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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#113: Dreams and Nightmares

Different cultures and civilizations have been pondering the meaning of dreams for centuries. Whether you believe dreams reflect real life, or real life reflects our dreams, it’s difficult not to be intrigued by the personalized movies our brain creates while we’re asleep. This week’s prompts encourage you to explore what happens when we enter this liminal space between fantasy and reality — and how dreams can be beautiful, terrible, and everything in between.

This week's prompts

Write a story about a character who believes their dreams predict the future.

Thriller and Suspense – 39 stories

Start or end your story with the line ‘This is my worst nightmare.’

Dialogue – 74 stories

Write about two people whose dreams are somehow connected.

Thriller and Suspense – 43 stories

Write a story about a character who interprets people’s dreams.

Adults – 18 stories

Write about a character whose dreams are portals to other worlds.

Science Fiction – 54 stories

Stories

“Recurrence” by Fem Flores

Submitted to Contest #113

"This is my worst nightmare" Rhian, thought to herself. She found out about the plane crash as she arrived at her workplace after lunch, and both her manager and assistant stood by her office door waiting for her to break the news. With grim faces, they bid her to come inside the glass doors, and Lee, her manager of five years haltingly told her that the plane, her husband Cam was in, crashed on the Pacific due to an engine malfunction. She heard the story as most did, with the paralyzed inability to process it's significance. She shook he...

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“A Flame Worth its Candle” by Zoe Tribley

Submitted to Contest #113

I’m in a desert. All above and around, bright stars crowd the night sky for space. The Milky Way spreads wide and from my micro, micro lens of me in this sea of sand and buried streams, the cloudy galaxy appears like a festive bow, wrapping the world in white, blue, purple, and dark red. Before me, it’s flat. Behind me, it’s flat. To either side, there’s nothing but dark mileage and offsets of obsidian, a mountain range perhaps? There are no plants in this flat valley. No awkwardly armed cacti, no poodle dog bush, no cluster of thorns...

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“a shared dream ” by Bronwen Lewis

Submitted to Contest #113

Tuesday, 27 September 1921. “Snovi Belleville, can you present your presentation now?” The teacher groaned, nibbling on her glasses. Snovi, feeling dauntless, casually walked up to the front of the class and took out a few pieces of paper. “My presentation is about dreams, in fact, my name means dreams in Latin” she started. The class looked highly disinterested already. “If you dream about something, it’ll happen,” she said joyfully. The whole class burst out in laughter, the response from the class caused Snovi to tear up but not cry or ...

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“Whatever Dreams are Made of” by Monty Martin

Submitted to Contest #113

George Solid respectability was the understated unselfconscious achievement of George Albert Jones. His style was worlds apart from the prevalent self-opinionated social media posturing into which he rarely dipped, and only then with distain. His eponymous insurance underwriting firm had offices on Fenchurch Street in London with a branch at Manchester’s Minshull Street. When not at work, he was usually home in an extensive five bedroomed Barnes town house and occasionally at the family cottage in Devon. David Lloyd was the only club of whic...

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“Onaji Yume” by Mike Garrigan

Submitted to Contest #113

Herbert Lowe perused iPhones at the 5th Avenue Apple Store. While Lowe walked between the display tables, Detective Skinner spotted him from outside. Lowe froze—his stomach fell to the ground.Lowe snuck out of the side entrance of the store and headed southward. Skinner followed. Lowe turned right on 47th Street, just before Saint Thomas Church. He wanted to run, but Skinner had his oversized German Shepherd, Banjo, with him. Banjo was notorious for biting fleeing perps in the crotch. Last week, Lowe stole a satchel of diamonds from a b...

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“On the Flip Side” by Tori May

Submitted to Contest #113

She hasn’t cried in three years. She always thinks back to how weird it was, the night she went to the carnival. She didn’t really want to go, but she saw the determination in one of the older woman’s eyes and she wondered for a few seconds, when-if she’d be called a “little bitch” for resisting again. She’d tensed up at the thought, body feeling odd and tight, wondering if her legs would force her to run without a second thought again. Laura had flinched at the expression on the older woman’s face as soon as it happened, feeling...

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“Eyra” by Alyssa Basemore

Submitted to Contest #113

“Hellooo? Earth to Aaliyah!” I jump, turning my attention back to my younger sister, Mia, who’s eating breakfast next to me. Mia is two years younger than me, but we’ve always been close. We actually shared a room for five years, too. My mom told us once that, when she was a baby and I was like, two or three when she would cry at night, I would crawl out of bed and comfort her. “Hm?” I mutter, shoving a piece of bacon in my mouth. Mia laughs. “Were you daydreaming just now?” Mia asks, eyeing me curiously. “You totally just went somewhere.” “...

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“Why Do We Dream of Horses? ” by Daniel Brown

Submitted to Contest #113

“No one in this dreary cafeteria knows I dream of being a horse mid-Spring. No one knows my glorious neigh-and-gallop through sweeping vistas and picturesque sunflower fields. Everyone knows I vanish inside of a temperamental Walkman while I consume tapioca and file documents. They know the metal that swirls and shovels cassava between my perpetual chapped lips. The tape hiss and pop of a slanted Walkman window.” My therapist Lira lowers her glasses and massages the bridge of her nose. Why would anyone dream of horses let alone being...

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“Don't...” by Urvasi Pauvaday

Submitted to Contest #113

(CW: Depression, suicide)A bead of sweat rolled from his temple and into his already dampened hair. The ticklish feeling of the droplet slowly sliding across his skin caused him to roll over in bed, as he mumbled to himself : "don’t…". Ever since he could remember, the exact same dream had haunted him, only, the images were getting clearer and clearer with every passing night. It was not a nightmare — or it had stopped being one for a while now — since his mind had already registered the events of this peculiar dream that never seemed to alt...

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“Dreams of My Other Half” by Callaway Lytle

Submitted to Contest #113

My mind is foggy, I haven’t slept in days. The dreams came back last week and every time they invade my mind, I puzzle over them. They come and go like traffic - a while between waves and then you’re stuck in it. There’s a guy. He’s most of what drives me to madness. I can see him, but I can't at the same time. He’s a dark figure in my mind, his only distinct feature being his voice. I receive a daily letter from my mother telling me to “go get ‘em, Gem” but the only reason she wants me to be a model is because she never got the opportunity ...

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“Entrance to an Enigma” by Rick Ouellette

Submitted to Contest #113

I had worked for a small underwriting firm for many years but one day me and my co-workers were pressed into service to help staff an upscale restaurant across the street. It was up the long-ignored steps that ran between the Blight Falls Five-Cent Savings Bank and the Commissary Exchange Trust. At the top of the steps was old outdoor business arcade I had never seen; it backed up to the rear wall of the hulking Bureau of Missing Information. I spotted the Blackburn Grill and unhappily stepped inside. My boss, who had just gone from CEO...

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“Cosmic doppelgangers'. ” by Lily SW

Submitted to Contest #113

The night is warm. Endless stars hang over my head like a thick curtain, almost close enough to touch. I slip a hand off the steering wheel to feel the curtails of wind wrap around my fingers. The sensation is so fragile and clean. The road empty, I speed up, the fragmented embers growing around my arm. And I suffer sad reluctance when the growing lines of city buildings come to view. On entering the city, a breakdown of rain falls onto my car, drumming on its shell. The city's fluorescent glare drowns out the natural skylight, creat...

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“Sleep Lab” by Donald King

Submitted to Contest #113

“Oh my God! It worked! I was there! I was actually there!!” Aaron leapt from the bed and tore off the sensors attached to his head. He raced over to the EEG machine and tried to look over Sandy's shoulder as she ripped off the readout and started pulling at the pile of paper that had accordioned on the floor behind the machine. “What did it show? Could you tell? I wasn't dreaming, I'm sure of it. It was just so real.” Aaron's friend Tim was hunched over his laptop, fast-forwarding through video of Aaron asleep on the bed. “I don't think ...

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“Space Boy” by Adelaide Dolha

Submitted to Contest #113

Clouds floated in between the balcony’s banisters shifting the curtains as it entered the room. The clouds disappeared for a moment with each step of her bare feet until she reached the end of the balcony. She stared out into the starry sky, more clouds drifting close enough to touch her fingers. The clouds had no texture to them, only the thought of them feeling like cotton candy or like a soft pillow kept her reaching out for them, only to be disappointed when they parted from her touch. The breeze touched her gently and she sighed w...

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“THE HIGHEST DOOR” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #113

THE HIGHEST DOOR Jenny was dreaming. She could see herself while she was walking down a country road. Just when she was about to start running, since it was beginning to rain, she fell, but rather she slid to the ground, lying flat down on the road. Then soon after she started to move very fast , crawling stretched out, with her body in contact with the earth. It was quite pleasant to move in that position at that speed, rubbing on the ground with the whole body. It seemed to be on a merry- go – roun...

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$250

Prize money

228

Contest entries

139

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 01, 2021 EST

Won by Megan Lange 🏆

Title: Dream Weaver

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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