Dream Deception

"You're having a very strange dream, and in this dream, you're seeing this man whom you've all met before."

— Captain Kathryn Janeway, Star Trek: Voyager, "Death Wish"

A character seems to be really in for it now... someone has stumbled upon their secret, or is asking a question that they don't want to or don't know how to answer. But hold on... it's nighttime, isn't it? So maybe they could just lie and say, "Move along. You're just dreaming." And that's what the Dream Deception is.

Usually, the character who was lied to will accept this and either walk away or ignore what's happening, but sometimes they won't buy it and will have to be shooed away, put to bed, sung to sleep, given warm milk, or even anaesthetised.

While this is related to Gaslighting, it's not the same thing— most Dream Deceptions will only be for one instance and not over a period of time. Additionally, a Dream Deception is generally not in an attempt to make a character believe they're delusional.

Contrast Dream Tells You to Wake Up for when it really is a dream and they don't want you to keep sleeping. Also contrast Bizarre Dream Rationalization, where a character tells themselves they're dreaming. Compare Faked Rip Van Winkle. Also compare Delusion Conclusion for when the viewers pretend something was a dream. May involve a faked Shared Dream. For when a person pretends they are dreaming as a way to Cope by Pretending, see In the Dreaming Stage of Grief. May be used to hide the Masquerade.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Dragon Ball Super: When Goku and Vegeta are tasked with changing Beerus's sheets while he sleeps, they are careful not to wake him up. When Beerus opens his eyes, Goku quickly tells him that he is simply dreaming them there as Beerus closes his eyes again.

Fan Works

• The Loud House:
  • In Game-Banned, Lincoln is playing a video game despite being banned from playing them. His ditzy sister Leni catches him, but he tells her that she's dreaming and she walks off.
  • A variation in Lucy's Secret. Lucy has wet the bed and is stripping her sheets, when her sister and roommate Lynn wakes up. Lucy doesn't outright tell Lynn that she's dreaming but deliberately tricks her into believing she is by making her actions seem like a dream. Namely, she arranges her pyjama pants to make it look like she has three legs and claims Lynn is on the moon, training to be King of Nebraska and Cheese Puffs with several famous athletes.
• Played disturbingly in the explicit (but not purely pornographic) Star Trek: Enterprise fanfic Sleeping Beauty, in which Original Character Jacob Ridley has sex with a semiconscious Hoshi and convinces her she's dreaming.

Films — Live-Action

• Camp Rock: When Mitchie needs to sneak away early to help her mom prepare breakfast, she's caught by Ella. To ensure she stays quiet, Mitchie convinces her that she's just dreaming, and Ella goes back to sleep.
• The Indian in the Cupboard: Both times Omri transforms Tommy the British Army medic figurine into a living person with the cupboard, Omri tells him he's dreaming to avoid having to explain summoning him out of World War I into a two-inch-tall body.
• The Last Starfighter: During the period where a robot duplicate is standing in for Alex, his little brother Louis wakes up in the middle of the night and sees the robot performing self-maintenance. The robot tells Louis he's having a nightmare and should go back to sleep.
• In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Logan mentally time travels back to the '70s, essentially hijacking his younger self's body. Later, some psychological trauma breaks his mental connection for just long enough for '70s-Logan to briefly regain consciousness — in the middle of trying to thwart an assassination. Charles Xavier, to prevent '70s-Logan from freaking out, starts to explain what's happening, then realizes how crazy it sounds and says instead: "You're tripping. You took some acid and you're having a bad trip."

Literature

• Animorphs: One book has the team infiltrate a mental care facility through the restroom as cockroaches. Rachel is still halfway through demorphing when someone comes in. Fortunately, as these are mental patients the team rationalize that no-one will believe any witnesses (and as it turns out, the patient is also remarkably accepting of Rachel's explanation and helpfully fetches the man they wanted to talk to).
  I was about two feet tall, with skin like burnt sugar, monstrously long antennae sprouting from my forehead, human eyes, semihuman legs that bristled with dagger-sharp hairs, blond hair, and a wide, throbbing yellowish-brown abdomen, when the bathroom door opened.
  A man shuffled in, wearing slippers. He headed for the toilet. He hesitated. Slowly, very slowly, he turned.
  My human mouth was just appearing. My lips grew from melted roach mouthparts.
  "Hi. Could you get George Edelman for me?"
  The man nodded. "Sure." He started to go.
  Then he turned back. "Are you real?"
  "Nah. Just a figment of your imagination."
  "Ah. I'll get George."
• Captain Underpants:
  • In "Captain Underpants and the Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000", George and Harold go to school to make copies of their comic, but Miss Anthrope catches them. George tricks her into thinking that this is a dream, and she's fully convinced once she sees the Yesterday versions of the boys. She strips down to her underwear and tells all the teachers that they're dreaming, so they all go wild.
  • In "Captain Underpants and the Big, Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy - Part 2: The Revenge of the Ridiculous Robo-Boogers", George and Harold fly down with Crackers to Miss Singerbrains's car to take the Combine-O-Tron 2000 and the Forgetchamacallit 2000. Miss Singerbrains is shocked, so George tells her that she's dreaming because pterodactyls landing on cars, kids with lasers and time-traveling porta-potties can't exist. After Harold pretends to take Crackers back to her own time period, the boys use the Forgetchamacallit 2000 on Miss Singerbrains.
• East of Eden has an especially dark variant after Cathy reveals her true nature and intentions to Faye when the two of them are drunk together. Upon sobering up, she drugs Faye and alternates between torturing her and comforting her, eventually managing to convince her that she had a long series of vivid nightmares while in the grip of a sudden illness.

Live-Action TV

• In Father Ted, Ted Crilley pulls this one on Bishop Brennan when he is staying over at the Parochial House. The Bishop's sleep is disturbed by things like Father Jack and lots of rabbits, and it falls to Ted to persuade the Bishop he is still asleep.
• Happy Days: "My Favorite Orkan" appears to end with Mork's existence and alien antics being revealed as Richie's dream. The final scene is Mork reporting to his superior that he has successfully tricked "the human" into thinking that he was imaginary.
• One episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch sees Sabrina's muggle friend Jenny wander into the Other Realm by accident. In order to get Jenny out without her figuring out that they're witches, Sabrina and her aunts convince her that she's just having a very vivid dream, and so conjure up some common dream tropes (such as running without getting anywhere and Jenny's celebrity crush showing up) to fool her.
• In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Death Wish", an omnipotent alien kidnaps Isaac Newton and a guy from the 20th century. When they ask what's happening, Janeway, not wanting to or knowing how to tell them all the details, tells them that they're having a strange dream.

Video Games

• Killing the Ender Dragon in Minecraft will result in two characters telling you via a poem of sorts that the whole game was All Just a Dream. Unlike most examples of the trope, they tell you to wake up.

Web Comics

• In the The Order of the Stick prequel On the Origin of PCs, Haley accidentally makes enough noise to awaken a sleeping guard. She convinces him that he's dreaming.

Web Original

• In the Protectors of the Plot Continuum mission "Illogical in All the Right Ways", Christianne and Eledhwen assassinate a Spock impostor and his girlfriend, then convince the canon characters that it had all been a nightmare.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In the "Dungeons and Wagons" episode, Stan catches Francine watching 2 Fast 2 Furious, and it's why he asks Francine if she is bored with him. Francine says Stan is having a dream so she can avoid answering his question.
• Family Guy:
  • Brian grabs Lois's boobs while she's sleeping, and when she wakes up, Brian tells her that she's dreaming. When Lois says she isn't, Brian knocks her out with a lamp.
  • In "Brian, Chris and Stewie's Excellent Adventure", Stewie and Brian decide to take Chris on a trip through time in an attempt to help him with his history exam. In order to keep Stewie's time machine a secret, they tell Chris that he's dreaming.
    Chris: Yay, no consequences! (takes out a knife and chops his hand off) AAAAAHH!!! SO LIFELIKE!
    Stewie: (sigh) Alright, let's go back six minutes and try this again.
    (six minutes ago)
    Stewie: Chris, you're dreaming with consequences.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "Infernal Slumber", Mac's friends unexpectedly show up to his apartment for a sleepover. When a half-asleep Terrence walks into the living room, they get the idea to start acting all wonky to convince him it's all a dream, while Bloo walks him back to his bed. Unfortunately, this allows Bloo to hit him with the shaving-cream-in-the-face prank he's been aching to pull throughout the episode.
  Terrence: HEY, WAIT A MINUTE—! (SPLAT!)
• The Loud House: In "Pipe Dreams", the parents are building a secret bathroom in their closet. When one of their little daughters, Lola, goes down into their room after a nightmare and sees some of the construction, the parents lie to her that she's still dreaming.
• Scaredy Squirrel: In "Cowlicked", Scaredy has a cowlick and wonders what could've caused it. He has an Imagine Spot of a cow licking the top of his head while he's asleep. He wakes up and sees her, but she awkwardly tells him he's dreaming as she backs out of the room. At the end of the episode, that same cow licks Scaredy's new trophy, and she tells Scaredy this is a dream as she backs away again.
• The Simpsons: In "The Girl Who Slept Too Little", Lisa tries to conquer her fear of the graveyard by wandering through it at night, where she gets knocked unconscious and has a dream about monsters. The next morning, Homer and Marge find her still out and try to wake her up.
  Homer: Lisa, honey, please wake up. If you do, I'll get you a new pony.
  Lisa: [springs up] New pony?
  Homer: Uh, this is still part of your dream! Dreaming... Dreeeeaming... Now you're awake!

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