Those three - plus The Matrix, Paranoia Agent and The Devil's Advocate - were all firmly in mind as I wrote this.

> A JLA story from early on in Grant Morrison's run on the book, "For the Man Who Has Everything" by Alan Moore & an episode of Batman: TAS.

"Imaginary Stories" was the JLA issue, which marked the return of the Silver Age villain The Key, while "Perchance to Dream" was the Batman: The Animated Series episode, in which the Mad Hatter was the mastermind.

> The Batman episode & Moores' story both dealt with the main characters' "hearts' desire" given to him in a dream like state.

In The Matrix, Agent Smith told Morpheus:

Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrums kept trying to wake up from.

There's something to that, I think.