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#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 – 38 stories

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

Dialogue – 73 stories

Write about two people whose dreams are somehow connected.

Thriller and Suspense – 42 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

Dream of me

Shortlisted for Contest #113 ⭐️

I.              Awake Do you know how to lucid dream? It's a skill, not a talent. The difference being, it's something you work on, not something you're born with. There are concrete actions you can take to practice, to train your brain and your subconscious into recognizing a dream state, and then take control. In a dream state, your brain seems to expand, to be limitless and all-powerful. There are certain, seemingly simple things that your brain does in a waking s...

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Out of Business

Submitted to Contest #113

“And in the last days it shall be, God declares,that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,   and your young men shall see visions,   and your old men shall dream dreams.”Acts 2:17In a medium-sized, yet growing, Pennsylvania hamlet, the black print on the rippled glass window of a heavy oaken door read:Dr. Evan Blakely, Psy.D.,Dream SpecialistThree weeks ago, the doctor was about to put a permanently closed sign on that door and search for another way to make a li...

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Lunescence

Submitted to Contest #113

You know when adults tell you that you should probably think before you do? At times, they're not wrong.The rain beat down on the hood of my car, feeling the warm heat coming from the vents coupled with the lingering smell of cigarettes gave me this weird feeling of invincibility. I'm young, I'm brilliant, and I'm invincible! At least for the moment. Driving home from the party that night seemed easy enough, I hadn't had much to drink and we only lived a quick two minutes away, what could go wrong?Just as the thought entered my brain the uni...

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That Nightmare of Panic

Submitted to Contest #113

It’s a choking feeling, as if you’re being surrounded and removed of all oxygen by an inescapable black fog. At the same time, it’s also like being put on a stage, with the blinding lights obscuring all but the wooden panels below your feel. Choking and exposing. Constricting and far too revealing. And why? It was a slip of the tongue, not intentional in the slightest. Your friend had said something innocuous. Something about a particular character on the TV being “kinda cute.” And because they are your friend, and such company tends to ma...

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You were never the murderer

Submitted to Contest #113

CW substance useI feel so much love for this man. He is trying to kill us. We are a group of about eight, scattered, running up this residential block in the half light before dawn. We dodge around Chevrolet Cavaliers and Ford Escorts parked on the curb. We know he is behind us. If I could just reach him, explain to them, this would be over. A crash of pots starts me awake and I lie, heart racing, listening to rain out the window and breakfast prep in the kitchen.I close my eyes, trying to hold onto the dream images. If I...

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Tommy LaFontaine

Submitted to Contest #113

CW: drug dependency, suicideTommy LaFontaine had always dreamt of going to other dimensions. No, he literally always dreamt of going to other worlds, and every time he did, he learned something new.For example, did you know there's a place where books read people? They have libraries instead of homes, and rather than dying they become overdue. The entire world is literal, right off the page... so they find the unpredictability and emotional outbursts of humans, quite entertaining. Their leader's name is Dewey Decimal, and they live a very or...

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Esmerelda

Submitted to Contest #113

Two of the screws in my porthole have fallen out. Five rusty ones remain. The window shakes with every wave that slams into it. Water runs down the wall, making puddles on the floor. If our captain wasn’t oblivious of the world around him, I might bother to tell him we’re sinking. His nose is too high in the air to see the moldy wood at his feet. It’s coming in through the cracks in the wood and the rain from above. We’re being drowned, slowly. He only cares about his pile of broken things. He dreams of fixing everything that lay at his ...

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Daydream

Submitted to Contest #113

This is my worst nightmare.I woke up extra early, fully rested. My bedroom was not too cold or too hot, and the yoga mat was already rolled out. All I had to do was a few stretches, push-ups and sit-ups (a new record: 30 each), and then hit the bathroom. I noticed that I had more cereal than I thought and that the skim milk I thought I had to replace was still fresh. The coffee was also already percolating (when did I turn the machine on?), and my bag was packed (again, a mystery).I got dressed, found my car keys in a pocket of a jacket I ha...

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Dreams

Submitted to Contest #113

It was early September, yet the summer warmth lingered with tenacity. Labor Day over, kids in school, and Halloween advertising was underway. The activity stimulated my dreams, one in particular.Grocery shopping done, I was home for lunch.I remembered my good friend Erin who’d moved into a spacious new office and asked me to come by on my next trip to town.“Erin. It’s me, Jean.”“Hey, girlfriend, good to hear from you.”“Remember you asked me to visit next time I was in town? How about tomorrow? Dan leaves at seven-fifteen every morning with t...

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Cassandra Dreams of Brooklyn

Submitted to Contest #113

When I told them the building would come to flames at half past three on a cloudy Saturday in November, they laughed at me. The men. The firemen. The red axe-holders ran their chuckles up and around my concern. Even the dalmatian laughed with a clipped bark that betrayed its tender spots. I took my lunch pail filled with the ham and lettuce my mother had packed me, and I walked the seven blocks home. When that Saturday in November arrived, the smoke could be seen from the playground at my school, and our teacher left us mid-sentence when t...

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The Oneiroi: Darkness and Fear

Submitted to Contest #113

"The Oneiroi: Darkness and Fear" by Elizabeth FenleyTheaI wake up every morning with a new word written on my right forearm in thick black Sharpie, so fresh that I can smell it. But it’s not my handwriting. Plus I’m right-handed, and there are no markers in the house—I have to scramble to find a pen to write down confirmation numbers.Someone is writing on my arm while I sleep.Pretty sure that would freak anyone out. I am out-of-my-mind freaked out.LarinnaI wake up every morning with a marker in my hand. But nothing in my house is written on,...

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Souls, Spirits, Whatever You Call It

Submitted to Contest #113

The first time I saw her I was freshly 16; my birthday is in September, so it was the first week of school and I was completely drained. I was having some banal dream about being a volunteer at a shelter, but the shelter was full of unicorns or whatever. I don’t remember what task I was doing in this random fantasy, but I remember I saw her on the other side of the yard. She was wearing a blue shirt and her hair was in a ponytail. She looked distressed and out of place. And she was in color. It’s hard to verbalize, but I almost always dr...

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One Lost Soul

Submitted to Contest #113

ONE LOST SOUL by Del Gibson This is my worst nightmare, and this is the reason why… So there I was, moving the rest of the boxes from the boot of my Audi, into my new apartment – when I first saw the lady standing at my bedroom window. She appeared as an unsubstantial fog upon the glass. Do you ever wish you had have listened to your instincts? You know, that gut punch that warns you something isn’t right? It shivered right through me but I brushed it off . There was no going back, and nothing to go back to. This would be my new beginni...

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The Meeting Place

Submitted to Contest #113

You ever think about someone, but no memories pop into your head? You don't want to remember. Instead, you get that tight feeling in your chest. Like you’re holding on to every bit of air in your lungs until you realize you can finally breathe? That you're safe? That is until you sleep. It's been years, six to be exact. Six years from the last time I let him in, but somehow, he always ends up at our meeting place. It's funny because even in my dreams, he makes me feel chaotic. As though I have no control over who I am or who I'm becomin...

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In inferno, nulla est redemptio

Submitted to Contest #113

Finally home from his sixth straight 12-hour shift and Mitch was ready for bed. No partying. No going out. Not tonight.“Twenty-six and in bed by eight,” he muttered, buttoning up his pyjama top. “What a party animal.”He shuffled down the hall of his apartment with his phone in hand, browsing social media and heading for his bedroom, when there was a knock at the door.Mitch paused. Who could that be?Another knock, followed by a commanding voice, “Police. Is anyone home?”He felt his heart skip a beat and he almost dropped his phone. The police...

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