Challenge #1 Dream Journal

[FangedSmile]

The first challenge is going to be relatively easy, but also very beneficial.

Start a dream journal.
You don’t have to do this every day, but try at least once a week to write down a dream you’ve had. The best method is to set your alarm 15 minutes earlier and keep a notepad beside your bed. The moment you wake up, try to remember what you dreamed about and write it down. The sooner you write it down, the better. The more you do this, the easier it gets.

You can post your journal here, on DreamJournal.net, or just keep it for yourself. Whatever works best for you. If you worry that you won't keep it up, please post so we can lend you encouragement! DreamJournal.net also has a lot of good advice if you need help getting started.

How does this help?

1. It's supposed to give you better dreams because your brain logs them as important due to the fact that you write them down and try to remember them.
2. While dreams are often out of order, writing them down may cause your mind to draw connections so your dreams continue.
3. Writing down dreams and having to wake up to do so helps you wake up a bit faster and feel more awake.
4. Eventually you'll start having lucid dreams. You'll be productive WHILE YOU SLEEP.
5. Practice writing, and help ending writer's block.

[FangedSmile]

I had a dream where I was escaping something and ended up hurrying down a long staircase. No matter how long I continued down the stairs, I didn't see the bottom, though I knew I was progressing. After a while I slowed down and realized how quiet it was. The fear of what was chasing me was still present at me back, urging me onward, but I began to have time to wonder. I wondered what was at the bottom of the stairs, if I'd ever reach the bottom, and if whatever was down there would be worse than what I was running from.

It seemed like hours passed as down and down I plunged. I couldn't hear the outside world anymore and all the light was from the flashlight I carried. I tried screaming up the stairs, to see if my voice would carry. I heard a noise, very faintly down beneath me. It was nothing ominous, but neither was it comforting. It sounded very far away. From above, echoed a malicious, though more human-sounding, laugh from above.

There was nothing else. No rescue party charging down after my pursuer, nor any call from below that would promise me shelter. The only thing I knew was that, for the moment, I was not going to be hurt. So long as I kept moving, my assailant could not catch me. More hours passed and I pushed onward, wondering why on earth my pursuer still followed instead of giving up. I not for the fact that I feared for what would happen, I'd have given up.

I just wanted the stairs to last forever, so I never had to find out what lurked at the bottom, and my attacker could never catch me.

My flashlight flickered and I realized it could die. So even as I continued down, I began to worry more and more. I didn't know if I could get back up the stairs without any light, because there had been a few spots where the handrail was missing or a step was loose and cracked. Also, I felt like if the flashlight died I'd be completely alone with only the fear of what was chasing me, and the dread of what was at the bottom of the stairs. I had to do something. Either turn back and run up the stairs, risking my assailant for the chance to see daylight again, or surrender all my faith to what lie at the bottom of the staircase.

[FangedSmile]

Last night's dreams, I actually remember 2.

1st: I got the sense that I had fallen asleep watching a scary movie marathon. There was hard cider littered over an oblong coffee table which looked like a coffin and in the light of the TV it almost looked like there was something inside it. I awoke because my panda watch was sounding an alarm (it doesn't really do that, but dream me was totally cool with this) in the form of an adorable "Rawr" tone. I bopped its nose and the alarm stopped. I popped a pain pill and set the alarm again. I looked to the TV and it was showing some kind of lifetime TV show. I was zoning out watching it, but it became more like an episode of "Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?" Things would be going well, but whenever someone turned their back, their significant other would be slipping something in their drink or sharpening a knife, or tapping a syringe. I turn off the TV and there is the obligatory jump scare of there being a figure behind me... only it IS me, with a knife, glaring at the me on the couch.

2nd. This one was hard to keep track of and was 3rd person. There was a younger girl, maybe 12-13, standing in a curtained-off room, wearing possibly early Edwardian or Victorian era undergarments. Everything is out of focus, but there seem to be seems on her shoulders. She looked drugged, but was coming around. There was a woman in front of her saying something that sounded garbled, but was slowly becoming recognizable as words. She shoved a bundle of clothing into the girl's arms and kept calling her Tabitha. The girl starts to look around the room, and I got the idea that she has absolutely no idea where she is, or even who she is, but she's sure she's not Tabitha. She backs away and the woman grabs her and tells her to snap out of it and get dressed. The girl throws the clothing into the woman's face and runs. Eventually, when she can't find a break in the cloth, she squirms under the curtain and sees a man peering around the corner, in reaction to the noise. She tries to beg for help, but has trouble remembering the word. Then suddenly she's in a small kitchen, dressed in ragged brown clothing.
Her hands are all wrapped in copper wire, though it doesn't dig in to her skin. The man and woman are there, as well as three other children who appear to be eating, though their bowls look empty. They tease the girl a bit, but are mainly distracted with breakfast. I hear something about the girl saying she's not Tabitha, and the one child just makes a face and says "Yeah, but you are now. Aren't you?" It seems like everyone is okay with this idea. The TV flickers on (weird, right?) and it's a black and white (because THAT makes it okay) image of a mask-wearing figure telling everyone good morning and giving some propaganda about how they need to start working.
Just like that, the kids run off and the woman hurries to clear the empty bowls and cups, yelling at them that she'd better not see them until dinner, but they'd all better be on time. The girl was spoken to by the woman, but I'm not sure what was said, just that it summed up to everyone needing to be busy.
My best guess at the next scene seemed later in the day, and the woman was arriving home with shopping bags and exchanging new stuff with old as she bustled around. At this point, the said something to the girl again, and then there was a tour-kind of thing with a marionette guy who was saying some Alice in Wonderland nonsense... Then the girl being carried back to the woman's house... Just random scenes from then on. I'm not sure what they mean. I wrote them down, but can't figure out what order they go in.

[B. B. Wolf]

That could make a really neat concept for a story. Think you might add on to this at all?

[FangedSmile]

Not at this moment, but it's good to have in case of writer's block. I'm focusing on one other idea at the moment.
However, if anything strikes you then you have my blessing to use it and run with it. Could be cool to see how differently you and I would write a story that has the same beginning.

[B. B. Wolf]

Hmm, that could be interesting. I might, but I have some other things I want to work on at the moment. Maybe another time.