Slept Through the Apocalypse/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character wakes up to find out (s)he is in the middle of an apocalypse, having literally slept through it the previous night.
 * Straight: Joe wakes up in a room. Everyone is dead, and Joe wanders outside to discover that the Zombie Apocalypse has arrived.
 * Exaggerated: Joe wakes up to the discovery that he's the only human left alive.
 * Downplayed: Joe wakes up, finds out that everyone is dead in the state of Idaho, which is under quarantine to prevent a world-wide apocalypse.
 * Justified: Joe was in a coma during the outbreak of The Virus.
 * Alternately, Joe was in cryogenic sleep.
 * Inverted: The only way to survive the Zombie Apocalypse is to enter cryogenic sleep.
 * Alternately, The Virus merely causes everyone to wake up, whether they turn into a zombie or not.
 * Subverted: Joe thinks he's woken up to a Zombie Apocalypse, but it turns out to be a prank.
 * Alternately, it was All Just a Dream
 * Double Subverted: Joe thinks he's woken up to a Zombie Apocalypse, but it turns out to be All Just a Dream...and then the Zombie Apocalypse really does happen!
 * Parodied: Joe finds out he's slept through the apocalypse but is killed off quickly.
 * Zig Zagged: Joe finds out he's slept through the Zombie Apocalypse, then that turns out to be a dream...and then he actually does sleep through the apocalypse, but that turns out to be a Dream Within a Dream...and then the NEXT night...
 * Averted: All of the characters have been wide awake since the apocalypse began.
 * Enforced: What better way to have a character surprised by the apocalypse?
 * Lampshaded: "Whoah. I guess I really am a Heavy Sleeper."
 * Invoked: Mad Scientist Joe unleashes The Virus and then promptly puts himself in cryogenic stasis so that he'll literally sleep through the apocalypse.
 * Exploited: "I'll bet Joe survived. He is a heavy sleeper, after all.
 * Defied: The Crazy Prepared protagonist refuses to sleep for fear that he'll sleep through the apocalypse.
 * Alternately, Mad Scientist Joe specifically modifies the virus so that everyone who's asleep dies in their sleep.
 * Discussed: "Remember in 28 Days Later when that guy woke up in the hospitol bed after the outbreak? I think that's exactly what happened!
 * Conversed: "I swear to God, Joe, you're gonna sleep through a Zombie Apocalypse!"

Back to Slept Through the Apocalypse