This House of Dreams is an Alan Wake themed ARG created by Remedy Entertainment in February 2012, coinciding with the release of Alan Wake's American Nightmare. It takes the form of a blogspot site owned by a woman named, Samantha Wells, which she started to follow the renovation process of an old house that she bought in the town of Ordinary, Maine.
Overview
In 2012, after accomplishing her lifelong dream of buying a house, Samantha Wells started writing a blog with the purpose of documenting her process of renovating the house, located in the town of Ordinary, Maine. Exploring the attic, Wells stumbled upon an old shoebox containing, among other things, a stash of typewritten poem sheets and a pair of photographs featuring a couple whose faces are suspiciously covered with black ink stains. As the days go by and Wells continues with her project, strange events begin to occur on her new house: in-mid March, Wells had a strange dream in which a federal agent - who had a badge that read "AWE, and whose face was covered in inky "smoke", similarly to the couple in the photo - demanded her to hand over the shoebox, only for her to be unable to find it; after waking up, Wells discovered that the box had mysteriously disappeared. More than two months later, Wells had another dream in which she met the previous owner of the house, but instead of an old woman, she found a young man wearing a jacket with elbow patches, who desperately urged her to turn the lights on; when she woke up, Wells saw the silhouette of a man on her window, which led her to turn on the lights in the house in a panic. No signs of someone being outside were found afterwards.
Around a week later, while she was awake late at night, writing on her blog, Wells heard on her television than an episode from an old TV show was airing. The episode's premise, however, was strangely similar to her current situation - a young woman buying a house in which strange happenings begin to occur. Wells then saw a group of dark shadowy silhouettes outside her house. Frightened, she hid in a closet and attempted to call for help through her blog as the shadowy individuals broke into the house. When the door was violently opened, Wells fell to the ground and hit her head. In her last moments of consciousness, she saw the missing shoebox inside the closet. Wells was later found by the authorities and taken to a hospital. Once again, no sign of anyone other than Wells being at the house was found. After spending a week at her parents house, she returned to her home and discovered that the content of the shoebox had changed, now containing a different batch of poem sheets, a title page reading "Return", whose author name had been violently scratched out, and a strange old device, which she later found out was a type of light switch. The first time Wells flicked the switch, all the lights in her neighborhood went out, though it seems that the reason behind it was due to a thunderstorm.
Not long after this, Wells was contacted by an unknown individual who found her through her blog. They claimed to know about the cause behind the strange occurrences and the origin of the shoebox and promised to tell her more on the condition that she stopped updating her blog, claiming that that should be kept in secret due to there being dangerous people who were willing to commit crimes in order to get hold of the box and its contents. While Wells promised them that she would think about it, she later viewed the warning as a threat and decided to continue posting as an act of defiance.
At the end of July, Wells had one last dream. This time, she was visited by the diver from the photographs, who now wore a bulky diving suit and was shining with a bright light. The diver explained that he was the one who wrote the poems and told her his story: after his girlfriend was taken over by a dark presence, the diver attempted everything he could to banish it from her to no avail. When he finally understood the true nature of the dark place beneath the lake they lived in, he wrote one last poem. The diver then took his girlfriend and the two dived into the lake. As they sank, they were met by a bright presence, which took over the diver's body. While their bodies, inhabited by bright and dark presences, returned to the surface to continue their fight, the couple's "essences" continued to descend even deeper. The diver then read his poem and, thanks to the nature of the dark place, which allowed works of art to come true, a "baby universe" was created for them to escape to and live happily in. After waking up, Wells felt that something wonderful and amazing was coming.
Posts
February
- February 22
- February 23
March
- March 02
- March 05
- March 11
- March 14
- March 25
April
May
- May 30
June
- June 04
- June 05
- June 13
July
- July 22
- July 23
- July 26
- July 29
Trivia
- The title of the blog is possibly a reference to the book House of Leaves, written by Mark Z. Danielewski, to which Sam Lake has cited as inspiration for both Alan Wake and Control.
- On June 2nd, 2012, Sam Lake tweeted about the blogspot, as well as stating "It’s all true. 'It will happen again, in another town, a town called Ordinary.' It's happening now."
- On Monday, July 30, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Remedy Entertainment commented on their Alan Wake Facebook page "Even The Darkness can make mistakes - Every now and then pieces of what it's been holding find their way back - back into the light...", while also providing a link to the blog page.[1]
- The events of this blog are referenced in Control; an office whiteboard can be found in the Research Sector of the Oldest House, which reveals that the FBC obtained the box and its contents and discovered the ability this type of boxes possess to protect their contents from alterations brought by Altered World Events. It also reveals Samantha's last name to be "Wells". According to the whiteboard, the shoebox seemingly disappeared.
- In The Lake House DLC for Alan Wake 2, a document can be found that lists the web address for the "This House of Dreams" blog, stating it is a known website associated with a unidentified parautilitarian that was being held at the titular FBC research station.
- A photograph of Sam Lake in front of the fireplace seen in the No Light, No Light post was later discovered.[2]
Blog Images
| Blog Name | Date | Images |
| Introduction | February 22nd, 2012 | 
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| Tour of the House | February 23rd, 2012 |   
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| Toys in the Attic | March 5th, 2012 |        
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| Shoebox Photos | March 11th, 2012 |  
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| Under the House | March 25th, 2012 |   
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| Shoebox Poems | March 25th, 2012 |            
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| No Light, No Light | June 4th, 2012 | 
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| Inside the Shoebox | July 22nd, 2012 | 
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| More Shoebox Poems | July 23rd, 2012 |       
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