Arthur's Dream Journal

[Arthur Kirkland]

Recurring dream from about five. Usually once or twice a month. Never changes, always wake up. Most recent: 4/1/11

I’m in the middle of a battle. Something’s gone wrong. The men are charging down hill – they sound triumphant – but something’s wrong. I can feel it in my bones. I run after them, but I’m too small to keep up and they ignore my cries.

A horse rides up behind me and I flinch, but the figure there seems familiar, kindly, fatherly. He leans down to ruffle my hair, then pulls me up and places me behind him. I’m still uneasy, but I wrap my arms around his waist and press my face into his back. He smells of mud and blood and musk, unpleasant but at the same time calming and familiar, and despite the battle I feel safe and reassured.

We follow the men down the hill and for the first time I can see the other men. They… look the same as us, to be honest, battle weary and bloodied, fierce and cruel. But looking at them something twists inside me and I feel disgusted and betrayed, and I hold closer to the man in front of me. But he continues down the steep hill, and a sense of foreboding fills me.

As we reach the level ground he readies his sword and I reach for a bow I had forgotten about. But almost instantly there’s the buzz of an arrow and men all around us, and the horse rears up. I’m thrown from the saddle, and I hit the muddy ground hard. As I gather myself, I see that the man I was riding behind has fallen too, but blood is pooling around him, and I hear myself cry out, though I wasn’t aware of screaming.

I crawl over to him, but before I reach him someone grabs me by the collar and turns me over. I look up into a pair of blue eyes and then…

I wake up.

[Arthur Kirkland]

20/1/2311

Last night I dreamt that I was the captain of a group of orcs (tall, dark skinned, I think dreadlocks, leather loin cloth). We moved from one place to another, but there was already a group set up where we moved to, and we thought. My second in command was killed, and the leader of the enemy was going to turn his head into a war mask so I snuck in and saved his body.

Some of my men and I took him to the downs to burry him, but we were followed by the enemy, so we climbed the downs for a more advantageous position and my men threw rocks at them to try and ward them off while I looked to burry my friend. In following the downs I found a place with a waterfall which would be perfect for us to move to. I buried my friend there, and then went to get the others to move there.

[Arthur Kirkland]

2/11 Quick note, got to run

Dreamt I was in some kind of children's film set in a farmyard. Was a servant to a rich/aristocratic dog. She had to pay some money back, so we set up a game where something lit up, and some how cheated people out of money with it. Some people we gave their money back to, though.

Found out about paying the person back, and at the same time people found out about us cheating them. We paid them back, then they gave us the money back to pay him back.

Later she showed me how it was her favourite film and where one character lived and what she wanted to happen in the sequel.

[Arthur Kirkland]

20/3/11

Dreamt about visiting Alfred in a big house high up. It was a nice house, a bungalow with a swimming pool out the back. I was very tired for some reason, but couldn't sleep, so went to see if he was asleep. I can't remember what happened next, but we had to go and find something to complete a collection. It was just across the hall way, but there was a guardian there, so we had to go through a secret tunnel to get there.

The tunnel was full of things from history, uniforms, weaponary, paintings. We didn't have time to look, though. We ended up in a room that seemed to be full of WWI or II things (lots of khaki and old fashioned guns. I saw some gas masks too), and a shelf of blue plastic briefcases. We need the one with a certain man's name on, so I checked the tags and grabbed it, and then we ran back to make the collection, and that's all I remember.

[Arthur Kirkland]

22/3/11

I dreamt about being one of those bloody kids heroes. The colour coded ones. I'm blaming Alfred entirely for this. I think I was the green one? Anyway, we were on the moon and we found the team before us who were stuck there. So we fixed their rocket so they could come back home with us. And then, for some reason, we all had to sleep like homeless people on the side of the river in blankets. But I made friends with one of the other team and, for some reason, snuggled up to him. Oh well. It was quite nice.

[Arthur Kirkland]

23/3/11

Had the most bizaire dream last night. I was visiting an uncle and aunt that don't actually exist, but in the dream I didn't see very often, and they had a son and a daughter. My brothers were there too, so of course I was avoiding them and had to spend time with the kids. They were kind of creepy.

Later we went out on a picnic and I'm not quite sure what happened, but it ended up with us having to save the day with a train crash underground. There was a villian and we had to decide between saving one train or another but in the end managed to rescue the people off both.

Then we returned to the house, and I was trying to watch a movie on my laptop, but I think my dream turned into the movie. Anyway, a prince arrived, and I was told to dress up to go and meet him. Then when I returned there was a witch in the house, and I ate something that meant that I was under her control, and she told me to kill my brother, but the brother was the cousin from earlier. I split into two, then, a girl (the sister from earlier, and probably a princess, given the dream), who went and killed the brother, and myself who hid rather than watched. But then I helped the witch feed the girl more of the food that would keep her under her control, while we watched some people that the witch didn't like on a screen. Then we entered the screen and killed them.

It was all very odd.

[Arthur Kirkland]

14/4/11

I dreamt that there was some kind of pawn shop/jumble sale type thing where they were buying things from the old world. I went through my father's house and found quite a few things, mostly old clothes, some books and jewellery, and part of a broken ivory cross. When I got there, and after queueing, they took everything except for the cross, which they couldn't take because it wasn't complete.

I returned with the cross to a small wood where I knew in the dream that I'd found it, and started to dig to see if I could find the rest. The cross was stained near the top and it looked like blood, so I was a little suspicious that it was broken because it had been used as a weapon. At one point there was an eagle eating a carrion bird and I searched the remains for the pieces too.

In the end, I started to unearth an old church. I found the other pieces, but I never did find out what happened.

[Arthur Kirkland]

29/4/11

I dreamt that I was staying in this team, which was Alfred, these three girls and I. At first we just woke up in this bedroom, and Alfred, being the bloody child that he is decided that he wanted to play, which for some reason everyone joined in on which was actually kind of fun.

Then for our first challenge we were given this little aquarium on the shore of this lake and we had to make it flourish, then this whale would appear and take us somewhere special where we could feed him special shrimp that would make him magic or something. Now I messed around with the tank and made friends with the fish (they talked, it was strange), and when the whale turned up I made friends with him too, so we ended up being pretty late to the end (it turned out that the lake was another tank, but apparently you could get out of it because one team's whale was out on the other side, clinging to the rocks like a sucker). I fed the whale the shrimp, and then he took me back super fast, because I think in being friends, we'd made everything super powerful, so we won that.

For the second challenge we lost two of the girls and I couldn't find Alfred and the remaining one either at first. We were in a junk yard and we were told to build a boat (which for some reason everyone was making look like a whale). I knew straight away that I wanted to use these plastic shopping carts - three to make room for all of us, but I spent ages working on the fins, until we had a break. Then Alfred finally appeared, just as I was starting to get stressed and nervous, and the bloody git made a plane! It turned out really good, though. It had a flashing light and everything. And since the remaining girl was tiny, there was plenty of room for all three of us. I think if we had gotten to finish the challenge we would have won, but I woke up then.

[Arthur Kirkland]

9/5/11

Last night I dreamt about fairies again. I used to dream about them a lot when I was a child, but I haven't so much recently. The ones I had when I was younger weren't as vivid either. I was a child again, foraging for berries when I... well, I didn't even hear someone, I felt someone. I was scared, though, so I hid in the bush I'd been picking berries from. I got scratched by the thorns, but i hid as deep in them as I could.

They still came closer, and I curled up smaller. They stopped by the bush and I hoped that they were just picking the berries, but some how I knew otherwise. I was right. The bush was pulled open and I looked up and snarled and then froze. The woman that was looking at me was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was mesmerised, I couldn't move, even as she picked me up. She cradled me into her chest, and it was as though I had never been picked up before - I don't think I had in the dream. I didn't know what to do. There wasn't anything I could do. She held me up to show a man as beautiful as she was, and I stared at him. They were talking in a language that I couldn't understand word for word, but could understand the meaning of. They were talking about keeping me, but the ma thought that I belonged with the humans, even though I wasn't one. She thought that they could bring me up to be one of them, and for some reason this made him pause, and then nod. She smiled, and hugged me in.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to be kept or not. I liked the wilderness, and I wanted more blackberries. I reached back towards them and the lady chuckled and let me pick more until I was full. Pleased by that, I snuggled into her when I was full, sleepy now, and she held me in, and started to carry me away.

((Arthur's first memory. As an explanation, he was brought up by the fairies for about a hundred years before he went to live with the humans around the time of King Alfred's reign.))

[Arthur Kirkland]

15/5/11

I dreamt of war again.

It was nothing like that other dream I have though. This one must have been in one of the first two world wars. I was in a plane, an old fashioned one, I'll have to look at pictures to tell which one. We were flying over fields - green fields. But my attention wasn't on that. I was in a group of maybe seven, and we were heading towards a group of dark planes highlighted against the bright summer sunshine. Anticipation rolled in my gut, but it was accompanied by a sudden burst of adrenaline. There were perhaps four or five times as many of them as us, but I knew we couldn't let any of them escape.

The radio on my left spluttered into life, but before I had time to take it in gunfire brought my attention back to the planes ahead of us. The battle was on. We broke formation, splitting up. I picked one, a big bomber, protected by four or five fighters. I'd have to take those down before I could stop the bomber from dropping it's deadly load.

They knew that I'd picked them, and I had to dive to avoid bullets. I flew around them, weaving to avoid more gunfire, and firing a few shots in return, but mostly saving my bullets. On the other side I started to rise, taunting them to follow me. Three took the bait, and I grinned grimly to myself. I rose almost vertically, turning to avoid their gunfire. I could go higher than them and soon, sure enough, they had to turn away. I flipped over in the air and all of a sudden, I was chasing them. I shot one down almost instantly, and the second followed shortly. I ignored their fall to earth, broken angels fallen from grace, and focused on that last one, fleeing back to his formation to avoid me. He was agile, and for a moment I thought he'd reach it, but a last minute shot clipped his wings, and down he went.

There were two left with the bomber, and I came up behind it. There was a gap and I took it firing at the beast, but to my surprise one of the last two fighters flew in, taking the bullet. A second round was enough to send that crashing down. I took aim again, and this time scored a hit, but it wasn't enough to take down the bomber and now the last fighter was on my tail. I smiled grimly and dropped down. Firing up at the bomber, I could hear the fighter coming up behind me. Sure enough, a shot hit somewhere, making the whole plane shake. I was losing control, and smoke filled my nose, making me cough. I had only one chance left, but I took it, firing what was left of my bullets up at the bomber. It worked, and as I finally lost control, spiralling out of control, I smiled to see it falling with me. No man could survive that fall, and if the bomber fell close enough to me too... But I had stopped it from reaching the city. I had done my duty.

((Battle of Britain, WWII. Last time Arthur flew.))

[Arthur Kirkland]

2/6/11

I can barely remember my dream last night, but what I can remember was very vivid. There was a boy, he was hidden in the grass. I smiled when I saw him, just seeing him made me smile for some reason. There were two others with me, but I only addressed one, telling him how much he looked like me. I wanted the boy, I was determined that I was going to claim him, but the others seemed to want him as well. The one beside me asked me if I thought that he looked like him, and I denied it. I wish I could remember if they did look alike or not, because for some reason I think they did.

We asked the boy who he wanted to be his brother, and he wavered between us. I thought he was going to come to me, but the other man cheated and tempted him with food. Well, of course the greedy little bugger was swayed by that, and I realised I had nothing to draw him back with. The boy was lost to him, and I was horrified. Not only would I lose the chance to one up him, I didn't trust him with the boy and... well, for some reason I'd really hoped that he would pick me. I sat down and curled up.

Then I felt a little hand on my arm and I looked up. He'd picked me in the end.

I don't think I've ever felt so happy.

I just wish I could remember what he looked like.