Dreams and Nightmares are a part of life. But despite the fact that all of us dream, nobody knows why we dream. Nobody knows why a dream can be wildly exhilarating or deeply disturbing. Nobody knows why sometimes we remember our dreams with alarming alacrity but at other times we let them fade into obscurity. One thing we do know, however, is that we have always been profoundly fascinated by our dreams. In these dreams, we meet a version of ourselves that we did not even know existed. In our dreams, we see ourselves.
Ever since the ancient times we have tried to record and interpret our dreams. Dream interpretation was recorded in Egyptian papyri, Roman codices and Jewish scrolls. It has formed a large part of Freud and Jung's psychoanalysis. But despite the numerous dream dictionaries we can find on bookshelves, our dreams continue to define and elude us. We go to meet ourselves every night, and some of us wake up with battle scars.
But that does not stop us from dreaming. We reach out into the unknown every night, looking to escape into another realm where the subconscious ruled with no rhyme or reason. Our dreams fascinate us, drive us, madden us and enliven us. Our dreams make us who we are.
So this month, why don't you join us in recording who we really are?
Come find out if your dreams have led you closer to paradise, or drag you deeper into the inferno?
"Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death:
Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!"
Shakespeare, Richard III.
Dreams and Nightmares Contest
Part I: Visual Art (Closed) Put your dreams and nightmares on paper. Show us what you are really made of.
1. You have to be a member of our group to enter the contest.
Not a member? Click "Join the Group" on our homepage
Madmen-Asylum 2. All visual media is allowed.
No Literature entries to this part of contest.
3. Start date: 1st of October
End date: 31st of October time zone PDT
4. New entries only. Your deviation have to be submitted from 1st of October to 31st of October 2015.
5. Add to top of your description what your work was done for our group contest. Something like this will be fine:
This is my entry to the
Madmen-Asylum Dreams and Nightmares Contest
fav.me/d9athx26. IMPORTANT: You are agree that your entry can be used as inspiration for Literature part entries.
* If your artwork will be used as inspiration, the writer will give you a proper credit in the descriptions with a link to your artwork.
* If you create art inspired by stories/haikus written, please give a proper credit the writer in the top of your descriptions and add a link to the inspired deviation.
* The entries that was used a written story for inspiration and without of credits in the descriptions will be disqualified.
* If you found any rules violators please
note us. 7. Entry have to be your own. No line arts, no bases, no collaborations, sorry.
For photomanipulations: If there was used any resource (such as stock photographs or textures) they have to be credited in your descriptions.
8. All entries have to fit our group theme. Please keep in mind, we all are mad here.
9. One winner if there were 10 or more entries.
The judges, however, do not count as participants. We are here to give you a form of suggestion/guidance/inspiration.
10. You can enter as many as you want. Also, you can enter to both parts of the contest. But you can win just once.
11. Please add your entry to the new folder
madmen-asylum.deviantart.com/gallery/56109403/12. Judges (who can inspire you but can't win)
our trained and caring nurse Dr. Docali, probably the only one still sane here.
Dr. Syn, our one-on-one counsellor and man of letters.
Dr. Psychic, the forensic psychiatrist who'll check all the rules are scrupulously followed.
13. Prizes for part 1:
1st prize:
SinistrosePhosphate 100
and a commission
IllyDragonfly one written commission
Docali 90
Malintra-Shadowmoon short poem (not longer than three stanzas) Malintra-Shadowmoon 1 
and a feature
CapnSkusting feature
RogueMudblood 1 and a feature
RogueMudblood 1
critique (100 words or more)
Oskana 1
+ 1 watch + feature of the work
Oskana an inked drawing of a character/OC2nd prize: Docali 40
Malintra-Shadowmoon haiku Malintra-Shadowmoon 1 and a feature CapnSkusting feature
RogueMudblood 1 and a feature
RogueMudblooda comment (50 words or more)
Oskana 1 + 1 watch + feature of the work3rd prize: Malintra-Shadowmoon 10 favs + a watch
Malintra-Shadowmoon 1 and a feature
CapnSkusting feature
RogueMudblood 1 and a feature
RogueMudblooda comment (50 words or more)
Oskana 1 + 1 watch + feature of the work
Part II: Literature (Closed) Be inspired by someone else's dream or nightmare. Give us your best interpretations.
1. You have to be a member of our group to enter the contest.
Not a member? Click "Join the Group" on our homepage
Madmen-Asylum 2. Literature and Poetry is allowed.
No visual media entries to this part of contest.
3. Start date: 1st of November
End date: 30th of November time zone PDT
4. New entries only. Your deviation have to be submitted from 1st of November to 30th of November 2015.
5. Your entry have to be created especially for our contest. You cannot submit the same work to multiple contests.
6. Add to top of your description what your work was done for our group contest. Something like this will be fine:
This is my entry to the
Madmen-Asylum Dreams and Nightmares Contest
fav.me/d9athx27. Short Literature entries only, not longer than 500 words. Poetry and Haiku is fine!
8. IMPORTANT: You have to use any of the visual part entries for your inspiration.
The visual part entries can be found here
madmen-asylum.deviantart.com/gallery/56109403/* Please give a proper credit the artist in the top of your descriptions and add a link to the inspired deviation.
* The entries without of credits in the descriptions will be disqualified.
* If you found any rules violators please
note us. 9. Entry have to be your own. No collaborations, sorry.
10. One winner if there were 1 or more entries.
The judges, however, do not count as participants. We are here to give you a form of suggestion/guidance/inspiration.
11. You can enter as many as you want. Also, you can enter to both parts of the contest. But you can win just once.
12. Please add your entry to the new folder
madmen-asylum.deviantart.com/gallery/56109666/13. Judges (who can inspire you but can't win)
Dr. Syn, our one-on-one counsellor and man of letters.
Dr. Psychic, the forensic psychiatrist who'll check all the rules are scrupulously followed.
14. Prizes for part 2:
1st prize: SinistrosePhosphate 100 and a commission IllyDragonfly one drawn commission Docali 90
Malintra-Shadowmoon short poem (not longer than three stanzas) Malintra-Shadowmoon 1 and a feature
CapnSkusting feature
RogueMudblood 1 and a feature
RogueMudblood 1 critique (100 words or more)
Oskana 1 + 1 watch + feature of the work
Oskana an inked drawing of a character/OC
2nd prize:
Malintra-Shadowmoon 40
Malintra-Shadowmoon haiku
Malintra-Shadowmoon 1 and a feature
CapnSkusting feature
RogueMudblood 1 and a feature
RogueMudblooda comment (50 words or more)
Oskana 1 + 1 watch + feature of the work
3rd prize:
Malintra-Shadowmoon 10 favs + a watch Malintra-Shadowmoon 1 and a feature
CapnSkusting feature
RogueMudblood 1 and a feature
RogueMudblooda comment (50 words or more)
Oskana 1 + 1 watch + feature of the work
Written art Works from the Judges
Dreams and Nightmares poemsThe Last Nightmare
Betrayed love,
Misplaced trust.
The cruel blade bites.
Did you miss me?
She looks like me,
She talks like me,
She just found me...
The Fairy Queen
I could drown in her emerald eyes
Silky red hair, a snow whisper to my ear.
I'm the next butterfly for her collection...
Sleep Paralysis
No air!, no voice!,
Like a stringless puppet
A fallen statue
I lay.
Scream
Clouded memory,
Just that sound woke me up,
My own scream.
Dismorphophobia
Sharp splinters tease me,
Thousands copies of the monster
They rip me.
I close my eyes, crying.
Why, why I am myself?
Drip
Cruel time runs faster than me
I'm useless, anxiety clamps my heart
My darkness radiates out of my body,
Corroding it.
I'm melting in my own fear.
Surveillance Camera
Endless corridors,
Silent steps on the worn-out carpets
Your evil eye winks red at me.
Insomnia
Red eyes,
They shut in vain,
Sleep, you are a whore
And I am broke!
I can't look at those eyes<
The Collector's ABC's
A is for Amber Hagerman, who was only nine when taken.
Now an alert is named after her by a country that was shaken.
B is for Bella in the Wych-Elm, found in Hagley Hall;
Who put you there and who wrote the graffiti on the wall?
C is for Carmen Colon, one of the three alphabetically-minded maids from school.
Someone obviously thought the double-initials were cool.
D is for Dahlia, black of course; for her passing was no gaffe,
Her career and her body were both cut in half.
E is for Elisa Lam; an accidental mini-movie star,
How she ended up in that tank was really bizarre.
F is for Fossey, the zoologist who lost her head in Rwanda.
No one is sure who wielded that deadly panga.
G is for Grimes, the sisters who went missing after going to see an Elvis movie.
Found in 1957, their mysterious demise is still considered juicy.
H is for Hinterkaifeck, a farmstead set in the heart of Germany,
Said to be haunted; it’s where someone sl
Entries from the participants
Lost SomewhereOnce I decided it was hard to see,
What happened in the world and I tried to flee,
Built up a world not cold,
Needed it as a stronghold,
But I lost contact with reality.
<da:thumb id="571848431"/>
ElegyPeople call me a frigid bitch. Others say I’m depressed.
But just listen.
Once, a winter a long time ago, a blizzard struck the suburbs. Picture this: everyone wakes up to houses heavy with snow, an uncomfortable amount. Like icing on grocery store cupcakes. It’s in one of these cupcakes that a baby is born—Linda’s water broke very suddenly and she wasn’t about to shovel snow from the driveway with the baby’s “head already dangling” between her legs. (Dangling. That’s how Linda described it. She had a way with words.)
Linda gives birth while holding her father’s hand. She’s 18. The baby has no father. After she cuts the cord, she sits on the sofa half naked (Linda said her mother covered her up with a shrunken blanket before going to get some oatmeal) and the baby lies on her breast. The baby doesn’t cry. The baby’s eyes are closed. The baby is dreaming.
The baby dreams of things she hasn’t seen yet. Sh
<da:thumb id="570120493"/>
It Is NightI lie in bed.
I am awake. Somehow.
It is in the middle of the night.
Something holds me there.
I cannot see it.
But I feel how it presses me deep into the feathers,
Takes away my breath and eats my inner.
It pulls and tugs at my soul,
Wants to take me with it,
Deep into the darkness.
I am in fear.
I want to scream.
But no words come from my lips.
Scarcely a croak escapes from my throat.
I feel how it swallows me slowly,
Dragging me into the abyss,
Into the black depths.
I fight against it,
With all my strength,
Try to rebel against it.
Try to scream.
I cannot wake up!
In pain I open my closed eyes slowly.
My arms push me up with highest effort.
If I could only name it!
Then, probably, it might not be so frightful.
I manage to escape it.
My eyes are open.
My breath goes flat.
My voice ….. I find my voice again.
It is gone.
But only for this night.
The MinesBixby always loved a good ghost story. He brought a ton of them back from the mines, and I wrote them down along with the blue collar folk songs I was researching.
Bixby was my inside man, my ticket into the coal mines. We hit it off over a coupla drinks one night and suddenly everyone stopped looking at me like I was another stuffed shirt from the Company. Yeah, it’s true I’ve never done a hard day of labor in my life, but it takes all kinds, right?
My great-grandfather was a miner back in Pittsburgh – some of my earliest memories are of playing in his hard hat and taking a slap on the hand for trying to grab the pickaxe. What I remember most though, were the songs. Grandpa sang those mining songs long after he set the canary free; those songs were my mother’s inheritance. She sang me to sleep with bluesy hymns of shovels clinking and lanterns flickering. And at night, I dreamed. I found myself wandering endless caverns, my tiny light shining on crystals and fo
Freedom Will Walk My SoulThe gate of freedom of my soul can only be gained with sweet determination of living. The tests of life always there among the cold stone walls that surrounds me. The gate closed, reminding me that my life is still trudging through these tight walls.
I only know when the gate becomes open, is when I'm finally free of this torment. The life can finally allow me to know that my soul is fully free to roam without limitations. It would this time would I feel the fullness of freedom from this nightmare. A dream of freedom while trapped in a nightmare.
Sounds of freedom echo around me, I can hear the gate rising to allow me to my freedom, the freedom for my soul. Banners waving gently in the breeze, the freedom is only a step away from me; heavens above I never felt so free!
Never again will I be trapped, I'm forever free.
Girl Tired of Wine BottlesWhat a bad smell
that makes my nose in bin.
Don't suggest to me
I'm not in!
What kind of a person
you thought me?
But sorry I'm not ass ass son
I won't break my head or me.
I don't love something like this
I take a look I'm in rubbish
Sorry I can't let this
boss to break my head childish.
What am I
a scapegoat?
Never up to sky
stars,bye-bye goat!
<da:thumb id="573309587"/>
![]()
Goodnight To Me, Indi
I am Indi! I know who I am, I know who She is.
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Just your own reflection? Just a view of yourself from a slightly different angle? I envy you. I see Her, Violet. She steals my face to disguise herself as me, but I’m the one who gets held to account for Her actions.
Call her whatever you want, my Alter Ego, my Id, my Doppelganger, my Second Self, my Darker Side... Whatever, She is NOT ME. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t do the kinds of things she enjoys doing.
When I stand still and stare into her glassy face she moves, she smiles at me like a shark about to attack. I’d close my eyes and wish her away, but I know in the darkest depths of my soul that she would still be stood there mocking me.
Peter Pan thought he was having trouble trying to catch his shadow; he should have
<da:thumb id="573676069"/>
Freedom of MindThe thoughts of my mind
are not free, but mastered
by things around me.
A Dream of Death?
“Thank you for seeing the patient, Doctor, I know it’s late.” The Sister scuttles towards the second set of iron ward doors, her large keys rattling in the lock as she tried not to drop the thick medical file tucked under her arm. “Oh, I, thought you were Doctor...”
“Your request wasn’t clear which patient you were referring to Nurse.” The Doctor sighed glancing at an old pocket watch in his waistcoat, running a bony finger across the cracked crystal face.
“The necromanic, Doctor.” The Sister mutters relocking the doors and handing the file to the Doctor.
“The what?” The Doctor thumbed through notes. “You mean Miss Nyx? Nurse, obsession with death and nightmares does not make her a necromanic. I take it her sleep is still disturbed?”
“You could say that Doctor, every night she keeps the entire asylum awake with her screams.” The Sister shivers at the thought of another night lis
We are looking for the prize donors! If you are willing to donate any prizes (points, core membership, commissions, winners feature or anything) then you will be featured on the Madmen-Asylum home page for one month!
If you are willing to donate to both parts of the contest you will be featured for two months, till the contest ends!
You can donate
on the Madmen-Asylum Points account
madmenasylumpointsThat's all for now,
The warm summer died to leave room to the fall. I hope your straightjacket and your cosy rooms with stuffed walls will keep you warm during this new parlous journey.
Have a nice and insane stay in our home,
Dr. Psychic
It was fun!