' under the name "White Room Syndrome." According to the Lexicon, to begin a story with "She awoke in a white room" is "a clear and common sign of the failure of the author's imagination." Not only is it a cliché, it's likely [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything a barely coded description]] of the writer's own ideas slowly coming together while staring at a featureless blank piece of paper.

* The captives in ''Series/PersonsUnknown'' wake up in hotel rooms with little clue how they got there or why.
* ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone'' Classic episodes ''[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E150StopoverInAQuietTown Stopover in a Quiet Town]]" and "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Characters_in_Search_of_an_Exit Five Characters In Search Of An Exit]]".
* ''Series/TheHardyBoysNancyDrewMysteries'' has "Sole Survivor", where Joe Hardy wakes up in a hospital room with no clue where he is or how he got there, only to find out that he's not only been in a coma for a year, but that his father and brother are dead. Of course, [[spoiler: Frank and Fenton are very much alive, and the whole thing is a MindScrew to get Joe to reveal information on a defection attempt.]]

* The surreal drama series ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' begins with this trope: spy Patrick [=Mc=]Goohan wakes up in The Village with a headache not knowing why he has been transported there from London, nor why he is now only Number Six, and realises how difficult it is to escape.

* ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'': In the fourth season episode "No Exit" Tom Baldwin, Diana Skouris, Meghan Doyle, Marco Pacella, Brady and P.J. wake up to find themselves locked into the NTAC offices in Seattle where they work joined by Tom's son Kyle and oldest nephew Shawn Farrell, Diana's adopted daughter Maia, as well as Jordan Collier and Isabelle Tyler. During the episode they have to fight the building itself as it turns on them, cooperate, find out why they're there and find a way out.
* In the ''Series/BlackMirror'' episode ''[[Recap/BlackMirrorWhiteBear White Bear]]'', Victoria wakes up in the living room of a house, with a calendar, a TV set to a mysterious image, some pills, a headache, and no idea how she got there.

* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'': "The Murdoch Trap" opens with Murdoch unconscious in what proves to be a cage. He comes to hearing the voice of Julia repeatedly saying, "I forgive you, William," and he sees a mannequin that looks like Julia in a black dress hanging by the neck outside his cage. There's also a phone with a placard that threatens death if used and a film projector with a similar placard that says, "Turn Me On".
* ''Series/DarkMatter'': This is how the series begins. A group of apparently mis-matched people emerge from cryotanks on a spaceship with no memories of who they are or why they are on the ship. They figure who they are and what they were doing by the end of the first episode ([[spoiler:although one character later learns he's actually impersonating the person everyone thinks he is]]); and spend the bulk of the first season trying to figure out who erased their memories and why, finally learning it in the season finale.
* The first scene of ''Series/TheGoodPlace'' is of Eleanor's eyes snapping open, seeing herself in a room she doesn't recognize, and the words "Welcome! Everything is fine!" on the wall across from her. Then Michael comes in, and tells her [[DeadToBeginWith she's dead and in the afterlife]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The beginning of ''VideoGame/OneShot'' starts off like this, with the ChildProtagonist Niko waking up in a dark room. In fact, [[spoiler: it was even mentioned in the prophecy of the world Niko and [[AGodIsYou you]] are supposed to save.]] [[spoiler: [[BookEnds You return to the room near the ending(s).]] ]]

* You Wake Up In A Train Tunnel at the beginning of ''VideoGame/DarkFall : LostSouls'', and initially have no clue where it is. Then when your character does recognize the location, he has no clue (save possibly the bottle of vodka he's carrying) why he'd ''ever'' have come back to a place he loathes.

* You Wake Up In A Train Tunnel at the beginning of ''VideoGame/Dark Fall: LostSouls'', and initially have no clue where it is. Then when your character does recognize the location, he has no clue (save possibly the bottle of vodka he's carrying) why he'd ''ever'' have come back to a place he loathes.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' begins with Link awakening inside a [[spoiler: resurrection chamber]], with only the strange machine he lay in and a mysterious tablet computer. The way out is locked; however, Link can just use the tablet to unlock the door. Of course, as standard for this trope, Link has LaserGuidedAmnesia and possibly IdentityAmnesia to boot.

* 'VideoGame/VoyageInspiredByJulesVerne'' begins with Michel Ardan, the PlayerCharacter, waking up in a space shuttle bound for the moon, with the only other two people with him dead.

* In ''VideoGames/DragonsWake'' the player character is a young dragon. In the first level you hatch from your egg in a cave with no knowledge of how you got there.

* Happens at least twice to [[TheChewToy Rosa]] in ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry''. The first time is in the second arc's [[ColdBloodedTorture tea party]]. The second time occurs in the fourth arc, in what is [[MindScrew implied-ish?]] to be a DreamSequence Maria had.
** Happens to [[spoiler:[[TheAllConcealingI somebody]] (actually Battler)]] early on in the sixth arc.

* Parodied in [[C9omicBook/IncredibleHulk The Totally Awesome Hulk]] in which Amadeus Cho solves a logic puzzle involving this trope by replying that if there is "nothing in the room" then he is not in the room either.

* Parodied in [[TheHulk The Totally Awesome Hulk]] in which Amadeus Cho solves a logic puzzle involving this trope by replying that if there is "nothing in the room" then he is not in the room either.