History Main / DelusionConclusion

* All over the place in ''VideoGame/{{Signalis}}'', to the point that the main point of interpretation in the fandom is not whether certain events in the game are a dream, but how much of it. To keep things short, [[spoiler:the main character is confirmed to be DeadAllAlong, the main driver of the game's events is an immensely powerful RealityWarper suffering a total breakdown, more than a few events are drawn straight from the past of said reality-warper, including the very fact that the main character is still alive, there's an entity going around that ''might'' be an EldritchAbomination, and the symbolism is laid on thicker than molasses]]. At the low end is the claim that it's all real, but RealityIsOutToLunch thanks to all the crazy stuff being thrown around, and at the high end is the claim that the ''entire game'' is a DyingDream.

* ''Fanfic/TheRugratsTheory'' is an infamous fan theory of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' which states that the babies except for Dil are either dead (Tommy, Chuckie, the twins), or were taken away by child services (Kimi) and Angelica's imagining the whole thing. There's also the semi-popular theory that the episodes after "Visitors from Outer Space" are the delusions of Angelica trapped on the planet. Whether Susie is real or imagined depends on which version of the theory you're reading; one has her being the DirectLineToTheAuthor.

* Not so surprisingly, there are a few theorists who believe that all the magic and wonder of ''Literature/HarryPotter'' exists only in the mind of the protagonist, and the story of the Boy-Who-Lived struggling to learn wizardry and defeat [[BigBad Voldemort]] is actually just the story of an orphan inventing an elaborate fantasy life to escape the abusive household he's been brought up in.

* Many theories have sprung up to explain explain the fantasy setting and concepts of ''WesternAnimation/DoraTheExplorer'', including that it's all in someone's head, whether a hallucination, a game being played by kids, or a little girl playing with her stuffed animals.

* ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'' videos commonly involve The Nerd being harassed by all kinds of outlandish characters, usually from the games he reviews. Thus, a common fan theory holds that the Nerd is an alcoholic paranoid schizophrenic with severe anger issues and illusions of grandeur, and much of what goes in the videos takes place in his head.

* ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'' videos commonly involve The Nerd being harrassed by all kinds of outlandish characters, usually from the games he reviews. Thus, a common fan theory holds that he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and much of what goes in the videos takes place in his head.

* Some viewers of ''Series/UnbreakableKimmySchmidt'' have theorized that the entire series takes place in Kimmy's imagination, hence all the breaks from reality and all the cartoonish concepts in the show.

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' games -- particularly those since the release of the [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1 1985 platformer]] -- are often theorised (probably jokingly) to be Mario's drug-fueled hallucinations or DyingDream, with common arguments being based on the [[CommonKnowledge popular misconceptions]] that he smashes bricks with his head when jumping and eats mushrooms to grow in size. These theories almost always hinge on the EarlyInstallmentWeirdness present before the 1985 entry; the earlier arcade games such as ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', ''VideoGame/MarioBros'', and ''VideoGame/WreckingCrew'' all took place in more grounded urban settings with Mario and Luigi appearing as blue-collar workers, but everything after the aforementioned ''Super Mario Bros.'' would take place in more zanier ones with magical [[PowerUp Power-Ups]], mushroom people, anthropomorphic turtles, and other fantastical elements. This led many to argue that the arcade games are the only "real" events of the series during which the brothers were presumably still alive, sober, and sane, best illustrated by ''WebAnimation/{{Mashed}}'s'' "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO0ZXo3ORqc Luigi's Nightmare]]" animation.

* Because ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' has a habit of [[TheyKilledKennyAgain killing off characters only to have them come back to die again ad infinitum]], many theories have sprung up to explain this, including that it's all in someone's head, whether a hallucination, a game, or an imagining.

* One theory for ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' holds that the entire show is just a series of nightmares the copyrighted characters being parodied are having.

* One prominent ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' theory, called ''Fanfic/CulDeSac'', claims that the cul-de-sac the children live on is actually a purgatory, and that every child there died sometime after 1900. It was based mostly on the lack of adults seen (though extremely rare, arms and silhouettes of adults were present). Furthermore, the theory was expanded for [[WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddysBigPictureShow the movie]] and claimed that [[spoiler:the theme park where Eddy's brother worked]] and their journey there was actually a journey into Hell.

Often, these theories are not taken seriously by the fans in the first place, proposing them jokingly. In fact, most fans would be disappointed if these theories would turn out to be true after all. Sometimes such joke theories are a sign of fans being glad that everything turning out to be the dream was not the case.