Normally, the boundaries of the imaginary remain inviolate: regardless of whether it takes the form of a dream, a virtual reality, a delusion, or something similar, you can't take things from the imaginary world into reality. Normally, when this does happen, it takes the form of a Fantasy Keepsake, an indication that the apparent fantasy world was Real After All.
So, it may come as something of a shock to rational characters when they find themselves awakening from what really is an unambiguous dream... only to find that something they found there is still in their pocket.
The reasons for this are many and varied: often, this is meant to indicate that the barrier between dreams and reality may not be as sturdy as previously thought; maybe some kind of Reality Warper power may be in play; it may even be that Reality Is Out to Lunch entirely.
And on rare occasions, this trope may be used to invert the standard Fantasy Keepsake trope, in that finding something from a dream in the real world may even be a sign that you're still dreaming.
Regardless of how it happened, something in a dream has unexpectedly been made flesh, and the onlookers have to live with the implications — especially if the item was alive.
A Dream Stealer or a Dream Walker may have a few such objects lying around.
Contrast Bedtime Brainwashing, where real people affect someone's dream. Not to be confused with Based on a Dream, in which something in the real world was inspired by a dream instead of being literally created by a dream.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Doraemon:
- Doraemon has a one-shot gadget called the "Dream Hoop", where dreamers can throw whatever stuff they see in their dreams and have it appear in the real world. When Doraemon started having sweet dreams about enjoying a massive dorayaki feast, he remembered to activate the gadget and teleports around twenty dorayakis from the dream-verse to reality, for him to continue eating after waking up.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen zig-zags this around, where thanks to Torinho's intervention, objects from reality can enter the dream-verse, and vice-versa. Doraemon and the dream-verse Alternate Self of Nobita, Shizuka, Suneo, and Gian enjoy a massive feast in the dream world, and in reality, Nobita's mother Tamako realizes someone has emptied their larder. The third act notably has Fairy Shizu from the dream world literally breaking reality and entering the real world to tell Doraemon and Nobita that in their absence, the dream world is about to be destroyed by Lord Odorom's demons.
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, when struggling against Mannish Boy's Death XIII in a dream world, Kakyoin attempts to force himself awake by stabbing his arm with his own knife. In actuality, he was actually carving a message that passed through before he woke up.
- Paprika (anime adaptation):
- Early in the film, Paprika gives Detective Konakawa her business card, which he hangs onto in the real world... even though Paprika is a persona of Atsuko Chiba that exists only in the dreamworld.
- During the search of Himuro's apartment, Atsuko is somewhat alarmed to find herself encountering the Creepy Doll that Himuro uses as his avatar, seemingly just as animated as it is in the dreamworld. Curious, she follows it through the apartment... only to lurch back into the real world and very nearly fall to her death over the apartment balcony: the doll wasn't really there, and Atsuko was dreaming while wide awake. Worse still, it turns out that the hacker who stole the DC Mini has the power to alter his targets' perceptions of reality...
- In the finale, Atsuko and Dr Shina are walking away, convinced that they've achieved victory over the hacker... only for a kaiju-sized version of Himuro's doll to suddenly loom into view behind them. As it turns out, Reality Is Out to Lunch and a whole host of figures from dreams are being brought into the real world, including the nightmare parade, the two bartenders from the dream lounge, and even Paprika herself—much to Atsuko's irritation.
Fan Works
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Black Lotus
begins with an experiment: during a lucid dream, Twilight uses magic to transport a black lotus flower from her dream to her real bedroom. The fact this experiment succeeds is strong evidence that the "real world" is itself another dream or a simulation, so Twilight spends the rest of the fic pondering the philosophical ramifications of this.
- In The Fairy Sapphire, Belle journeys through the land of her dreams, the afterlife, and the land of the future in what she thinks as a simple vivid dream after waking up in her bed. Then, however, she sees that the beautiful flowers picked in the land of her dreams are lying at her bedside. She keeps the bouquet for the rest of her life (they stay fresh for a far longer time than normal flowers, and even after they fade, they are preserved much better).
- With This Ring: Paul encounters a pair of Dream creatures who have been raiding people's dreams for valuable objects, then using Sympathetic Magic on someone with a strong connection to the Dream realm to keep those objects intact in the waking world. Ted Kord is very interested in studying the whistle that Paul is able to retrieve, capable of putting people to sleep with no other side effects.
Kord: So... Someone dreamed about a whistle that could put people to sleep, and this is it? It can't be that easy.Paul: No, it's more like... This object is an archetype that people dream about, and they're all dreaming about this.
Films — Live-Action
- A Nightmare on Elm Street:
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): After several nights of being stalked in her dreams by Freddy Kruger, Nancy is taken to a sleep disorder clinic for observation. While there, Freddy attacks her once again, and though Nancy is awakened before he can inflict any permanent damage, she wakes up with streak of grey in her hair... and Freddy's hat clutched in her hand, real enough to be taken home from the clinic. In the finale, Nancy uses the same technique to bring Freddy himself into the real world, allowing her to subject him to a gauntlet of traps before willing him out of existence entirely.
- Freddy vs. Jason: Similarly, Lori is menaced by Freddy in a nightmare and wakes up during the struggle to find that a handful of his torn-off flesh has made it into the real world. This once again comes back in the finale when, after managing to save Jason from being killed in a nightmare, Lori is able to use the same trick on Freddy to drag him into the real world... where he finds himself facing down an extremely pissed-off Jason.
- Pleasantville: In the finale, while Jennifer chooses to remain in Pleasantville's TV Land, David decides to return to the real world. Ever the loving mother, Betty gives him a bag of pastries for the journey... and when David finds himself back in the real world, he finds that the bag returned to reality along with him.
Literature
- The Gone-Away World: The Stuff acquires definition by absorbing data from the minds of humans exposed to it, resulting in unconscious desires, fears, and even dreams being made manifest. In one case, a little girl dreams of being a horse while immersed in a cloud of the Stuff, only to wake up to find herself becoming a horse—which unfortunately kills her.
- Good Omens: After being introduced to Conspiracy Theorist magazines and environmentalism by Anathema Device, Adam Young has dreams on both subjects... but as he's the Antichrist, his Reality Warper powers result in the contents of his dreams becoming real, leading to sea monsters attacking whaling ships, aliens landing on Earth, Atlantis rising from the ocean, and the nuclear material in a reactor vanishing and being replaced by a lemon drop. Given that he's Obliviously Superpowered, Adam isn't initially aware of any of this.
- The Second Shield: in this short story (first featured in Playboy), an artist named Beckerman creates peculiar and wondrous works of art in his dreams, and the finished pieces appear in his bedroom overnight. One piece his dreams created is the Shield of Achilles, which was sold to a Greek shipping magnate. However, like all Beckerman's dream creations, the shield was impermanent and disappeared after about two years. The shipping magnate sends thugs to harass Beckerman into dreaming up a second shield, though unfortunately, Beckerman has no control over his dreams.
- The Wheel of Time: A Forsaken somehow magically expels the Hero of the Horn Birgitte's soul from the World of Dreams where she was resting between reincarnations. It takes emergency magical intervention to keep her new body alive in the physical world, and she's quietly terrified that the unnatural act might have broken her Reincarnation Romance.
Live-Action TV
- Farscape: In "John Quixote," Crichton spends a good chunk of the episode playing a dodgy VR game based on his adventures, during which he is provided with three golf ball-like hint vouchers. After managing to escape from the simulation, Crichton soon finds himself dealing with Scorpius attempting to take over Moya... up until he finds the last hint voucher in his pocket. It turns out that the game's exit functions were all lies, and Crichton never stopped playing.
- The Sandman (2022): Towards the end of "Playing House," Lyta finds herself getting pregnant in a dream, courtesy of her husband's ghost. When she finally awakens from the happy dream, she finds that the pregnancy has somehow carried over into the real world and she's now sporting a very noticeable baby bump. It turns out that this is a direct result of being in close proximity to Rose Walker as her Dream Vortex powers continue to grow.
- In Supergirl, as Dreamer's powers grow, she develops the ability to pull things out of people's dreams and into reality.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): Implied in "King Nine Will Not Return". A man finds himself stranded in the desert with the wreckage of an old bomber plane he served on, only to wake up and find himself in hospital, being treated for guilt-induced hallucinations... but while a nurse is handling his clothes, she finds sand in his shoes.
Mythology & Religion
- In the Italian folktale "The Dreams of Gualtiero", (as featured in Legends of Florence by Charles Godfrey Leland) a man suffering from terrible nightmares is taught how to bring things from his dreams. On the third night, Gualtiero dreams of being buried under a pile of gemstones and gold. In the morning, the King of Dreams notes the empty treasury and sends an emissary to negotiate.
Podcasts
- In Season 3 of The Storage Papers, narrator Jeremy starts experimenting with lucid dreaming based on notes he's found in the titular documents and finds that he's capable of bringing objects back from his lucid dreams.
Tabletop Games
- Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands boxed set: The Crystallizer of Dreams is a device that allows a dreamer to bring a Dreamlands object into reality. Within 1-20 hours, the object will begin to fade and return to the Dreamlands. A person can expend magic points to delay the object's return: 1 point per 1-20 hours delay.
- Chronicles of Darkness:
- Changeling: The Lost: An advanced Dream Contract can pull out a functional copy of something a nearby person has recently dreamed of. Complex objects like cars aren't eligible, but impossible ones like a fog bank or a pegasus feather are; the Changeling can also pull out a wearable "costume" of a living creature. It normally only lasts a few seconds, but on an Exceptional Success, it remains physical indefinitely.
- Mage: The Awakening: Many Wrong Context Magic artifacts and memories of lost treasures are found in the Astral Realms, and an advanced combination of Mind and Matter magics can temporarily copy one into the physical world. A more powerful spell can permanently transform one into a physical object, but the long-term consequences of tearing out part of humanity's collective unconscious are unknown.
Video Games
- EarthBound: In his visit to Magicant, a place formed of his own mind, Ness can gather various equipment to bring for the others after he's defeated his nightmare.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: The quest "Waking Nightmare" sees the people of Dawnstar plagued by unceasing nightmares when they try to sleep, so they ask the Dragonborn and a priest of Mara, Erandur, to investigate. They discover that Vaermina, the Daedric Prince of Dreams and Nightmares, is behind it. Working together, Erandur helps you to "Dreamwalk" through a ruin that can only be traversed by dream to get to the Skull of Corruption, a Magic Staff associated with Vaermina and source of the nightmares. Erandur seeks to destroy it, but Vaermina speaks to you and offers to let you take the staff if you kill Erandur. Take the latter option and you get to return from the "dreamwalking" with the staff in hand.
- Mario & Luigi: Dream Team: Luigi has the ability to fall asleep and open up the dream world that Mario may enter. This is necessary for them to acquire the Dream Stone to keep it out of the hands of Bowser and Antasma.
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer: Dreamwalking forms a significant part of the plot, and the PC is able to bring back items from various dreamworlds multiple times, including the fragments of the eponymous mask which are required to get the Golden Ending.
- Pokémon Black and White: When the games were first released, players could connect to the internet and access the Pokémon Dream World. At the end of a session in the Dream World, they could send items and even Pokémon into a special tree there, then go back to their game and collect them from a location called the Entralink.
- Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters: In the Dream Land level, Ratchet can procure bolts, items, and new weapons from vendors to bring out once he awakens despite being unconscious at the time.
- Sam & Max Hit the Road: During the visit to Bumpusville, Sam must use a virtual reality machine in order to access the mansion's security systems, resulting in a fairy-tale adventure to slay a dragon. Once Sam's finished slaying the dragon (and abusing Max in reality), he retrieves a key from the heart of the dragon... and back in the real world, Sam finds the same key in his hand. It's used to free Bruno and Trixie from the Bumpusville floor show.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Among the worlds is SpongeBob's Dream which involves SpongeBob falling asleep and entering the dreams of others. Any golden spatulas, shiny objects and socks that he and Sandy collect in the dreams are added to his actual collection.
- Viewfinder: In the finale, it turns out that the Weather-Control Machine being developed in the virtual world never worked, the entire project has been a failure, and the simulation can't help you stop the ongoing apocalypse. Worse still, the only way for you to escape is to delete the simulation and all its wonders. However, as you leave VR for the final time, you happen to take a seedling from a simulated desert—and somehow end up bringing it with you into reality, suggesting that you've managed to find a means of undoing the environmental decay after all.
Web Comics
- In Housepets!, one of the primary Running Gags when it comes to Pete, Kitsune and the rest of the quasi-divine entities in the setting's cosmology is that they can invade the dreams of the pets in the series and force them to wake up under normal circumstances—but always leave behind some object that makes them question if it was actually a dream, ranging from a gryphon feather to a solid gold statue of their likeness.
Western Animation
- Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog: In "Boogey-Mania", Professor Von Schlemmer invents the Dream-a-Majig, a machine that takes creatures from the dreams of whoever wears it and brings them into the real world. He demonstrates it by summoning a Non-Ironic Clown from his dreams. When Dr. Robotnik finds out about the Dream-a-Majig, he kidnaps Von Schlemmer and uses the Dream-a-Majig on himself to summon the Boogey Man, a creature from his nightmares, so it can terrorize Mobius. Sonic and Tails save the day by using the machine on Tails to create a stronger creature from his food-based nightmares to combat the Boogey Man.
- Futurama: In "The Sting", Fry covers Leela with his jacket in her dream when they ride across a snowy landscape, the jacket then becomes a Fantasy Keepsake after Leela wakes up. When Leela tries to show the others later on, it was her own jacket.
- The Midnight Gospel: The universe simulators seem to operate on a combination of virtual reality and magic, creating entirely simulated worlds with no presence in reality—while at the same time allowing users to bring objects from the virtual world into the real world. Throughout the series, Clancy brings back souvenirs from his adventures, most commonly the shoes he collects Once per Episode, but also a number of things brought back by accident, including one of the clown parasites from "Officers And Wolves", an ice cream-puking pegasi from "Hunters Without A Home", and Trudy the Love Barbarian's healing rose from "Blinded By My End." In "Vulture With Honor", it turns out that more enterprising "simulation farmers" like Blithrreyus use the same function to track down valuable artifacts within the simulated worlds and sell them on the black market.
