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@j-a-penrose If we’re counting word wars, it’s Guild War 8. 😛

Well guys, we came SO close to winning a prompt war twice and we managed to win a word war when we were the smallest guild, so WE CAN DO THIS!! *fires starting cannon late*

From my experience, dreams can go one of two ways: weird, random, and generally emotionless or dark and filled with emotion (e.g., fear). I like the idea of using symbolism because that’s the way dreams often are. They consist of bizarre elements mixed with reality, and although there are often scenes in a dream, they don’t flow logically like they do in a story. Characters and places morph into new ones, and although we tend to think we’re doing one thing in the dream, when we wake up we realize the person we thought were talking to or the place we thought we were wasn’t what it was at all. That’s something to keep in mind when we do this, because I think many times dreams in fiction make too much logical sense to be realistic. Sometimes they’re hard to tell apart from a flashback. A real dream would be choppy, wouldn’t flow smoothly, and seem fuzzy. Some parts would be very vivid and the senses would seem sharp, but then something completely absurd would happen that wouldn’t make sense in that setting.

I guess the first thing we need to settle on is whether we want to do a comedy or something deep, or a “dream that’s not really a dream at all”, like a vision.

These might be some things to consider:

• Who is dreaming? Obviously the person we choose will affect what the dream will be. If it’s a child, they’ll probably dream about their fears. (At least from my experience. My childhood dreams were dominated by house fires and bears.)
• What caused them to dream it? There’s always going to be something that triggers a dream. (Well. I’m assuming that one I had about four different kinds of trolls actually came from something…) It doesn’t have to be something that’s on the front of their mind. Sometimes when people feel the same way they did during a past experience, they dream about that experience even though they didn’t consciously think about it.
• What caused them to wake up? The character could just be having a normal night’s sleep and wake up normally, but what if the way he woke up somehow tied into what he was dreaming about? What if he fell asleep during a night watch? What if his house was broken into? What if his wife woke him up to tell him the toilet overflowed?  Many times dreams end because of some noise in the sleeping environment, but only after the noise becomes part of the dream experience. (For example, you dream that you’re river rafting, and then to your terror realize that you’re right over Niagara Falls. And then you wake up and realize it was just the toilet overflowing.) We could have some fun with this. It all depends on if we want to go with comedy or depth.

What do you guys think? Any ideas? What do you dream about? That might help spark some inspiration. 😉

P.S. @j-a-penrose who is judging?