Suspended animation in fiction

Suspended animation in fiction is the temporary halting of life processes of fictional characters followed by their later revival.

The process often serves as a plot device and is used in innumerable science fiction stories as a means to transport a character from the past into the future or to aid interstellar space travel. Often, in addition to accomplishing whatever the character's primary task is in the future, he or she must cope with the strangeness of a new world, which may contain only traces of his or her previous surroundings. In some instances, a character is depicted as having skills or abilities that have been lost to society during their period of suspension, allowing them to function as a heroic figure in their new time.

The mechanisms for the suspension and revival can vary widely. Early stories tend to use magical enchantment that induces a long sleep. Many modern stories attempt to portray it as scientific suspended animation or cryonics, while glossing over and ignoring most of the complexities. In the fictional versions, all the cells are usually viable and the revival process is simple or even spontaneous. Many stories feature accidental freezing and use technobabble to explain how the characters survived the process.

Some form of suspended animation often occurs as an element in many king in the mountain stories, a genre in which folk heroes from past eras are believed to be sleeping or otherwise kept alive for extended periods until they are needed to return to deal with some great peril. For example Holger Danske.

Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are classic fairy tales that use suspended animation as a central theme.

In Shakespeare, several tales (Romeo and Juliet, Cymbeline) employ plot devices of a drug which induces a suspended animation state which is indistinguishable from death.

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