Basic Trope: A character flings out of bed after a nightmare.
- Straight: Alice has a nightmare so scary that she wakes up and sits up, gasping.
- Exaggerated: Alice has a nightmare and wakes up screaming at the top of her lungs.
- Alice has a nightmare and sits bolt upright with such force it flings her out of bed into a standing position.
- Downplayed: Alice wakes up from a nightmare, but while she's clearly disturbed/upset by it, she doesn't scream or shoot up into a sitting position.
- Alice lays in bed for a few moments, heart pounding while she stares at the ceiling. She eventually sits upright while trying to calm herself down.
- Justified: Alice leaps up because the nightmare was of something traumatic, or because someone was trying to kill her in her sleep.
- Inverted: Alice has a pleasant dream and jumps out of bed with joy.
- Subverted: Alice wakes up normally after having a bad dream.
- Double Subverted: However, she has a worse version of said dream after falling back asleep, and then she shoots up screaming.
- Parodied:
- "Did you have a nightmare?" "No, I'm screaming for the fun of it."
- Alice has a nightmare so scary that it somehow manages to turn her bed into a literal catapult.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice wakes up gasping and shooting into a sitting position. Bob wakes up and does the exact same thing. When asked, Alice says that she had a terrible dream. Bob, when asked, admits that he just got up because he needs to pee.
- Averted: Alice doesn't have a nightmare and sleeps peacefully.
- Enforced: Alice is having a nightmare, but the audience doesn't see what she's dreaming about (although if they know that Alice has been through a trauma or has something on her mind, then they might be able to guess). They only know that it's a bad nightmare when she wakes up gasping and clutching at the blankets.
- Lampshaded: "Is Alice okay?" "No, she's been having nightmares. Every night for a week she's woken up screaming."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "I've been having bad dreams, lately." "Oh, sorry Alice. Did you wake Bob up by screaming?" "No, I didn't scream. My dreams are bad, but they aren't that bad."
- Discussed: "Why do you think people shoot up screaming when they have a bad dream?" "I think it has to do with fight-or-flight or something."
- Conversed: (At a sleepover) "Hey, Bob, what do you think Alice is dreaming about?" (Alice wakes up thrashing around and screaming). "Nothing good."
- Implied: "Alice hasn't been sleeping well. Bad dreams."
- Deconstructed: Alice loses sleep and disturbs any/everyone who lives with her because of her screaming nightmares.
- Reconstructed: Alice sees a therapist about them or people invest in earplugs.
- Played for Laughs:
- Alice wakes up screaming and does so for several seconds while her concerned/annoyed partner stares at her.
- Alice wakes up screaming and continues to do so while she runs around the house.
- Alice wakes up screaming and keeps screaming so long she drools all over herself. After she lies back down she's still screaming except she's gurgling her spit and screaming at the same time. Alice's gurgle-screams wake up a terrified neighbor who also sits bolt upright and begins screaming.
- Played for Drama: Alice has nightmares because of a traumatic incident that's left her with PTSD.
- Played for Horror: A villain has found a way to enter Alice's dreams and turn them into nightmares so terrifying that she wakes up screaming every time and can't get any sleep.
