Fievel: Hi, Mirage Tiger!
Tiger: Hi, Mirage Fievel!
Tiger: Hi, Mirage Fievel!
When a character sees something so unusual that they can't believe it's real, they may try to come up with a rational explanation. Sometimes, they assume that for whatever reason, they are hallucinating. They may assume that it is from a concussion, or that they accidentally consumed a mind-altering substance, which may have been hidden in their food, or they had too much of it.
Characters in remote, eerie settings like haunted houses, space stations, or deserted islands may question the sincerity of those they encounter, whether due to the stress and isolation, the bizarreness of the things they see, or some combination.
Supernatural elements, such as ghosts or spirits visible only to certain individuals, blur the line between reality and imagination. Individuals with magical abilities, altering perceptions or projecting illusions, may leave others questioning the reality of their experiences.
In a psychological thriller involving brainwashing, mind-altering drugs, or technological experimentation, characters grapple with doubts about their own sanity.
A narrative from an unreliable perspective requires readers to unravel the true identities of characters and events, as the narrator may be unaware of their own hallucinations.
Exploration of alternate timelines or parallel universes leads characters to encounter different versions of themselves, adding ambiguity to reality. Dream sequences or parallel universes create uncertainty as characters engage in conversations, challenging the distinction between real and dreamlike interactions.
Characters coping with grief or guilt may use hallucinations as a mechanism, prompting skepticism about the authenticity of these apparitions. PTSD or trauma may prove a struggle to differentiate vivid hallucinations from reality, as might illnesses like schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder, or a head injury. The affected character might mistake the real thing for a Hollywood Mirage or Mushroom Samba.
Can result in No More for Me or You Can See That, Right?. See also Weirdness Censor, Mistaken for Bad Vision, and Not a Mask. If somebody thinks someone else is hallucinating, that's usually Mistaken for Insane, Mistaken for Junkie, or Mistaken for Drunk.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Berserk: During Griffith's abduction of Charlotte, he has Zodd pick up her massive bed and fly off with it. Charlotte's handmaiden (who was taken along), finding herself in a flying bed, promptly gets under the covers and asks the bed to take her home.
- Delicious in Dungeon: Laios suffers mana sickness from his first time using magic in the dungeon, with symptoms like crawling sensations under his skin, so he assumes his recurring ghostly visions are part of it. It's actually a Friendly Ghost trying to contact him and getting a bit grumpy about being ignored.
- Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights: Doraemon and gang are stranded in the world of Arabian Nights, in a Thirsty Desert while searching for the missing Shizuka. Suneo manages to spot a lake and excitedly tells everyone about it, only to realize in the last minute that it's a mirage, causing an angry Gian and Nobita to tell Suneo to "keep everything he sees to himself". Later, everyone spots Sinbad's giant genie and flees in panic, except Suneo who thinks it was another hallucination.
Gian: Suneo, run! It's coming this way!
Suneo: ...wait, that's not a mirage?
[cue Suneo making an Oh, Crap! face before running behind the others] - Musuko ga Kawaikute Shikataganai Mazoku no Hahaoya: In chapter 74, Valentine visits Lorem's apartment and uses her shapeshifting powers to transform into the other people in the household and see whether baby Gospel can tell them apart. When next door neighbor Lizette wakes up and comes over, she sees two Lorems, one holding Gospel. She promptly decides she's still asleep and goes back to bed.
- Photon has the katakana baka (idiot) inscribed on his forehead by his flighty sister Aun while he slept. Later, in Keyne's rejuvenation chamber, Photon sees this inscription in the mirrorlike walls. He shakes his head to clear it, as that mark wasn't there when he left home seeking Aun. Alas, it's no illusion; the mark is indelible. Further, Photon writes the same baka mark on the sleeping Keyne, for no discernible reason. After waking, Keyne likewise sees this idiot mark in her reflection, and shakes her head in disbelief. Hers, too, is indelible.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Present in the manga's version of Battle City, where Kaiba dismisses a vision of Priest Seto and the Pharaoh dueling in the past as a realistic illusion brought on by the stress of battle.
- While absent in the original version of the anime, the trope is present and increasingly exaggerated in the 4Kids dub, which turns Seto Kaiba into a Flat-Earth Atheist from Battle City on who constantly dismisses clear evidence of the existence of the supernatural as his own hallucinations, no matter how implausible this may be. (In Duelist Kingdom, Kaiba did believe in magic and took what precautions he could against it... and also suffered from realistic hallucinations.)
Comic Books
- The Incredible Hulk: In The Incredible Hulk (1968) #314, Bruce Banner subconsciously distracts the Hulk by causing hallucinations of his past enemies to attack him. After vainly attempting to smash foes who won't take a hit, he eventually gives up out of frustration. By the time Doc Samson appears, the Hulk waves him off, stating he's tired of fighting ghosts. That gives the very-real Samson the opening to knock the Hulk cold with a sucker punch.
- Locke & Key: In the climax, Nina Locke is force-fed several bottles of wine by Dodge to make it look as if she's relapsed, ensuring that she won't be able to warn anyone about him. However, being drunk makes her immune to the Riffel Rule and allows her to finally see Bode's disembodied spirit roaming the house courtesy of Dodge stealing his body. The only downside to this is that Nina is so drunk and distraught after her ordeal that she's convinced that the whole thing is a hallucination, so it takes a while before she's willing to listen to Bode.
- Spider-Man: In an arc running from The Spectacular Spider-Man #242-245, Chameleon flees from the Parkers' home after being beaten by Mary Jane with a baseball bat. He runs into Kraven (his dead — at the time — half-brother), whom he thinks is a hallucination at first. Kraven corrects the Chameleon and shoots him with a shotgun.
- Superman: In Adventure Comics #168, Lana Lang's brother, Ronald, finds out about Superboy's secret identity. In order to prevent Ronald from exposing him, Superboy then hatches a series of bizarre schemes to make the boy believe he's gone mad, including using his powers to drag Ronald into an impromptu The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland fantasy adventure (It Makes Sense in Context, seriously), until Ronald is completely convinced that he's having a massive hallucination and imagined everything he saw the whole day, including the part about Clark Kent being Superman. Nicely covered by Cracked over here
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- Tintin: In the comic, Tintin: Land of Black Gold, Thompson and Thomson are driving through the desert and encounter two Hollywood Mirages in quick succession. They then see what they assume to be a mirage of a palm tree and discover that it's quite real when they crash into it. They then proceed to encounter several other mirages and non-mirages, each of which they fail to identify. This results in them kicking a praying man in the butt, and driving their jeep into an oasis.
Comic Strips
- Beetle Bailey: One strip has the doctor giving General Halftrack a medication with "mild" side effects. Then he witnesses a particularly insane scene at Camp Swampy, thinks it's a hallucination and remarks, "mild?"
- In a 2020 arc from Gasoline Alley, Walt Wallet's nurse Gertie gives him some new meds and he starts seeing exotic birds and other animals, which she can't see. Just as he starts to think he might be hallucinating from the new drugs, she starts seeing the animals as well, and it turns out there's been a breakout at the local zoo.
Fan Works
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if they saved Jake's family?", the Animorphs manage to reach Steve and Jean Berenson before Tom can arrange for them to be infested, though it requires them to enact a terrifying rescue, capture Tom, and reveal their morphing powers. Throughout this, Steve is in shock and convinced that they're all hallucinating; as such, while Jean is doing her best to keep up with Marco's hasty explanation, her husband is rattling off a long list of possible hallucinogens that might have caused this.
- Alone, Together: After a mishap with one of Dr. Drakken's inventions transports Kim and Shego to an unpopulated alternate version of Earth, Shego goes off on her own. Kim repeatedly imagines hearing her voice as isolation takes its toll; as a result, when Shego (also suffering the effects of isolation) returns after a year, Kim initially mistakes her for a hallucination. For similar reasons, after Kim is missing and apparently killed during an earthquake, Shego initially mistakes her return for a hallucination.
- Baby Mine: Twice over with Tilla (who was Spared by the Adaptation):
- The first time occurs when she visits Blitz. He initially brushes her off as another one of his guilt-induced hallucinations, only realizing she's real when Millie acknowledges her presence. He then accuses Tilla of being an imposter and almost shoots her before Tilla proves that she's the real deal.
- The second time happens when Blitz, Tilla, and Fizz manage to track down Barbie to a drug den. Barbie, having just shot up, thinks she's hallucinating her mother before she passes out.
- The Beauty, The Beast, The Boy, and The Dragon: When Hiccup first sees the Beast, Missus Potts, Cogsworth, and Lumiere after waking up from the crash landing, he thinks he has a concussion and is just seeing things.
Hiccup: ...How hard did I hit my head?
- In Cloned (a fanfic of The Loud House), Mr. Grouse sees four Loud twins instead of the usual two (since both of them were, well, cloned). He spits out his coffee and declares that he's going to cut back on that "hippie juice", implying that he thought the coffee had drugs in it.
- In Cyberpunk: Another Daybreak, David is speechless when he sees that the vice principal of Hiden International Private School is a German ex-military officer in a French Maid Outfit. He briefly considers getting new cybernetic eyeballs until he confirms that he's not seeing things.
- The Echo Ranger, Iida sees giant Stain fighting the Megazord. He thinks it is probably a hallucination caused by blood loss and Izuku's lecture on the Rangers.
- In Gap Year Adventures, a young would-be Assassin who is desperately ill in a mission station hospital in Howondaland sees two former schoolmates who he believes are several thousand miles away in a different part of the continent. He also sees a six-inch-tall woman in an Ankh-Morpork City Watch uniform who tells him she is here to bring healing. He concludes he is hallucinating. When his fever passes, he discovers the two schoolmates have in fact detoured to catch up with him here and he is not dreaming them. He also finds out the six-inch-tall woman is a Kelda of the NacMacFeegle who is serving with the City Watch; the Pegasus Service ferried her over to take a look at his injuries at the request of his all-too-real school contemporaries.
- Invader Syndrome: Mace Windu happily announcing Anakin has been promoted to Jedi Master and given a seat on the Jedi Council is so shocking to Vader he briefly thinks he's hallucinating only for his Force senses to confirm it's all real when he checks.
- Old Man Henderson: The title character's Insanity Immunity can be at least partially chalked up to this trope. He both has schizophrenia and smokes a ton of weed, the combination of which causes him to regularly hallucinate weird shit, thus the sight of incomprehensible eldritch monsters that would drive normal men to instant gibbering madness doesn't affect him, because he assumes they're just more hallucinations.
- A dark version in Silentium est aurum, a Harry Potter fanfic, where little Nymphadora Tonks gets molested one night, her attacker leaves after she bites his hand, but she eventually concludes it was a fever-induced hallucination, especially since the door to her room was locked all the time. A while later, she sees a picture taken the day after it happened, and Peter Pettigrew's hand is bandaged.
- A New Hope (Danganronpa): Several characters react to Usami this way when they realize she is alive. Kazuichi even asks Kirumi if she put anything in everyone's food.
- No Mutant Left Behind: When Jean Grey gives Mikey a shot of painkillers so she can figure out how best to treat his gunshot wound, he thinks that he's hallucinating and decides that's why he sees a bald man and a blue gorilla (who are actually the Professor and Dr. McCoy, respectively).
- One Man Circus: Chapter 18 reveals that when Ribbit first went into the Circus, she assumed that she was having a drug-fuelled trip and simply imagining it. That said, she does eventually realise that she is now genuinely forever stuck in the Circus.
- Season of Mists: After Ianto resurrects following his death at Thames House, he is taken away to be experimented on by an organisation called the Project. Since the experiments go on for two years, he spent much of it sedated and losing track of time, and he started having dreams that he was on the Valiant, this means that when he is finally rescued, he refuses to believe so and assumes that he's still only hallucinating. He only starts believing that he might be in reality after being comforted from a nightmare by Jack.
"Two years," Ianto repeated. He stared off, down the hall, going absent again. "I had wondered. Tried to keep track at first, but... no windows, so I couldn't see if it was light or dark outside. My lights were always on, of course. And I didn't... Well. I was sedated most of the time. Slept a lot. Sort of... threw off my inner clock, a bit. So I lost track of the time." He sighed, leaning back against the opposite wall. "I lost track of everything. Couldn't tell what was real, what was the drugs, memories, dreams... The only time I was clear-headed was when they were..." He closed his eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath, flinching against remembered pain. "I can feel the wall behind me. I want to believe that it's real. But it always seems real. Even when it's not, it feels like it is, and I... There's nothing left that I can trust. Just the experiments. Those are real. They hurt, but at least they're real."
- Spider-Ninja: When Leonardo successfully separates Harry and Venom, Harry is left exhausted and sick from the symbiote. Thus, Leo's able to easily convince him that he's hallucinating. Harry completely buys it, and passes out seconds later.
- Torchwood Does Dallas is a Torchwood fanfic that goes with the idea that everything from just before "Reset" to the end of "Day Five" was All Just a Dream of Jack's caused by an alien sex toy causing the team to have an orgy. Seeing as said dream involved the deaths of Owen, Tosh, Ianto, his grandson Steven, Myfanwy, and even the destruction of the base, Jack initially concludes that he has suffered a massive mental breakdown and is imagining them all alive again. He is soon convinced otherwise, largely by Owen scanning everyone and concluding that they were all real, fine, and alive.
Film — Animation
- In Aladdin (1992, Disney), Aladdin falls into the Cave of Wonders and is knocked unconscious. When he meets the Genie after rubbing the magic lamp, the Genie gives a hammy introduction, along with shapeshifting into a dog. Aladdin then says, "I must have hit my head harder than I thought."
- An American Tail: Fievel Goes West: During their time lost in the desert, Fievel and Tiger start witnessing mirages. The moment they find each other, they both assume one another to be nothing more than a mirage and continue walking, passing eachother by.
- The Aristocats: When Roquefort tells O'Malley's gang that Duchess and her kittens are in danger, they spring into action with Roquefort following them. Meanwhile, a man at a cafe sees the apparent sight of cats being chased by a mouse, leading him to shamefully pour away his wine.
- In the 2018 film of The Grinch, after the Grinch steals Bricklebaum's roof sleigh, the latter assumes that the former is actually Santa Claus and that the reason why he would see Santa Claus is that something was in his cake.
- Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus: Professor Membrane witnesses aliens and spaceships throughout the second act of the movie, but believes that a massive concussion is causing him to hallucinate, despite Dib trying to tell him otherwise. Even as Membrane is put in grave danger, he still believes himself to be hallucinating, and convinces himself that he's an Only Sane Man among all the chaos. It still doesn't stop him from going Papa Wolf to protect his son from aliens.
- Pinocchio (1940): When Pinocchio sees Lampwick start transforming into a donkey, he first thinks that it's a hallucination brought on by the beers they've been drinking and cigars they've been smoking, pushing both away. Lucky for him, since it's implied that consuming them is what fuels the transformation.
- Shrek 2: When Shrek, Donkey, and Puss are in jail, Puss thinks he's seeing things when Shrek and Donkey’s fairytale friends from back home come to their rescue.
Puss: I must hold on before I, too, go totally mad.
[Gingy, Pinocchio, and all the talking animals suddenly appear from a grate in the roof]
Pinocchio: Shrek? Donkey?
Puss: ...Too late. - In The Snowman (1982), a man sees the flying snowman and boy and looks at his drink, implying that he thinks he's drunk.
Film — Live-Action
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: During a car chase, Hope accidentally shrinks Stan Lee's car as he was about to open the door.
Stan Lee: Well. The Sixties were fun, but now I'm paying for it.
- Christopher Robin: This is the adult Christopher Robin's reaction to seeing his childhood teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, alive and walking around, before he accepts that the Hundred Acre Wood was Real After All.
Christopher: I've cracked!
Pooh: Oh, I don't see any cracks. A few wrinkles, maybe. - Death Note (2017): Light understandably freaks out after seeing Ryuk for the first time, but then attempts to rationalize it by telling himself he's only dreaming.
Light: Okay. Relax, Light. You're asleep. [slaps himself twice] You're asleep and you're dreaming of some.... eight foot tall demon-looking motherfucker.
- Les Diaboliques: After they kill Michel, Christina and Nicole continue seeing him and getting hints of his presence. They assume that this is a hallucination and he is Haunting the Guilty. However, the ending reveals that Michel really is still alive — and Nicole knew it all along. She was relying on these presumed "hallucinations" to take such a toll on Christina's health that it would then cause Christina to die of a heart attack.
- Iron Man 2: When a drunken Tony meets Nick Fury, he asks him if he's real or if he's a hallucination.
Nick Fury: I am very real. I'm the realest person you're ever gonna meet.
- In Kangaroo Jack, after Charlie had already fallen for a mirage once, he mistakes an actual big-breasted girl walking towards him for a mirage as well. He decides to enjoy the mirage and feels her breasts, remarking how real they feel, before she sucker punches him in the face and knocks him out.
- James Bond:
- The Spy Who Loved Me: After James Bond drives his amphibious Lotus Esprit out of the sea, one observer assumes he is having a drunken hallucination and looks askance at the wine bottle he is drinking from.
- This becomes a Running Gag in Moonraker and For Your Eyes Only as the same character/actor does the same thing upon seeing Bond driving through Venice in a hovercraft gondola and skiing through the mountains, respectively.
- In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the Black Pearl crew travels to Davy Jones’ locker to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow. Jack, having been plagued with hallucinations, quickly assumes that the crew members are just another hallucination.
- In Scrooged, Frank thinks that the Jacob Marley-esque ghost of the company's previous president he sees in his office is the result of a combination of overwork and vodka from Chernobyl.
- In Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Trevor Slattery turns up as a prisoner of Wenwu and in the company of a cuddly-but-headless supernatural creature. When Shang Chi and Katy react with shock to the sight of the creature, Trevor is overjoyed, realizing that "Morris" must be real after all — as up until now, the woozy Recovered Addict had assumed that he was hallucinating.
- Suicide Squad: When the protagonists finally arrive at the location where the Enchantress is performing her magical ritual, the amazing visual effects cause Harley Quinn to think she's hallucinating because she's off her meds. She asks other members of the Squad You Can See That, Right? in order to find out the truth.
- Superman II: General Zod sinks into a lake, then levitates himself to the surface and walks across it. Seeing this, a fisherman nearby looks at a cup of something he's drinking and throws it away.
- X-Men: First Class: During a secret meeting with Sebastian Shaw, Colonel Hendry refuses his instruction to push his agenda, instead opting to have another glass of champagne. At this, Shaw decides to reveal who Hendry's been dealing with by having Riptide conjure up a miniature tornado and launch it at him. Shaw just stares at it and asks, "what the hell did you put in my drink?" He quickly drops this assumption after being knocked flat by the tornado and having his mind read by Emma Frost.
Literature
- 1 Over X: When Enid stumbles into Ryan's corpse, she dismisses it as a product of her schizophrenia and moves on. When she later returns to it along with Wintermute, Wintermute also dismisses it as a hallucination caused by stress only for Enid to realize they're seeing the same thing.
- Adrian Mole: In Wilderness Years, John Tydeman at the BBC writes that he must have been hallucinating when Adrian had sent him his very long manuscript for a third time, and asked him to photocopy it, for free.
- In A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge sees ghosts, he wonders if he's seeing things because of indigestion.
- The Dresden Files: The Novella "The Law" reveals that after the events of Battle Ground (2020), which nearly resulted in a full-on Broken Masquerade, the US Government gaslit the citizens of Chicago into believing that a hallucinogenic drug known as "HBGB" (colloquially known as the "heebie jebees") was introduced into the water supply in order to explain the strange events during the attack; as a result, when Harry tries to intimidate someone using magic, they brush it off as a hallucination.
- In The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem, after suffering from the effects of hallucinogenic gas several times, Ijon Tichy starts to believe everything around him is a hallucination, even giving nicknames like Hallucina and Hallucian to the people he meets. Subverted: all of it, including these people, really is a hallucination.
- In "Man of Distinction" by Fredric Brown, two wormlike aliens come to Earth to see whether we would make useful slaves. One of the people they meet faints right away, so they take the other one. The guy quickly proves Earthmen are worthless — he's an incurable drunkard who insists on treating them as Pink Elephants.
- The Martian Chronicles: The third story, "The Earth Men", has a trio of astronauts making contact with the Martians. Since Martians are psychic and insane martians can project their hallucinations for all to see, the Martians simply assume the astronauts are crazy and put them in an insane asylum. When they show their ship to their psychologist to prove they're telling the truth, the psychologist decides they're incurable and shoots them. When the ship doesn't vanish, he decides he's gone crazy too and commits suicide.
- Nightmares & Dreamscapes: In "The End Of The Whole Mess," Howard chases his brother Bobby as he flies over a public park in a homemade glider; a businessman observing the scene remarks that he must be having one hell of an acid flashback.
- The protagonist of Spellsinger is smoking a joint when he gets yanked to another world, so his first assumption when he meets a giant otter wearing maroon pants is that his friend spiked his weed. He realizes it's not a dream when said otter stabs him with a short sword.
- Wind and Truth: In the Spiritual Realm, Shallan is haunted by shadowy visions of Formless, the Split Personality embodying all her inner darkness. It turns out to be Iyatil invoking the trope against her via an illusionary disguise in order to stalk her.
Live-Action TV
- In an episode of Bewitched, a man keeps seeing magic and thinks he has to give up alcohol around meals.
- The Brittas Empire:
- In "The Trial", Carole has several strange mystic hallucinations involving men from a strange land, death and violence. Therefore, when Carole sees a dying South American mobster dying in front of her and calls up Brittas, he assumes that she is just having another vision and suggests she takes a warm cup of milk to stop them. It's not until Brittas gets a follow-up call from Colin that he realises that there is a Mob War going on in his leisure centre.
- In "At the Double", Helen prepares to make love to Vlad, a Doppelgänger of Brittas, inside a cupboard under the belief that it was Brittas himself dressing up for Kinky Role-Playing. When she is confronted by the real Brittas after hiding Vlad inside the cupboard, she asks to go back to the mental health clinic which she had been briefly put in back in "Back with a Bang", clearly believing that she was seeing things, a desire which only rises when she comes across both in the same room.
- In the Community episode "Regional Holiday Music", the study group arrives in their study room to find their table replaced by a row of bleachers and a piano player in the corner. After Pierce asks about the piano player, he turns to the others and asks "You guys see him too, right?"
- In the Farscape episode "Season Of Death," Aeryn unexpectedly saves the day by taking out a Peacekeeper squad and bringing down a Scarran. Crichton, who's still fresh from being dragged from one end of his mind to the other by Harvey, is immediately convinced that the neural clone is messing with his head again and refuses to believe that Aeryn is actually there especially since the last time he saw her, she was dead. Of course, he doesn't know that Zhaan was able to bring her back from the grave (for a price).
- Father Ted: Played for Laughs in the episode "Old Grey Whistle Theft", in which Ted wakes up in the early hours of the morning and is startled to find Mrs Doyle the Housekeeper is also awake:
Mrs Doyle: Tea, Father?
Ted: Oh, good gracious, Mrs Doyle! What are you doing up?
Mrs Doyle: Oh, I always stay up, Father, in case one of you needs a cup of tea.
Ted: How long have you been doing this?
Mrs Doyle: Oh, about three years, now.
Ted: But we never get up at night, Mrs Doyle.
Mrs Doyle: Well, you're up now, aren't you Father? Unless I'm hallucinating from lack of sleep! ...That's happened before, alright. - The Golden Girls: Played for Laughs in "Hey, Look Me Over." Rose, who's missing her dead husband Charlie more than usual, hangs up a gigantic "MERRY CHRISTMAS" banner that he made above the kitchen door; Dorothy stands underneath it and, remembering something Rose said earlier about measuring height, stretches out her arms. The entire effect is reminiscent of Jesus's Crucifixion, and when Sophia walks in...
Sophia: Oh, I'm having a vision! A religious vision! My God, it's so beautiful!
- In Horace and Pete, one of the bar owners, Pete, suffers from an unidentified illness that causes psychosis, which he takes medication for. But due to the bureaucratic nature of his insurance company, any kind of mistake in the process results in him not getting enough pills. When he first goes through this in the pilot, and hallucinating snakes, an old man randomly walks in and tells everyone how he used to go to the bar in his youth, before his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend. And then he says he murdered them both right in the bar, having just been released from prison.
Pete: [to Horace] Is that guy real?
- House, M.D.: In the first episode of season 4, the Patient of the Week is in her office building on the phone to her boyfriend, who is outside waiting to pick her up. She suddenly notices the building appearing to shake and rumble, and lights flickering on and off, and believes that she is hallucinating. The scene then switches to the boyfriend outside: the entire office building collapses in front of him.
- Just Shoot Me!: When a dog wanders into the office and Dennis points it out, Lady Drunk Nina says "Thank God, you see it too."
- In Legends of Tomorrow, after several episodes of Mick seeing hallucinations of his dead friend, Snart, when the real Snart shows up he assumes him to be a hallucination as well. Mick becomes shocked when the other Legends can see him too. The reason why Snart appears after his death is that he was picked from a point in time before he joined the team by the time-travelling villains, who wanted to use him as The Mole, once it also happened before his Heel–Face Turn.
- Moon Knight (2022): After being chased by a jackal-like monster, Steven/Marc asks one of his coworkers to check the security footage at the museum. When the jackal-monster doesn't show up on the cameras, his coworker assumes that Steven/Marc was simply hallucinating. Later in the series, it's revealed that the monsters do exist — they're just Invisible to Normals.
- Nip/Tuck: Sean has several imaginary conversations with drug lord Escobar Gallardo after getting him sent to prison; when Gallardo shows up in his home one day, he assumes it's just another Imagine Spot, until he realizes the real Gallardo has escaped from jail and found him.
- Outlander: After Jamie Fraser sends his time-traveling wife back to her own time period for her own safety, he expects never to see her again but still dreams of her vividly and often, seeing her in his dreams and during times of high emotion while awake. When Claire returns to him, the first time he sees her, he assumes she's nothing more than a figment of his lonely imagination. When she speaks to him, he's so shocked he passes out. Once he revives, he still has trouble believing she's real and visibly startles when his attempt to touch her doesn't result in her disappearing.
- Red Dwarf episode "Stasis Leak" has the gang travelling backwards in time to before the radiation leak killed the crew. This is also shortly after a prank of Lister's against Rimmer involving some kind of magic mushroom, so Present Rimmer's attempts to warn himself of his impending death keep going wrong due to his being mistaken for a hallucination.
Rimmer: I know what you are! [Beat] You're a mushroom, aren't you?
- School Spirits: In the Season 1 finale, Simon, the only living person Maddie has been able to communicate with since she became a ghost, sees a recent photograph of Maddie seemingly still alive (actually another ghost who took control of Maddie's body and left Maddie herself as a spirit). He assumes that he's only imagined seeing Maddie's ghost as a way to cope with his friend running away.
- Stargate SG-1:
- In episode "Crystal Skull," Daniel Jackson ends up being left invisible and intangible thanks to exposure to the eponymous artifact, leaving him trailing after the rest of SG-1 as they struggle to figure out where he went. The search eventually leads them to the last person who had contact with a crystal skull, namely Daniel's estranged grandfather Nicholas, who is currently in a mental hospital. SG-1 doesn't appear to get much out of him... up until it turns out that, thanks to exposure to the skull, Nicholas can see Daniel but decided not to acknowledge him in the belief that he was just a hallucination. As such, Daniel's left in the awkward position of trying to convince Nicholas that he's not a hallucination — and then convince the rest of SG-1 that Nicholas isn't hallucinating.
- Played for Laughs in episode "Full Circle", Daniel — who ascended a season earlier — appears to Jack in the elevator to give him urgent information. Jack's response is... less than urgent. Bear in mind, this is not the first time Daniel has appeared to Jack since ascending, so Jack knows what's what and is trolling him.
Jack: I could have sworn that was an aspirin I took this morning...
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", Dr. McCoy ends up accidentally drugging himself with a very powerful steroid, which results in him having wild behavior and assuming his friends are all out to kill him. He manages to escape the ship and jumps through a portal to New York City during the Great Depression (necessitating Kirk and Spock to go after him, only arriving a week before he does). When McCoy does show up, he's starting to come down off of the steroid and is thus feeling ill. Edith, the owner of the mission that's been helping Kirk and Spock, finds him and nurses him back to health. The first time he wakes up and sees her, he thinks that she's just a hallucination. She thinks he's talking that way because he's ill, and brushes it off.
- Star Trek: Voyager: In "Gravity", Tom Paris hears Noss the alien woman speaking in her native language. He half-jokingly states that either the universal translator is broken, or his injuries are worse than he thought (it's the former).
- The Tick (2016): The second episode is called "Where's My Mind" and as the title suggests it involves Arthur thinking The Tick is a hallucination. Given Arthur's history of mental health problems and the fact that no one else seems to have seen The Tick, this seems reasonable. However, the matter is settled when he runs into his sister Dot while in The Tick's company, and Dot — who has already heard about The Tick from other sources — confirms that she can see him.
- Charlie from Two and a Half Men tried marijuana in one episode and started hallucinating his ex-girlfriends (and ZZ Top). He finally runs out onto the patio where he encounters Rose. He agrees to go on a date with her and take things more seriously. Then Berta gets home and talks to her. It turns out she was real.
- In Westworld episode "The Mother of Exiles", a female side character is on some Fantastic Drug at a Masquerade Ball when she spots Dolores who was supposed to be dead at that point. The girl thinks this is a side effect of the drug and praises it for its quality.
- Wolf Lake: Kanin gets involuntarily dosed with a hallucinogen, and as he's finally coming out of the resulting visions, Sheriff Donner shows up and offers him a job. Kanin stares for a moment then pokes Donner in the chest confirming he's real.
- Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist: When Max asks Zoe out, he and everyone in the mall start singing. Zoe thinks it's another one of her hallucinations, but it's an actual flash mob.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Those who are born with Witchsight grow up experiencing things like coloured auras, sense-impressions of past and future events, symbolic visions, and so on. If they're not lucky enough to find a teacher who can explain that they're perceiving the Winds of Magic, they — and their neighbours — tend to assume that they're sick, insane, possessed, or all three. (Some simply assume that everyone else sees them too.)
Video Games
- By the start of BioShock Infinite, Monument Island has been abandoned due to the expansion of Elizabeth's powers, leaving her alone in the Tower except for the Songbird guarding it. Since then, she's gotten used to being alone and occupying her days with attempts to escape via a Tear to Paris (all of which fail thanks to the Siphon)... so when Booker DeWitt unexpectedly falls through the ceiling, she briefly wonders aloud if Booker's actually real or not.
- In the Interactive Fiction game Blue Lacuna, the character Progue, who has been alone on a deserted island for quite an extended period, accuses you of being a hallucination when you first appear in front of him, and continues to refer to you as such even in long conversations. His full realization of your existence is a major plot moment when it occurs, and it can be triggered multiple ways, but most normally via opening the locked door to the east side of the Island. One of the more interesting of these cases is that you can trigger it almost instantly upon meeting him by beating him up, but that has negative effects down the road to say the least.
- Disco Elysium: In the finale, when Harry sees the Insulindian Phasmid, he believes that it's a hallucination of some form; however, if Kim is with him, he reveals that he can see it, and is even willing to take a photograph of it if his trust with Harry is high enough.
- Played for horror in Dragon Age: Origins: during your exploration of the Deep Roads, you stumble upon a sickly dwarf woman by the name of Hespith. Running a high fever and clearly suffering a serious case of Sanity Slippage, she doesn't believe that you're actually there, and will even refer to you as "dream-friend" as you follow her deeper into the Dead Trenches. It soon becomes clear that this is because Hespith has been a prisoner of the darkspawn for quite some time and has hit the Despair Event Horizon after being betrayed by her lover Branka, then horrifically violated by her captors, then forced to eat her friends as part of Branka's plan to transform Hespith and the other women of her House into Broodmothers. Tragically, she never once realizes that you're real, and parts ways with you under the impression that she's still alone.
- Marvel Rivals: If Moon Knight spots an allied Groot taking down an opponent, he'll say "Wait, that tree was real!?", implying that Moon Knight thought that he was hallucinating the gigantic walking, "I am Groot"ing tree.
- Mass Effect 1: Liara T'Soni has accidentally been trapped by an ancient force-field while excavating Prothean ruins on Theron. If you opt to tackle the mission to Theron last, she'll have been there so long that she assumes that you're just a hallucination brought on by loneliness and hunger, to the point that if you take the Renegade dialog options, she'll remark with confusion on the fact that her imaginary friend can be rude.
- Persona 5: When Joker and Ryuji get sucked into the Cognitive World and see that their school has been turned into a medieval castle, they quite naturally think they must be suffering from some sort of mutual hallucination.
- Wall of Insanity 2: While exploring an asylum in the middle of an Eldritch Location, player hero Fox Kane hears what appears to be singing from behind one of the cells. Realizing it's occupied, Kane yells for the inmate inside to ask questions, but the inmate responds by calling Kane "an illusion, just like everything else outside" and refuses to answer further.
Webcomics
- Girl Genius: When Agatha first meets Krosp and hears him speaking, she assumes she's dreaming. Krosp is annoyed that she doesn't find talking cats believable in a world of mad scientists.
Web Videos
- Carmilla the Series: At the end of one episode, Perry shrieks offscreen, and then enters the room and calmly announces she's begun hallucinating. Then a completely naked Will — who Perry killed last season — walks in, apologizing for scaring her. Turns out it's actually the ghost J.P., now inhabiting Will's old body, which LaFontaine dug up, not considering how much this might freak people out.
Perry: I staked him, I really did! [whispering] And he had clothes on!
- This ends up coming into play in Naruto: The Abridged Series when Orochimaru promises to bring Tsunade's dead little brother and fiancée back to life in exchange for her healing his arms. Unlike in canon where he merely said he'd do so, here he reveals that he already did as a sign of good faith. She mistakes it for him casting a genjutsu to try and deceive her and proceeds to beat both Nawaki and Dan to near death just to prove that Orochimaru's "illusions" can't fool her.
- Arby 'n' the Chief: In "Endgame," Scott the drug dealer (and addict) moved in Jon's apartment. Despite being Living Toys, the Arbiter and the Chief didn't need to hide from him because he assumed they were drug-induced hallucinations.
- Red vs. Blue: In Season 15, Locus is mistaken for a hallucination by the protagonists twice when he approaches them. First by Grif, who has lost some of his sanity from being all alone for about a week, and later by Wash and Carolina, who are severely dehydrated and exhausted from being locked in their armour for several days.
Western Animation
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: At the beginning of "The Eggpire Strikes Back", Carl falls down while testing a flying invention of Jimmy's, and he wearily mutters "Flying metal chicken..." when he sees the Yolkian mothership flying overhead.
Jimmy: Oh, no, he's delusional!
Sheen: [looking up] Actually, Jimmy, I gotta go with Carl on this one. - The Amazing World of Gumball: In "The Founder," Richard gets so hungry waiting in the car that a hot-dog cop approaches to investigate. When he sees the cop, Richard thinks he's hallucinating, but then realizes that the cop actually is a hot dog.
- Ben 10: Omniverse: In episode "Food Around The Corner", Rook was shrunk to save Ben (who was stuck as a Gravattack) from the Hulex, a race of sentient, flea-like aliens who landed on Gravattack and started to dig into him, which would soon result in a giant explosion (the Hulex could survive the explosion, and they had been hired to blow up Ben in order to sabotage a peace conference he was mediating). When Ben hears Rook talking to him while Rook is nowhere to be seen, Ben decides he's hallucinating. After Rook explains what's happening, Ben says that it's definitely a hallucination.
- In Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, Michael smokes weed, and when he sees Huey, Dewey, and Louie, he thinks he must be tripping and says, "Now I'm seeing ducks?! I gotta get off these drugs!".
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "Dinner Is Swerved", Mac and Bloo get lost in the house's hallways and begin to get hungry. When a starving Bloo sees a giant, walking chicken leg, he believes he's imagining Mac as food and promptly tries to eat him, but it turns out to be a food-shaped imaginary friend who was rescued from a fat camp.
Bloo: Me sorry, but MUST! EAT! MAC!Chicken Leg: Mac? Who's Mac?! The name's Charlie, man!
- Futurama:
- In "Hell Is Other Robots", the first thing Bender says to the Robot Devil upon finding himself in Robot Hell is "I'm hallucinating this, right?" This gets Bender A Taste of the Lash and an assurance that Robot Hell is very much real.
- In "The Sting", Leela constantly believes she's hallucinating that Fry is alive when she saw him get stung and killed by a giant space bee. All through the episode, she keeps seeing Fry alive and well after attending his funeral, and he keeps telling her to wake up in some form or another. It's eventually revealed that she was rendered comatose because while the bee's stinger went entirely though Fry, the tip injected its venom into Leela, which was causing her to hallucinate while dreaming.
- Garfield and Friends: In "Dessert in the Desert", after Jon's car breaks down, he, Garfield, and Odie get stranded in the desert and spend the episode falling for Hollywood Mirages. After their car is fixed, they see a bunch of lady cats with a giant plate of lasagna that Garfield tries to go to, but is held back by Jon who tells him it's just another mirage. Once they drive away, one of the cats says, "I can't believe he didn't want any of our lasagna", implying that they were real.
- Glitch Techs: In "Settling the Score", when Five contacts Miko through a game she's been playing for a long time:
Miko: I think I'm finally starting to hallucinate.
- Gravity Falls: In "The Love God", after seeing the Love God flying past him, Farmer Sprott takes one look at the "Hippie Tea" he was drinking and immediately dumps it out.
- Haunted Hotel (2025): In "Seven Deadly Bens", after Ben is cloned by a magic mirror and the clones chase him through the hotel, a guest who sees them happily tells his wife that "the acid is kicking in".
- Invincible: Throughout the Season Four finale, Mark gets PTSD visions of Viltrumites attacking his loved ones. At the end of the episode, he goes flying to clear his head, when he sees Thragg. He assumes it’s another trauma vision, and closes his eyes to dispel it. Thragg really is there, to deliver an ultimatum to Mark.
- The Looney Tunes short "Punch Trunk" is about a tiny elephant wandering the city, driving people into a frenzy whenever they see him. A few witnesses do assume they're seeing things, such as a man with new glasses who, upon seeing the elephant, goes back to punch his optometrist; a drunk who scolds him for being late and muses that he used to be pink; a woman lying on the couch at her therapist, only for the therapist to see the elephant and quickly switch places with her; and an expert who says on TV that the sights of the tiny elephant are a Shared Mass Hallucination... until the elephant wanders into the studio.
- The Magic School Bus: In "Inside Ralphie", Ralphie is sick at home and thinks he's hallucinating when he sees Ms. Frizzle's entire class outside his door.
- Martha Speaks: At the end of "Martha Runs the Store", a man hears Martha (a dog) talking, and believes he's going mad from too much work.
- In an episode of The Penguins of Madagascar, all the penguins except one get hit by a poison dart frog and sleep it off. When they recover, they see the remaining penguin playing board games with the frog while wearing a Hazmat Suit, believe they're seeing things, and go back to bed.
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Backyard Hodge Podge", when Linda spends a long time making pies for a charity benefit, she starts suffering from a lack of rest and hallucinates various things coming to life. When she happens to come out back and witnesses Phineas and Ferb's Big Idea out of recycled parts, she thinks she's hallucinating and calls Candace, who prepares for an epic bust when she comes home. However, Candace is hit by a stray blast from Doofenshmirtz's Eye Fog-inator when running through the gate, causing her vision to get blurred meaning she doesn't see it, so Linda goes inside to take a nap. When Linda comes back and sees the invention is still there, she thinks she's still hallucinating and goes back to bed.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Speed Demon", the girls find an elderly Professor Utonium in the Bad Future, who is trying to recreate the Powerpuff Girls. He sees them and threatens them with a cane, thinking that his mind is playing tricks on him again.
- The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol: When Grouchy sees the Smurf of Christmas Past (who looks like Smurfette with fairy wings, a different outfit, and a magic wand), he remarks "I shouldn’t have had that second glass of smurfberry nog." and says that she's just a figment of his indigestion.
- Sonic Prime: After shattering the Paradox Prism, Sonic occasionally sees brief, distorted visions of Shadow while he's running, which he chalks up to hallucinations. It is later revealed that Shadow was trapped in a void when the Paradox Prism broke, and has been trying to communicate with Sonic, having seemingly no other way of interacting with anything.
- South Park: In "Mysterion Rises," Kenny appears at his parents' bedroom window while they get stoned, dressed as his superhero persona Mysterion, and asks about the cult meetings they attended ten years prior. After Mysterion leaves, his mom asks if the conversation really happened, and his dad shrugs it off as a weed-induced hallucination.
- Spider-Man: The Animated Series: In "The Return of the Green Goblin", Harry Osborn believes he's seeing things when the Green Goblin appears to him, but is proven wrong when the Goblin leads him to a secret room.
Green Goblin: If I were a figment of your imagination, how would I know about this room?
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Enchanted Tiki Dreams," Squidward steps out of his house to see a beautiful paradise. His first instinct is that it's a mirage, but he goes along with it anyways and learns that it's real.
- Star Wars Resistance: In "No Escape, Part I", in the submerged Colossus, Al is drinking at the tavern. Kaz and CB-23 swim past the windows, prompting Al to stop and stare at his drink. When he sees them swim back, pursued by two scuba gear-clad Stormtroopers, he decides he's had enough.