Red PIll?

I'm watching Total Recall, and as you'll recall (no pun intended) if you've seen the movie, at one point Neo.. er, I mean, the Governor of California, is approached by the psychologist from reKall. He is told he is in a machine-and-drug-induced hallucination making him believe he's a secret agent on Mars. In order to wake up and go back to the real world, he is offered a red pill. If he takes it, he'll wake up, be in the real world. Refuse, and he stays in the hallucination.
Is there some kind of tradition regarding the Red Pill? Was the scene in the Matrix an homage to Total Recall, or was it just coincidence? Anybody out there know?