Welcome to the Brick of Fiction. A post with compact story.
In today’s Brick the prompt is: Write a story about a world where people invented a way to record and share dreams with each other.
And I challenge YOU to write your own story in 300-1000 words. The challenge is on until the end of July! Don’t forget to tag me in your work, if you take it on!
Have you ever had a dream about something so beautiful that you didn't want to wake up? But then, an annoying ringtone pierced the veil of sleep and dragged you outside the boundaries of this magnificent illusion that your brain created.
It happens to everyone; everyone wants to live in their dreams for a while longer if they get the chance.
Share Your Dreams Ltd. saw the potential and built something incredible, a way to relive your dreams and even share them with others.
Experience a new type of entertainment, they said. Live a moment in the mind of other people, they said. Be closer to each other—SHARE YOUR DREAMS— was their slogan. Multibillion-dollar business out of nowhere.
For a long time, I was skeptical. Everybody I knew tried it and got hooked on it. Instead of going to the movies, people went to share their dreams—a new kind of date night.
Friends kept telling me I HAD to try it, but it just seemed weird to me — why would you want to see someone else's dream?
But one can't underestimate the power of peer pressure. So I tried. I imagined it would be just like watching a movie, but I was wrong; I was so damn wrong.
Because when you watch a movie, you-you interpret everything you see with your own mind. But this shit was something else. I got sucked into the mind of another person; whatever their crazy brain put together was fed into mine in a full blast, with every bizarre twist.
It was more than just sharing a dream; I lived a part of another person's life. The feelings weren't just my own; I also felt what the person felt when dreaming about it, and my brain twisted that into your own.
The first time was just the most insane experience I've ever had. I heard wet dreams were a ride, which got me really curious. So I ordered one from this lady with a very active imagination, and it was a ride.
They put a helmet on my head, let me lie down, and with a push of a button, I was gone. The tension, the pleasure, the orgasms, everything hit me all at once. The scenes cut fast as they do in dreams, yet I lived all of them, complete and whole.
It didn't last very long. They usually end the sessions for beginners at around the ten-minute mark, making sure they don't fry your mind.
But I was already fucked. Those ten minutes were more than enough to hook me. So I came back the next day, and then the one after that, then sometimes before work and always after.
I tried every dreaming category, psycho, mentally ill, cute, romantic, funny, from smart and dumb people; it didn't matter. After a while, the normie dreams weren't enough, so I moved on to nightmares. Man... those could mess you up for days.
The ten-minute sequences became too short for my brain. I didn't want to be awake anymore, as reality became too dull for me, and sleeping on my own was pointless; my own dreams were nothing compared to those shared.
I was living thousands of lives but not my own. My bank account burned, my wife left me, and I got fired soon after. But I hardly even noticed. There were no problems in dreams, and I always found a way to somehow get back inside.
I didn't even realize when I ended up on the streets, hustling for hours just to get a few seconds inside…
Now that's been a long time ago. I'm a different person now; I managed to get some friends to help me. I got into rehab. I'm good. I sometimes have dreams of my own now.
But as I stood there again, with that huge neon sign SHARE YOUR DREAMS blinking in my face. I wondered. How much can one more time hurt? I stopped already, didn't I? I can stop again. Just a minute, something light and breezy. Just a little bit of dreaming, that never hurt anybody.
I didn't even realize my hand was on the handle. I stepped inside without a second thought, all those questions overshadowed by that insatiable beast in me.
I. Needed. To. Dream.
Thank you for reading! I hope to read some of your amazing work on this prompt.
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In the shadowy metropolis of Neo-Tokyo, a revolutionary technology called DreamShare had taken hold. What began as a miraculous breakthrough in neuroscience quickly devolved into an addictive escape from a crumbling reality.
ZuZu, a disillusioned dream technician, navigated the neon-lit streets, her mind heavy with the weight of countless borrowed memories. She'd seen it all: soaring fantasies, hidden desires, and nightmares that left her gasping for air. But nothing prepared her for the day she stumbled upon a dream that shouldn't exist.
It started innocently enough—a client's mundane dream about grocery shopping. But as ZuZu processed the recording, she noticed something off. Hidden beneath layers of neural static was a message: "The dreams are lying."
Intrigued and unnerved, ZuZu dug deeper. She discovered a underground network of "lucid dreamers" who claimed that DreamShare was more than just entertainment—it was control. The government, they whispered, was using the technology to implant false memories and manipulate the population.
As ZuZu's investigation intensified, so did the danger. Strange men in dark suits began following her. Her apartment was ransacked. Even her own dreams felt invaded, filled with warnings to stop prying.
But ZuZu couldn't let go. She had glimpsed a truth that threatened to shatter the very foundation of their society. With each passing day, the line between reality and dreams blurred further.
In a world where memories could no longer be trusted and dreams had become currency, ZuZu faced an impossible choice: continue exposing the truth and risk everything, or lose herself in the comforting lies of a shared dreamscape.
As she stood on the precipice of a decision, ZuZu realized that in this brave new world, waking up might be the most revolutionary act of all.
In the shadowy metropolis of Neo-Tokyo, a revolutionary technology called DreamShare had taken hold. What began as a miraculous breakthrough in neuroscience quickly devolved into an addictive escape from a crumbling reality.
ZuZu, a disillusioned dream technician, navigated the neon-lit streets, her mind heavy with the weight of countless borrowed memories. She'd seen it all: soaring fantasies, hidden desires, and nightmares that left her gasping for air. But nothing prepared her for the day she stumbled upon a dream that shouldn't exist.
It started innocently enough—a client's mundane dream about grocery shopping. But as ZuZu processed the recording, she noticed something off. Hidden beneath layers of neural static was a message: "The dreams are lying."
Intrigued and unnerved, ZuZu dug deeper. She discovered a underground network of "lucid dreamers" who claimed that DreamShare was more than just entertainment—it was control. The government, they whispered, was using the technology to implant false memories and manipulate the population.
As ZuZu's investigation intensified, so did the danger. Strange men in dark suits began following her. Her apartment was ransacked. Even her own dreams felt invaded, filled with warnings to stop prying.
But ZuZu couldn't let go. She had glimpsed a truth that threatened to shatter the very foundation of their society. With each passing day, the line between reality and dreams blurred further.
In a world where memories could no longer be trusted and dreams had become currency, ZuZu faced an impossible choice: continue exposing the truth and risk everything, or lose herself in the comforting lies of a shared dreamscape.
As she stood on the precipice of a decision, ZuZu realized that in this brave new world, waking up might be the most revolutionary act of all.
Nice story, and cool idea. I might have to look into writing something for this.