Normally, Sleepwalking or Talking in Your Sleep is harmless, except for things like tripping or blurting out secrets. But if you have extraordinary powers, and you unconsciously use them while sleeping, it can get dangerous.
A trope that usually occurs with those who wield magic or superpowers. They may be so used to using their powers they may accidentally start using them out of night terrors or some kind of instinct or muscle memory. It may also happen when someone uses superpowers in response to what happens in their dream. Whatever the case, nobody nearby, not even the user themselves, will be safe from these rogue, unpredictable superpowered actions. But in some instances it may be justified if their ability requires them to sleep, such as Astral Projection and dream-related abilities (Dream Walker, Dream Weaver, etc).
Sub-Trope of Power Incontinence. May result in Oh, Crap!, Unwitting Instigator of Doom, or Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! if it has disastrous consequences. Compare Unconscious Objector.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Cardcaptor Sakura has an episode where after receiving a magicked New Year fortune from Eriol, she dreams that she activates her magic wand and morphs the Dream Card from a Clow Card to a Sakura Card. She then wakes up and finds that she has activated her wand and transformed the Dream Card while asleep.
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Thunder Breathing user Zenitsu Agatsuma is often far too afraid to fight most demons he encounters. When one gleefully describes what he's going to do to him, Zenitsu is promptly scared unconscious. Then he rises and dispatches the demon quickly, promptly waking up and assuming he'd been saved by a nearby civilian.
- My Hero Academia:
- Izuku briefly suffers from night terrors where he is explicitly shown the creation of One For All by its first wielder, waking up to find that he has accidentally wrecked his own room in his sleep.
- Another example is more comedically implied with Uraraka, who's shown sleeping with oven mitts on, presumably to make sure she doesn't accidentally float things around with her hands.
- Naruto:
- In one omake, Yamato deals with Naruto, who is snoring loud and throwing weapons in his sleep. He even creates a friggin' Rasengan in his sleep, which prompts Yamato to create a bunker to hide in using Wood Release.
- Another omake has Yamato dealing with Naruto and Kiba, who are both using their signature jutsus on him in their sleep. Yamato ends up tying them up, only to now have to deal with Shino, who is about to utilize his insect swarms against him in his sleep.
- One Piece: Cavendish has a Superpowered Evil Side called "Hakuba" that manifests whenever he falls asleep. He gains Super-Speed during such, but he will indiscriminately attack anyone in vicinity.
- In One-Punch Man, Garou's so skilled at martial arts he fights in his sleep... and defeated a S-class heronote the strongest class, widely regarded as monsters/surhuman beings/whatever because of their ridiculous powers, though the one defeated was one of the weakest this way.
Comic Books
- Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner stopped wearing his ring to bed after his dreams about his dead girlfriend began manifesting in the real world.
- Spider-Man: The reason why Spider-Man got rid of his symbiote costume, to begin with, was that it took him out to fight crime while he slept.
- Marvel Comics: X-Man: Until he gained full control of his powers during his "Shaman" period, Nate subconciously used his reality warping powers while sleeping.
Comic Strips
- Disney Adventures had a short comic based on Aladdin called "Poof Spoof👁 Image
", in which the Genie keeps casting magic in his sleep, accidentally transforming Aladdin and Abu in amusing ways.
Fan Works
- Ben 10: Unlimited: At one point, while the two are playfully teasing each other, Ben tells Kara that she levitates in her sleep sometimes.
- Child of the Storm has both Harry and Clark do this, usually floating in the process. In Clark's case, it's Foreshadowing that he can fly (badly). In Harry's, it's usually at least semi-conscious and a sign his mind is literally elsewhere.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: After Ami tries to get a good night's sleep with a sleep spell, it's discovered that sleep-keeping is possible, pulling General Jadeite to be a teddy bear, and pulling him back, if they manage to get away.
- Triptych Continuum: Triptych:
Dream-casting: a sign that a unicorn had pushed herself past her limits to the point where the subconscious took over and started implementing designs of its own.
Films — Animation
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: When Twilight has a nightmare about Midnight Sparkle, it causes her to start levitating her bed and everything around it, only letting go when she wakes up and Sunset points out what she's doing.
- In Turning Red, Mei first transforms into her red panda form while she's in the middle of having a nightmare.
Films — Live-Action
- Forbidden Planet: Dr. Morbius keeps his anger and jealousy in check while awake, but when he's asleep...
- In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Ron is able to open the Chamber of Secrets because he apparently picked up a bit of Parseltongue from Harry hissing in his sleep.
- The title character in Little Nicky normally speaks in Adam Sandler's signature high-nasal whine, but when he sleeps he starts muttering in Hell's Black Speech, which drives his flatmate mad with paranoia.
- Suicide Squad (2016): June Moone accidentally unleashes Enchantress in her sleep, allowing the latter to escape captivity and cause the whole movie's plot to set in motion.
Literature
- The Bad Place: Frank Pollard has a problem: he uses his power of Teleportation while he's asleep. Even worse, he suffers a Teleportation Misfire effect that causes a Teleporter Accident: he regularly merges materials into his body when he teleports.
- In The Cloak Society, it's fairly common for telekinetic protagonist Alex to wake up to find everything in his room thrown out of place.
- The Daevabad Trilogy: When Ali learns that his friends have known the secret of his Making a Splash powers for five years, they remind him that he's repeatedly had oases appear around him in his sleep.
- Epithet Erased: Prison of Plastic: Some Inscribed involuntarily use their powers in their sleep. Lorelai has been known to conjure dream creations while sleeping. She believes that her sleep-inscribing was the cause of the mysterious fire that killed her mother, and she still hasn't forgiven herself for it.
- In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone one of the unconscious ways of Harry using magic (before knowing it exists or that he is a wizard) is regrowing his hair in his sleep after Aunt Petunia cut it into a terrible hairdo.
- Imager Portfolio: Imagers sometimes Image while in their sleep, which is why all Imagers, even married ones, are required to sleep alone, as doing so can be dangerous to anyone else in the room.
- Lilith's Brood: Jodahs has bouts of Power Incontinence as his Biomanipulation powers develop during his species' equivalent of puberty. They're worst in his sleep, when he regularly mutates himself and any organic matter he's touching — a problem, since their entire village is a single Organic Technology organism.
- In Monday Begins on Saturday, the narrator describes having a dream about some giant mosquito-like creature, and then waking up because it tries to bite him. He remarks he must have spoken the materialization formula while asleep.
- Near the end of Moon Rainbow, protagonist Andrey Tobolsky discovers that he is no longer a regular human after waking up in the middle of the night and finding himself floating comfortably two meters above his bed. He then proceeds to turn electronics on and off with his mind and to walk through a wall, just to test out what else he can do now.
- In Touch (2017), James' Traumatic Superpower Awakening comes when he has a Flashback Nightmare about being raped. The result is that he wakes up floating over his bed.
- Whateley Universe: Phase has phased through matter while in his sleep before.
- The Wheel of Time: Discussed when Mat learns that Rand can channel the One Power — a dangerous ability for any man. One of his fears comes from an urban legend of a male channeler who pulverized his surroundings in his sleep, so Perrin sarcastically suggests that they share a bed for safety. It's later revealed to be impossible to sleep-channel except for a few dream-related abilities.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider Zi-O: A particularly unsettling example occurs with Sougo, whose Time Master powers are so powerful that his dreams create entirely new timelines complete with their own Riders, and the summer movie Over Quartzer implies that the succeeding main Rider was also created from one of his dreams as well.
- Raising Dion: Besides Power Incontinence, this is one of the problems Dion faces when his superpowers first begin to manifest.
- In the first episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996), Sabrina levitates over her bed while she's asleep.
- In one of the early season episodes of Smallville, Clark dreams of flying to go see Lana, the girl he has a crush on. In reality, he's hovering over his bed, hinting that he'll one day be able to fly, a power he won't fully develop until the final episode of the series ten seasons later.
- In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Alternate", an unknown gas affects the changeling Odo. When Odo is regenerating (i.e., sleeping), he unknowingly transforms into a different sort of changeling, only this "Mr. Hyde" version is mindless, reacting according to Odo's current emotional state. It takes a few attacks for everyone to figure out what's going on. Odo even investigates the attacks committed by his other self.
- In an episode of The Worst Witch, when Julie Hubble gets powers, she levitates in her sleep.
Tabletop Games
- Ravenloft: The darklord Ivana Boritsi is cursed to take on the appearance of a venom-ravaged corpse when she sleeps, betraying her nature as a Poisonous Person.
Video Games
- Muse Dash: Sleepwalker Girl Rin's description implies that she can save the world when she's asleep. In game, her power is to automatically play the chart (and naturally earn an All Perfect).
- Pokémon:
- The moves Snore and Sleep Talk can only be used while the mon is asleep. Snore inflicts direct damage to the enemy and has a 30% chance of making the enemy to flinch, while Sleep Talk attacks using one of the Pokémon's up to three other moves randomly.
- There are at least two Pokémon noted to attack while sleeping; Abra, and Komala. Komala actually spends its entire life sleeping without waking even once, but Abra grows out of this after evolving.
- Pokémon Sleep introduces numerous examples, often as part of three-star sleep styles:
- Butterfree sometimes accidentally scatters its toxic scales while sleeping.
- The Pikachu line occasionally discharge electricity in their sleep, as do Plusle, Minun, the Pawmi line, and the Shinx line.
- Both forms of Vulpix use their powers to adjust the temperature while sleeping, using Ember and Powder Snow respectively.
- Mr. Mime and Mime Jr. can pantomime objects into existence while sleeping, even sleeping on a mimed bed at times.
- The Cyndaquil line sometimes produce flames from their bodies while sleeping.
- Houndoom sometimes breathes fire while asleep, as does Salamence.
- Absol's danger sensing abilities are said to be strong even while it sleeps.
- Abomasnow can conjure blizzards by swinging its arms, which it sometimes does while sleeping.
- Darkrai has been observed using Dark Void while asleep.
- The main premise of Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is that the fairy-like Lums have turned into evil Hoodlums thanks to the influence of the black Lum Andre. However, since Lums only turn into evil black lums if they were touched by Andre or spooked, this begs the question of what turned Andre the original black lum, evil. In a flashback, it's revealed that it was actually Rayman's Floating Limb hands, which wandered off while he was asleep and scared a Red Lum so bad that it turned into a black lum, thus explaining Andre's origins.
- In Richman Fight, Aya's description mentions that she can use unique spells when sleepwalking. However, in the actual game, her ability is to put opponents to sleep and she also can't do anything when sleepwalking.
- Twisted-Wonderland: Silver's unique magic, due to its Dream Walker nature, can only be used during sleep.
Webcomics
- In El Goonish Shive, the first time Elliot casts👁 Image
his Super Gender-Bender spell is while he is asleep dreaming of being a superhero and wakes up transformed. - Erma: In "Sleep Floating👁 Image
", the sleeping Erma goes on a nighttime journey in which she unknowingly uses her levitation and intangibility powers to pass through the ceiling of her bedroom, then the roof of her house, then several other buildings including a skyscraper. Eventually she goes high enough to encounter a passenger jet, which she also passes through (scaring the hell out of the pilots and passengers) before her mother finds her and brings her home. - Although it doesn't happen in Grrl Power, this is one of the worries👁 Image
Sydney exposes to her therapist after she starts having post-traumatic nightmares: She reminds the doctor that she has the equivalent of a very powerful laser cannon always floating at hand and she doesn't want to fire it accidentally by lashing out in her sleep. Dr. Frost helpfully prescribes a pair of mittens. - In Tales of the Questor, racconans have innate magic and a tendency to unconsciously cast illusions of their nightmares in childhood. In one arc Quentyn discovers that one kit's night terrors have been attracting magic-eating wights.
Web Videos
- Rocket Jump's short "Sleep Fighter👁 Image
": Paige is a teen girl dealing with Blended Family Drama and obviously disgusted to be sharing a room with a new Annoying Younger Step-Sibling. Mindy is an affectionate young Genki Girl who (as they both go to bed) hopes her "sleep fighting" does not cause any problems. She falls asleep before explaining what this means, but it is soon obvious: the scene turns Jidaigeki as Sleepwalking Mindy attacks Paige with absurdly-expert martial arts moves and Samurai weapons while uttering Badass Boasts in Gratuitous Japanese. Each time Paige manages to wake her up, Mindy apologizes and returns to her normal personality. By the end, they share their feelings and grow closer as sisters.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time has a particularly odd episode in which Jake's Rubber Man powers cause his tail to stretch out of the house and live a weird double life while he is sleeping.
- Ben 10:
- Ben 10: In "Midnight Madness", Ben is hypnotized to commit crimes for Sublimino in his sleep.
- Ben 10 (2016): In "Ben 24hrs", Ben seems to somehow use the Master Control while he sleepwalks at Adrenaland.
- The DC Super Hero Girls (2019) short "#SuperSleeper" revolves around Supergirl flying all over Metropolis in her sleep with Batgirl trying to keep her out of danger and is unable to wake her up.
- In the DuckTales (1987) episode "Superdoo", Doofus Drake's first brush with the strange powers granted by an alien rock he found occurs while he's asleep. He flies out of the cabin while asleep and wakes up flying over the countryside.
- Played with in one episode of The Fairly OddParents!: guilt about getting Vicky arrested for something that he did causes Timmy to "sleep wish," generally for things random or dangerous. Unfortunately, Cosmo and Wanda are required to grant them anyway.
- Final Space: In "The Grand Surrender", Ash accidently uses her powers in her sleep while she has a nightmare in which she is fighting the Serpent God Werthrent. She ends up blasting a hole in the room of her wall, and Nightfall has to wake her up to prevent further damage.
- Monster By Mistake: After getting fed up with the annoying antics of school bully Billy, Tracy accidentally casts a spell in her sleep the following night that turns him into a giant blue gorilla.
- The Spectacular Spider-Man plays this for horror. Peter goes to sleep one night, then puts on the black suit to go out and fight the Sinister Six. Through the entire fight, Peter is dead silent, shows unusual abilities, and nearly kills Doc Ock before Captain Stacy orders him to stand down. Then he goes home and back to bed, wakes up, and wonders where all the bruises came from....at which point it's revealed that Peter was still asleep through the whole fight, and the Symbiote took his body out for a joyride and snapped some photos while it was at it.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
- The whole episode "Sleep Spells" is dedicated to this trope. Star is constantly casting spells in her sleep, with Marco trying to find out why. It turns out that she's doing it to protect herself from Princess Smooshy, a fugitive from St. Olga's Reform School who is trying to steal Star's face to (extremely poorly) disguise herself.
- In "Sweet Dreams", Star discovers that she's been "dipping down" in her sleep and travelling between dimensions in her Mewberty form. When her sleep-portaling starts to prove dangerous in "Night Life", she spends "Deep Dive" trying to get to the bottom of the mystery.
- As a minor gag, "Jannanigans" opens with Tom sleeping over at Marco's house and floating over the bed.
- In Static Shock, shortly after being exposed to Bang-Baby Gas, Static goes to sleep. His body then starts magnetically attracting every metal object in his room, with some of it stuck to him when he wakes up.
- Steven Universe:
- The title character has several Psychic Powers, almost all of which require him to be asleep. Like all of his powers, he discovers them accidentally. One episode has him Dream Walk into Kiki's mind each night, while another has him possess Lars' body until his own is woken up.
- Gems don't have to sleep, and the one time Pearl is known to have in "Chille Tid", her Mental Picture Projector powers unknowingly show everyone her dreams.
- In X-Men: Evolution, Kitty Pryde's phasing powers first manifest in her sleep as she has a nightmare. She falls from her bedroom to the basement. Her parents want to pass it off as sleepwalking, until they see her blankets, half in and half out of the ceiling.