Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Menu

✕
CONNECT
Editing Design Marketing Publicity Ghostwriting Websites
BLOG
Success Stories
APPS
TOOLS
Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships
ABOUT
About Reedsy Terms Privacy

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 – 76 stories

Write about two people whose dreams are somehow connected.

Thriller and Suspense – 44 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 – 59 stories

Stories

“Drop Zone” by Linda Gruenberg

This is my worst nightmare: heights. I’m terrified of heights.I know I’m not the only one. Some people are just drawn over the edge of things. Like the old woman I saw in Tepee Tonka Park last Saturday. She couldn't even walk across a high footbridge without lying down to keep from falling off.       I think about that woman clinging to the edge of the bridge as I watch the Cessna climbing its way to thirty-five hundred feet. My husband, Tony, has just taken up skydiving. Today is his secon...

6 comments 6
Read story

“Awake” by Shane Ransom

She fought against the pull toward consciousness, preferring to bask in the vague happiness that lived in the gauzy space between wakefulness and dreams. She held the glow, which was already slipping away, for as long as she could before succumbing, inevitably, to the pull of the world beyond her own mind. Gray, she thought as her eyes fluttered open. It was always the first thing she noticed. It was one of the only things to notice really, the grayness. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, her clothes, all of it the same lifeless ...

7 comments 7 SHORTLIST ⭐️
Read story

“That Nightmare of Panic” by Tedcor Obli

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 innoc...

7 comments 7
Read story

“Somnia Addicta” by Brandi Sellers

When my body surrenders to sleep, colors, smells and sounds coalesce. Magic grows from possibility to certainty. The intangible parts of my soul manifest into wondrous creatures and people and landscapes.  Tonight, it manifests you. I’ve dreamed of such encounters before--strangers who know me better, love me better, than anyone in the waking light. So when your lips meet mine, I relish the sensation wit...

1 comment 1 SHORTLIST ⭐️
Read story

“Lunescence” by Shiloh Ord

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 ...

5 comments 5
Read story

“Tommy LaFontaine” by Jude S. Walko

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 leade...

4 comments 4
Read story

“Out of Business” by David Brown

“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, Pennsylvani...

1 comment 1
Read story

“You were never the murderer” by Charlene 🧙‍♀️✨ Boyce

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...

2 comments 2
Read story

“Daydream ” by Kendall Defoe

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...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Dream of me” by Elia Kruger

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 ...

6 comments 6 SHORTLIST ⭐️
Read story

“Esmerelda” by Courtney Moore

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 ...

2 comments 2
Read story

“Dreams” by M.D. Smith

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 ...

5 comments 5
Read story

“Cassandra Dreams of Brooklyn” by Kevin Broccoli

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...

0 comments 0
Read story

“One Lost Soul” by Del Gibson

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 unsubst...

10 comments 10
Read story

“The Oneiroi: Darkness and Fear” by Elizabeth Fenley

"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.

3 comments 3
Read story

$250

Prize money

236

Contest entries

143

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!

Explore more writing prompt ideas:

Adults Writing Prompts ⭢

Adventure Writing Prompts ⭢

Angst Writing Prompts ⭢

Character Writing Prompts ⭢

Christmas Writing Prompts ⭢

Dark Writing Prompts ⭢

Dialogue Writing Prompts ⭢

Dramatic Writing Prompts ⭢

Dystopian Writing Prompts ⭢

Fall Writing Prompts ⭢

Fantasy Writing Prompts ⭢

Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Fluff Writing Prompts ⭢

Funny Writing Prompts ⭢

Halloween Writing Prompts ⭢

High School Writing Prompts ⭢

Historical Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Holiday Writing Prompts ⭢

Horror Writing Prompts ⭢

Kids Writing Prompts ⭢

Middle School Writing Prompts ⭢

Mystery Writing Prompts ⭢

Narrative Writing Prompts ⭢

Nonfiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Novel Writing Prompts ⭢

Poetry Writing Prompts ⭢

Romance Writing Prompts ⭢

Sad Writing Prompts ⭢

Science Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Short Story Writing Prompts ⭢

Spring Writing Prompts ⭢

Summer Writing Prompts ⭢

Teens Writing Prompts ⭢

Thanksgiving Writing Prompts ⭢

Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts ⭢

Valentine's Day Writing Prompts ⭢

Vampire Writing Prompts ⭢

Winter Writing Prompts ⭢