All Just A Dream



Your surefire plan to make your audience hate you.

When an entire situation ends up being a dream somebody was having, thus ultimately rendering it all false. All Just A Dream is mainly used as a means of showing things that either cannot happen in this world or non-canonical occurrences like someone having their whole family murdered or two people getting married. All Just A Dream can be Negated if we're shown the dreamer falling asleep before the dream begins so then we know from the beginning that their future experiences are, in fact, only a dream. On UnTrash Wiki, All Just A Dream is used as a Measurement Ball for pure, low-tier Brain Acid UnTrashes like this or this as it's believed to be the lowest of low standards by manyundefined. We also call it the prime example of an Eye Roll UnTrash as no other UnTrash can generate nearly as many eyerolls as All Just A Dream could.

The reception of All Just A Dream is terrible to an ungodly degree. There are many claims that state All Just A Dream is an extremely cheap Plot Ex Machina trick that any writer could pull in their work. And it is. All Just A Dream can be a quick fix to any situation a person cannot get themselves out of, such as a Near-Death Experience, using time-efficient or possible means. It doesn't need to make sense, it needs no explanation, and it's easy to write in. The writers can then be blamed for trying to go extreme by doing something like killing someone off without having to settle with the consequences of their death. This avoidance of accountability on the creators' end can deliver the message that nothing really matters in the story if all of somebody's problems can be fixed by just waking up in their bed.

It's simple how All Just A Dream works. First, you have Guy running through a forest holding, say, a valuable gem that acts as the forest's heart. Without it, the forest will surely die. Guy is running away from the forest's natives who want to seize the gem and restore life to their slowly dying home. Guy continues running up to a point where there's a Death Canyon standing in his way. Even though it's a long fall that would certainly end him, Guy could still make it to the other side by mustering all the jump power he can. All he has to do is believe in himself and he'll masterfully glide over to the other side of the canyon. Guy, after looking behind himself and seeing the natives are closing in on him, decides to make a Leap Of Faith. He's going, he's going, he's... plunging towards his inevitable demise. Guy only has seconds before he becomes Guy stew. The ground's getting ever closer, the air's rushing faster... jeez, were those jagged rocks at the bottom always that jagged''? ''It won't matter soon enough because Guy is just Mere Moments Away from facing his deathundefined. And, and, aaaaaand... Guy springs awake in his bed, being the Morning Screamer he was destined to be. He looks around his room and realizes that he was just having a bad dream. Unless...

Now you can show your precious character going through a perilous adventure without putting them in harm's way. Let's forget that Guy could have miraculously been saved by Ex Machina by having his friend Hugo swoop in from a vine or come in on a ladder to a helicopter and save his life, keeping Guy from being killed and allowing the story to be part of the canon.

All Just A Dream-type scenarios may end with the dreamer waking up and looking around them to see the people who made an appearance in their dream surrounding the bed they rest in. They'd say something along the lines of, "I just had the wildest dream. And you were there! And you! And you!". Note that they'd likely be pointing to the people as they're saying "and you".

All Just A Dream isn't all bad, however. It can be a great tool to use when dealing with Plot Wires by negating past events, therefore making it unnecessary for the audience to think about any details that could have made the story a mess.

There may be instances when All Just A Dream does not involve an actual dream. The experience may turn out to be a coma, simulation being ran by a simulator, or a showing of an alternate timeline that could happen if a character is to do something that changes the futureundefined.

Mirrors
Basic: All of a person's recent experiences turn out to be no more than a dream they had.

Reinforced: All Just A Dream In A Dream. Bonus Points if the scene has Layers And Layers of dreams within dreams.

Downplayed: It's unsure if it was truly All Just A Dream as the scene is confusing and makes the "waking up" part unclear if All Just A Dream was just played or not.

Negated: The dreamer is Aware Of The UnTrash as it's being played (meaning before they wake up) or another All Just A Lie UnTrash interrupts All Just A Dream and makes this All Just A Lie even more of a lie. Another way to Negate All Just A Dream is by somehow parodying or Lampshading it. A third way to achieve Justified is if playing All Just A Dream is the only way out of Plot Wires by hitting the Reset Button.

Justified: We're told, shown, or told and shown that what we will soon see will be no more than a dream.

Inverted: A Dream Is Reality.

Gleeful: The dreamer has lots of fun in their dream and wakes up with the memory of the fun they had.

Dismal: The dreamer wakes up and finds that it was All Just A Dream In A Nightmare.

Zip: Someone is going through an experience only to find that it was just a dream they had. Later, it's revealed that their waking up was All Just A Dream In A Dream, but that waking up in the second dream from the first dream was part of the first dream all along. This could possibly Zip into the dreamer waking up again and thinking It's Finally Over, but it turns out that this was a third dream that they were having. This could go on and on with them waking up in new dreams or returning to old ones. When this madness finally ends, the dreamer might not take it that the dreaming is over and believes Reality Is All Just A Dream.

UnRec
Let's say you're a writer aiming to show the better side of nasty UnTrashes and roles. All Just A Dream might not be the first thing to come to mind, but it'd likely be one of your first missions. Even though audiences won't be out for your skin after you dared to play this UnTrash, they'd probably point to whatever scene it was written into and call it the one to ruin the mood of your otherwise decent work. What makes All Just A Dream such a lowly UnTrash is how it's used as an Ex Machina for the plot to fall back on once things get hairy for your main protagonist. As such, it might be a good idea to not go with this decision. You could alternatively ignore what was just a sentence ago and incorporate Scare Vision into your All Just A Dream play. Your audience is much likely to forgive you if the element of surprise is subtracted from this UnTrash and it doesn't seem to come out of nowhere.

UnStats
Reception ●○○○○○○○○○

Innovation ●●●○○○○○○○

Variety ●●●●●●○○○○

Emotion ●●●●●●○○○○

Reform ●○○○○○○○○○

Stale ●●●●○

UnStat Avg. 3.16 (D)

''All Just A Dream is an infamous UnTrash that many note to be among the worst in fiction. It has been subjected to endless bashing by creators, critics, and definitely audiences. What has been made clear multiple times now is the UnStat All Just A Dream struggles the most with is Reception. Because All Just A Dream has no effect on the canon, the Reform is the lowest it can get, coming in at a dismal 1 point. Emotion is at 6 thanks to how the UnTrash has the power to Anger The Audience and sway their emotions in its own way. The one truly redeeming quality it has is Variety. Because All Just A Dream is such a flexible UnTrash in its mirrors, its Variety is slightly above average. All of this together calculates the UnStat Average at 3.16, or high D Tier on the tier list. In order for Reception to be lifted from the depths of Hell, creators must first stray far, far away from the Nutshell of this hated UnTrash. Playing with the wide possibilities of All Just A Dream may cause viewers and reviewers alike to reconsider their collective opinion of it.''