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The premise of the Cuckoo Nest plot is that a character is convinced that they are in an insane asylum (a Bedlam House is a popular choice), where they are told that the events of the series are actually hallucinations. The episode will switch from "reality" to reality, making one wonder what's really happening. Sometimes, even if the series canon reveals that someone was using Phlebotinum to make them think they were crazy, there will be a scene in the "real world" of a psychologist giving up. More ambiguously, the issue of which is "real" might never be resolved.

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  • Cuckoo Nest
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  • The premise of the Cuckoo Nest plot is that a character is convinced that they are in an insane asylum (a Bedlam House is a popular choice), where they are told that the events of the series are actually hallucinations. The episode will switch from "reality" to reality, making one wonder what's really happening. Sometimes, even if the series canon reveals that someone was using Phlebotinum to make them think they were crazy, there will be a scene in the "real world" of a psychologist giving up. More ambiguously, the issue of which is "real" might never be resolved.
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  • The premise of the Cuckoo Nest plot is that a character is convinced that they are in an insane asylum (a Bedlam House is a popular choice), where they are told that the events of the series are actually hallucinations. The episode will switch from "reality" to reality, making one wonder what's really happening. Sometimes, even if the series canon reveals that someone was using Phlebotinum to make them think they were crazy, there will be a scene in the "real world" of a psychologist giving up. Often, if the character "accepts" the "insane asylum" reality by doing a certain thing (taking a pill, destroying the source of his "fantasy" power, et cetera), they might die, lose their power, or be submerged in the new non-fantasy reality forever. Occasionally the character is encouraged to kill themselves in order to wake up. The character is eventually persuaded to do said thing, and they're only stopped when incongruity reveals they're the subject of an elaborate ruse. There's a variation on this, an ending to a movie/video game/book (they don't usually have the guts to do it to an entire series) where the final reveal is that the whole thing was just the delusion of an insane person -- a combination of this trope, All Just a Dream, and Dying Dream. Don't do this unless you really, really know what you're doing, and even then you probably shouldn't: done even the slightest bit poorly, it feels like the author has played an annoying prank on the reader, and worst yet, an unoriginal one. More ambiguously, the issue of which is "real" might never be resolved. The Cuckoo Nest is the dark counterpart of the Lotus Eater Machine. A more benign form of the Cuckoo Nest is the Happy Place. A more sinister one is Through the Eyes of Madness. A version without the imaginary "reality" is going among mad people. Not to be confused with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, or with "a cuckoo in the nest". Examples of Cuckoo Nest include:
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