Everyone goes somewhere when they sleep. Dreamland is the most common name, but some just think it's your unconscious figuring itself out or filing away memories. But then there are those who knows what it really is. A whole other world where your true self, the self unbound by your physical body, is able to go. In this world, if you can focus yourself enough to consciously travel it, is a shop. A funny little shop keeper knows the ones who are awake in this world and those who travel within it asleep. The sleeping ones can't get in. The ones who are awake are welcome with a smile, the tinkle of a bell, and ask What dream will you trade me for my items today?
If you've ever awakened in the morning to find an unusual object on your nightstand you swore you'd never seen before, but somehow know it's yours? It means that you were able to wake up in that world and travel to the shop. -- DaniandShali
There are dreams, there are lucid dreams, and there are waking dreams. In daydreams, reality takes a backseat to conscious fantasy. In lucid dreams, the dreamer takes control of the circumstances. In waking dreams, conscious and unconscious blend. We all know dreams... or we think we do. Some dreams are private. Some dreams are shared in the collective unconscious known as Dreamland.
Since there is always someone there, it counts as its own reality. A dimension of mind, of subconscious thought coming together to create landscapes of both illusion and reality. Therefore, it is only natural that there are creatures native to its laws. Well. Such laws as Dreamland may have. One of such denizens is the Shopkeeper. They maintain... The Shop.
The Lucid Dreamers never find it. They make their dreams from the beginning. To find it, one must be in the dream and wake up while still dreaming. Following that, one must find the door that doesn't belong and be brave enough to go through.
There, on the other side, is The Shop. There is only one in all of the Dreamscape. It is small, and at the same time, it is infinite. It employs the same kind of Escherian geometry as those poky little book shops or the tiny-fronted antiques or second-hand emporiums that somehow contain enough floorspace to house the entirety of Narnia.
It is everywhere. It is nowhere. It can only be found if you're awake enough in your dream. There is no currency to purchase what is there, not actual coin or barter, anyway. The Shopkeeper there... trades in dreams.
The Shopkeeper has no permanent gender, no recognisable face. Try to remember them after you awake for real, and the memory will be hazy at best. The lucky are able to remember one thing. Usually an accessory, like a fob watch or a capelet. Those who speak about the Shopkeeper may agree that they have a thing for decorative eyeballs about their apparel. Some say they are tall. Some say they are short. Everyone knows, almost instinctively, that the Shopkeeper is messing with the dreamer who finds them.
They always ask two questions, "What do you believe you need?" and, "What dream will you trade?"
Visitors to The Shop also remember the hungry smile the Shopkeeper always has.
If you are bold enough to enter The Shop, you are desperate enough to have a need met. The cost is only a dream. Ah, but what dreams are worthy of trade?
The visitors never remember that part. They never remember the rest of the dream, what deals they made, nor what they traded. They remember a weight in their hands, and a lightness in side their own heads. When they wake, there is always... something. A token. A small object, no bigger than a brooch or a ring. Sometimes pretty. Most often times, not. Whatever it is, it was not there when the dreamer went to bed.
It will never be lost. It will never be broken. It can be moved, of course. It is... important. It is of import. It is... imbued...
Lives change, after a dreamer has been inside The Shop. They take a different direction. Some have more courage. Some have more success. Some have less trouble in their lives. Some have better luck. Some wonder what dream they traded to have their lives turn so dark, to have their options narrowed to a cutting point, where only they are the ones who pay in pain.
They remember The Shop. They remember The Shopkeeper... or most of them.
Some want to go back, some want a better deal. Some want better dreams. Many do not have the happenstance of finding The Shop twice.
The few who do... do not fare as well as those who leave well enough alone after the first purchase. There are no refunds, you can never get back what you have traded. The Shopkeeper judges you by what you need and the dream you trade.
The Shopkeeper always makes sure you forget, Never make deals with the Fae.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Ancello]
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