View source for Waking Up Elsewhere

{{trope}}
Something ''bad'' happens. A character gets into a car accident, or they get attacked by an assailant, or some other situation that results in them receiving a [[Tap on the Head|blow to the head that knocks them out cold]].

Cue a time skip. The character awakens in a daze some time later, usually hours, but sometimes days or even weeks. And they come to only to find that somehow they were transported someplace else whilst they were unconscious - can be just about any place imaginable, but often it is a hospital, a prison, a kidnapper's lair, or [[Trapped in Another World|another world altogether]].

More often than not the character will receive tragic or otherwise unwelcome news upon regaining consciousness, [[Rule of Drama|for the sake of drama]]. A [[Water Wakeup]] is optional but earns points for good villainous form.

Compare/contrast [[Unfamiliar Ceiling]], where a character awakens in good hands, confused but generally safe.

Because this trope usually marks a major turning point in the story... '''beware of SPOILERS!'''

{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': Shinji wakes up in the hospital after his first fight in an Eva and says, "An [[Unfamiliar Ceiling]]?"
* ''[[Naruto]]'': At the end of Part I, Naruto wakes up in the Leaf Village's hospital and learns that he and his team failed to stop Sasuke from defecting to Orochimaru.

==  [[Fan Works]] ==
* ''[[With Strings Attached]]'' starts out with the four waking up on another planet. There are other instances as well:
** Ringo is thrown off a garage roof in New Zork and wakes up in the Plaza Hotel, where he'd slammed into a bed there and been in a healing sleep for several hours. That's when he first finds out that bad shocks cause him to teleport to safety.
** A similar thing happens when he is scared out of Ehndris and wakes up in the room in the abandoned inn in Ta'akan where the four had spent the previous night. Some 400+ miles away from Ehndris.
* ''[https://www.wattpad.com/story/163260272-astral-journey-it's-complicated Astral Journey: It's Complicated]'' has a fair share.
** The narrator ([[Spice Girls|Emma]]) spends about two weeks in a coma before finally herself in the hospital.
** Later, Melanie has a heart attack while in the lift (elevator) and again after grabbing an electrify pole. Both times, finding herself in the hospital upon waking up.
* ''[http://fav.me/dd7ow55 Case of the Missing Technology]'', does waking in some [[Brain In a Jar|device keep one alive]] count? Just ask {{spoiler| [[Girls Aloud| Kim and Nicola]] along with [[Spice Girls| Melanie C]]}} on how's that working out for them.
** In the [[Sequel]], ''[http://fav.me/ddaajka After Case Report]'', Melanie goes into further details about what happens, which to the surprise of the narrator.
* ''[[My Apartment Manager is not an Isekai Character]]'': In the story ''[http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=14585 Moving Days, Part I]'', the cast of ''[[K-On!]]'' arrive in Refuge by waking up together in what looks like someone's living room.
* As his method of transit between universes renders him unconscious, Doug Sangnoir of ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' has at least one of these moments in every story in the cycle.

== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Diamonds Are Forever]]'' has two examples.
** After receiving a [[Tap on the Head]], [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] wakes up inside a coffin, just in time for an attempt at [[Murder by Cremation]].
** After being rendered unconscious by [[Instant Sedation|sleep gas]], he wakes up in an underground pipe and must face an electrified tunnel integrity checker.
*** [[Bond Villain Stupidity|Why the two goons didn't bother to shoot him before dumping him in the pipe]] ([[Sarcasm Mode|surely the maintenance-bot will kill him before he wakes up and has a chance to defend himself, why waste a precious bullet or two]]) is a mystery for the ages.
** In ''[[The Living Daylights]]'', [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] is drugged in Tangier and wakes to find himself on a plane bound for Afghanistan.
* This is part of Buffalo Bill's MO in ''[[Silence of the Lambs]]''. After spending weeks stalking a victim, he lures them into his van, knocks them out, handcuffs them, examines their skin, changes them into a jumpsuit and puts them in the well in his basement.
* ''[[Suspect Zero]]'': This happens to the protagonist, FBI Agent Thomas Mackelway, after the [[Serial Killer]]  {{spoiler|[[Serial Killer Killer|killer]]}} O'Ryan ambushes and drugs him at a county fair. He wakes up some time later bound on the floor of the killer's apartment, where a smiling O'Ryan casually threatens to torture him to death.
* This is basically the entire plot premise of ''[[The Hangover]]'', including the cast literally waking up in Las Vegas with no memories of the previous night's debauchery.
* Taken to an extreme length in ''[[Predators]]'', where the protagonists wake up while falling down from the sky at high speed.
* The Korean film ''Marrying the Mafia'' opens with one of these. The protagonist wakes up in bed with a [[Mafia Princess]], with neither of them knowing how they got there. The girl's family assumes they had sex. [[Hilarity Ensues]]. At the end, it's revealed how they got there:  {{spoiler|the girl's family put them there as a ploy to make her marry a man they approved of}}.
* An author wakes up after a car accident to find he has been rescued by his No. 1 Fan and installed in her remote cabin - a situation that isn't as fortunate as it first appears - in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Misery]]''.

== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''Burned'' by [[Ellen Hopkins]], towards the end of the book, the main character Pattyn and her boyfriend Ethan (whose unborn baby she is carrying) are fleeing from a police officer on an icy road. The car ends up going off the road and crashing and Pattyn is knocked out cold. She wakes up in the hospital some time later only to be informed that both Ethan and their child have been killed.
* Paolini relies on this trope a lot in ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Eragon]]'', using it instead of actual scene transitions in many instances. Examples include: Eragon fainting after finding a wounded Garrow and waking up in the care of the village healer, Eragon fainting of exhaustion after using magic against an Urgal, Eragon fainting again after using too much magic against Urgals, Eragon blacking out when attacked by the Ra'zac, Eragon blacking out again while Murtagh rescues him from said Ra'zac, and Eragon getting knocked out in an Urgal ambush which allows him to be captured.
* Seems to happen to Katniss more and more frequently as ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' series progresses, particularly as ''Mockingjay'' is basically one long [[Heroic BSOD]].

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* In the ''[[Law & Order: Special Victims Unit]]'' episode "Infiltrated", Olivia Benson (working undercover as Persephone James) is involved in a fight between police and the ecologist's group she is working with. She is hit by a police officer and knocked out cold, and awakens some time later to find herself handcuffed to a hospital gurney and a police officer informs her that she has been arrested.
* In the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qfvNYZcqqM opening credits of the first episode] of ''[[The Prisoner]]'', the title character was knocked out via [[Instant Sedation|sleeping gas]]. When he woke up, he was in The Village (no, not [[M. Night Shyamalan]]'s version).
* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' TOS episode "Stopover in a Quiet Town''. Two people try to drive home drunk. When they wake up the next morning, they're in a completely deserted town.
* There are at least three episodes of ''[[Psych]]'' where Shawn is struck in the head and wakes up somewhere else. Lassiter's apartment, tied up in a chair, and strapped in a bed respectively.
* In the episode "Strong Arm of the Law" of ''[[American Gothic]]'', a drunken thug is given something that knocks him out, only to wake up and find himeself inside a coffin, laying next to the body of the man he killed; the coffin is in the process of being buried.
* ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'': Drew Carey, in one episode, wakes up on the Great Wall of China, thanks to Mimi.
* Like in the comic, the beginning of the series ''[[The Walking Dead]]'' has an injured Rick waking up in the hospital, only to find that while he was sleeping, the [[Zombie Apocalypse]] has started and humanity has been almost completely wiped out.
* Happened on ''[[Monk]]'', with Monk being attacked in San Francisco and waking up (with amnesia) in a tiny town in Wyoming.
* In ''[[Noah's Arc]]'', this happens with Ricky following passing out due to an infection, waking up in a hospital.
* ''[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation]]'': Catherine wakes up in a motel after being [[Slipping a Mickey|given roofies]] in her drink at a bar.
** Nick probably counts too; he was knocked out at a crime scene with chloroform and woke up [[Buried Alive]].

== [[Music]] ==
* [[Steely Dan]]'s "Do It Again" has a verse that vaguely implies this; even if the fellow wasn't necessarily unconscious upon arriving, he definitely finds his presence unexpected and a bit unnerving:
{{quote|''Now you swear and kick and beg us''
''That you're not a gambling man''
''Then you find you're back in Vegas''
''With a handle in your hand''
''Your black cards can win you money''
''So you hide them when you're able''
''In the land of milk and honey''
''You must put them on the table'' }}

== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Alan Wake]]'':  {{spoiler|The protagonist wakes up in a crashed car after diving into the lake to save his wife}}
* Happens a lot in [[Silent Hill]], with characters waking up near or in the titular town. If they're already there, it often happens again when coming across an important bit of information, after defeating a boss, and when the Otherworld takes over yet again.
* In the original ''[[Half Life]]'', Gordon is ambushed by hostile marines and wakes up in a trash compactor.
* Happens three times in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'', once in a doctor's office at the start of the game, and twice at the start of the first and third DLC. It would be funny, considering the trope title, but the Courier never wakes up anywhere near Vegas itself.
** Before the Cass romance was cut for time, the Courier and her were going to wake up in Vegas and find out they got drunkenly married the night before.
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'', the player character escapes a doomed ship and wakes up in an apartment on an unfamiliar planet, with an ally dropping the news that s/he's been [[Asleep for Days]].
* Has happened at least once to ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]''.
* In ''Skyward Sword'', Link is knocked out by a volcanic blast as he tries to land in the Eldin Volcanic region. He wakes up with no items and only three filled hearts, in a jail cell.

== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Impure Blood]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20130609055558/http://www.impurebloodwebcomic.com/Pages/Chapter004/ib023.html Roan asks where they are as soon as he regains consciousness.]

== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[Street Sharks]]'', the protagonists apparently drop over dead in a lab. They wake up in a flooded storm drain, very confused.

{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Injury Tropes]]
[[Category:Drama Tropes]]
[[Category:Rule of Drama]]
[[Category:Surprise Tropes]]
[[Category:Plot Twist]]
[[Category:Sleep and Wakefulness Tropes]]