New Dream Adventures of Raven Knight

09/16/13

I am in line at an auditorium. I am waiting to see a Disturbed concert. I get my tickets, I am amazed how cheap they are… which is good since I realize I don't have much money. It is a small show, not a huge auditorium. There are seats around the stage. Most of Disturbed is already on the stage, and there are people standing around the stage. I am surprised at how few people there are. I have the idea it is a concert that hasn't been well publicized, only specific fans would have been able to find out about it. I make my way to the front of the room, right by the stage. I know the music here will be loud and I look forward to it. The band members are taking their places, but David Draiman is missing. The person in the lead singer position is Alex Mercer off of Prototype.

I ponder that only briefly, wondering if that means David Draiman is out sick today. I think that is a bummer that he is not there, as I have no idea what Alex Mercer will sound like singing… Well, I'm already here for now. Someone in the crowd apparently shares my concern and decides to express themselves by throwing what looks like a can of beer at Alex. Alex uses a whipfist to reach out and grab the guy, who, by the smell of him, promptly shits his pants before getting thrown to the back of the room. I hear one of the other band members laughing and saying he loves it when some idiot does that. Another one says he doesn't… he got stuck cleaning up the mess last time. No mess this time except in the idiot's pants, I see, as he quickly leaves the auditorium. The band starts playing. The song is Devour, which is one of my favorite Disturbed songs. There was no need to worry about the sound… somehow Alex sounds exactly like David Draiman. As they are singing the song it looks like Alex is staring directly at me. I do not realize it is a dream, so the idea of Alex Mercer staring at me and singing, "I will devour you…" isn't particularly reassuring. But I guess it doesn't bother me enough to make me leave. I continue listening to the song until it's over, and then they start playing The Curse. Before it gets very far I wake up.

Plans: The only plan I had made for today was to meet up with MoSh in a Hogwarts dream, though I really want to increase my lucidity and get my recall back to its normal rate. I really wish I knew why I have been having so many problems with that lately…

Sleep In
It is time for me to go to bed, I have no idea that I am actually already in bed and dreaming. I am getting ready to lie down in bed when my mother comes into the room and asks me when I am going to be up the next morning. I tell her I'll probably be up at the usual time, of course. My mother says she wants to get going sooner than that. I don't remember where we are planning on going, but I am thinking it is somewhere really fun, and I definitely don't want to miss getting to do it. I tell my mother maybe I could get up a bit earlier than normal… My mother points at the clock and says it's only 11:30 at night, so if I sleep until my normal time, I'd be getting 12 hours of sleep! She says I really don't need to get 12 hours of sleep, do I? I agree that 12 hours is probably overdoing it, I tell her I'll get up around 10 instead, so it will only be around 10 hours of sleep. She seems to think this is still quite unreasonable, but she sighs with exasperation. She says if I can manage to get out of bed a bit sooner, please do, she really doesn't want to wait that late and might just end up leaving without me. This idea makes me a bit nervous, so I decide to set my alarm for 8:00 in the morning and settle for the usual 8 hours of sleep that is the recommended amount. I fall asleep in bed without even considering doing a RC at any point.

Rock the House
I am going to a concert that takes place in a small club. There aren't that many people there to see the band, and I figure that is because the band rather sucks. There are overly aggressive bouncers guarding the stage, maybe they are afraid someone will attack the band members for sucking so bad. One guy tries to get to the stage, though it looks like he is happy and wants to meet one of the band members rather than like he is hostile. Apparently someone likes the music. One of the bouncers grabs him, punches him hard in the gut, then drags him outside as he is gasping for breath. The bouncer throws him to the ground and shuts the door before returning to his post. Wow… so violent… everyone else sits down in the seats to keep from having the bouncers attack. I really don't like this. On a hunch I do a RC and find out I'm dreaming. I fly from my seat and phase through the ceiling of the club, out into the open blue sky.

Ok, so now that I'm lucid, I need to decide what to do. I don't remember my goals… damn… but I do remember that in some of my lucids my dream control hasn't been as strong as it should be. So I fly over the city and start practicing my dream skills. I discover that anything I can focus on and visualize I can create. Of course I can, I am inside my own inner world… it is entirely under my control… I do things such as alter the forms of a couple buildings, I bring a statue to life. It is the statue of a horse that is about 50 feet tall, the horse gallops away, freaking out all of the DCs in its path. I instinctively can tell that all of the people around there are DCs rather than real people. I fly over a park and spawn a huge and beautiful tree with large golden fruits growing on it, I pick one and eat it… it tastes like chocolate. Yay! Chocolate flavored fruit! A DC is beside the tree and staring at me with his jaw on the ground, it is an older man, I fly down over him and tell him if he's going to have his mouth hanging open, put something yummy in it! I break off a piece of the fruit and stick it in the man's mouth where he doesn't even seem to notice it. I decide to go back to the concert to see if I can make it more interesting. I head back, and I find that for some reason there is now an iron grid around the club… where did that come from? No matter. I focus a circle of heat to soften the iron, then I rip out the circle of iron to create an entrance. Wow, that was easy! Inside, the same band is still sucking, most of the crowd have left. I use a puppet kind of control on the band members, my DCs, and I summon a guitar and join in. Now we rock! We play a song I don't think I have ever heard. But there's no one there to see it. I summon some more DCs to be the audience. For some reason the DCs that appear are dressed as if for a wedding. Weird… but no matter. I continue using the band DCs to accompany me as I play guitar and sing. It is fun.


The Perfect Storm
I am in a castle like the one in Harry Potter, I am in Hogwarts. There are people around me, everyone seems to be rather huddled together, though I'm not sure why. They have everyone crammed into the great hall, all of the people from all of the houses, and this is creating more than a few arguments amongst the less friendly students. Mostly everyone is keeping to themselves, however, and the talk is mostly about a storm. I listen to some of them, then I go over to a window and look outside… and there sure is a storm out there, it looks like a serious blizzard. The wind is howling outside and looks like it must be blowing at hurricane force. I look beside me and I see MoSh is there. I ask what is going on out there, he says it's a major storm. No shit, Sherlock… I say it seems strange, where did it come from? MoSh says no one is sure, it is the worst storm Hogwarts has ever seen, and it came out of nowhere. The temperatures in most of the castle have plummeted to sub zero levels, there is no way the fires and such can keep things warm at all. The great hall has been placed under an enchantment to keep it warm, which is why everyone is here. Wow… that is one serious storm. I wonder if the storm is definitely natural.

I wander around the room more, I see Crabb and Goyle near another window, staring out, apparently fixated on something out there. That gets my curiosity up so I go over to them and ask what they are looking at. Crabb said nothing, they are looking for Draco. I ask why they are looking out there for Draco, shouldn't he be in the great hall with everyone else? Goyle hesitates, Crabb says they're not supposed to tell, Draco said it's a secret. I say I won't tell anyone, so go ahead and share it with me… I'm sure Draco wouldn't mind if I know. Finally Goyle says Draco went outside about an hour ago, before the storm got so bad, and he hasn't come back. Crabb said Draco had been going out to get something to do with the tournament task, but students aren't supposed to go into the forest… and he hasn't come back. Wow… Draco is out in the storm? I decide I have to go out to get him. Goyle says I promised not to tell… I ask how they can keep that secret when Draco could die out there? I add not to worry, I don't need to tell anyone… I'll go get Draco myself.

I go to leave the room, but McGonagall stops me and says no one is to leave the room. I had thought that might be an issue. I go to the other side of the room and find a secret passage behind a suit of armor, the passage leads outside eventually. And it is freezing out, though it doesn't feel as bad as MoSh had indicated. Then again, I am used to the cold pretty well. I wrap myself in some cloaks I find near the exit and head for the forbidden forest. There is no point in calling Draco, the wind is much too loud. The sleet and snow is like needles against my face, not comfortable at all, but definitely bearable. Once I get to the forest I find there is a bit of shelter, I look around, not sure where to find Draco. Somehow my instinct guides me, and after I have traveled a short distance, I find Draco huddled under a particularly large tree. He has his robes pulled tight around him, but those do no good… they are soaked from the sleet. I have seen movies and read books about arctic survival… wearing wet clothes is worse than none at all in the cold… and I have enough cloaks around me to share… So I start getting Draco out of the wet robes, he seems too out of it to respond much… I wrap my cloaks around both of us, keeping him close to share some body heat as we head back to the castle and into the passage I left through.

McGonagall meets us just a short way in, she says if I thought she didn't know about this passage, I was sorely mistaken… how dare I go outside and risk my… she sees Draco with me… good lord, what happened here? Where did you find him? I answer with the first thing I can think of, I say he was outside looking for herbs and hadn't gotten inside before the storm started. True, but I didn't mention the forbidden forest. McGonagall looks at Draco, mostly naked and shivering under my cloaks, she asks if he didn't hear the storm warning, or if he didn't take it seriously… he should really have listened… but save that for later. She asks for me to help her get him to the hospital wing. We get Draco to the hospital wing, where another spell has been cast for warmth, and put him into a bed to be cared for by Madam Palmphrey. Outside the hospital wing McGonagall says that my going out in the storm alone was very foolish, why hadn't I told someone, told a teacher that Draco was outside? But it was also very brave… she doesn't know whether to punish me for leaving the castle in this storm or reward me for bringing Draco back safely… so she will do neither. She says to get back to the great hall through the hidden passage and no one will know I had left, or at least they wouldn't hear it from her. I head back to the great hall.

Plans: Challenge one of the tournament tonight at the Hogwarts where I am a student with MoSh. It looks like I'll be working with Draco, though, since we're in the same house. MoSh will be working with Harry and Hermione since they're all in Gryffindor. This sucks.

Tour of the Castle
I am in a bedroom at Hogwarts and I'm not lucid. I really need to RC every time I'm in a bedroom that isn't my own... So I leave the bedroom and enter an office of some kind, there is a big ornate wooden desk, there isn't much in the room, it looks like it isn't in use right now. I look around for a bit, not sure what I'm supposed to be doing in there. I was still pondering that when there was a knock at the door, I open the door to reveal Professor McGonagall waiting at the door. I let her inside, she says she has come to help me get acquainted with the castle. So now I follow McGonagall down the hall. I notice there are two exits from the living area / office, one of them leads to the main hallway while the other leads directly to a classroom, it's the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. I follow McGonagall to the main hallway and then we go around the school, meeting an assortment of people. Filched greeted me with a grunt and a glare until I say he has an adorable kitty, after which I pick up a surprised Mrs. Norris and then give her cause to purr, and she purrs very loud indeed! I comment to Filch that I love anything feline, I am a hopeless cat lover. Mrs. Norris clearly likes me, so Filch soon calms down. He had been a bit upset when I had first scooped Mrs. Norris into my arms. McGonagall says we need to keep going, so I set Mrs. Norris down and follow McGonagall. We are seeing where all of the classrooms are, meeting all of the teachers and others that work there, for the most part I get a friendly welcome.

There are a couple people there who seem less than thrilled to see me. And those are actually people I have already met, I am sure of that. Somewhere along this tour I have become lucid, so I am now aware I am dreaming. Snape greets me with a grunt and a dirty look, I know he wanted to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts class. I am figuring he voted me in only because, when choosing between Umbridge and me, I am the obvious choice. Lucius is in the halls, I wonder how much time Lucius is at Hogwarts. As McGonagall is introducing me to people, she is saying the role they play at Hogwarts. It turns out the heads of the houses aren't the same as in the book. In fact, McGonagall introduces Arthur Weasley as the head of Gryffindor, I say I thought that was McGonagall. McGonagall says no, seems surprised, then says there would be far too much room for bias if the heads of the houses were also teachers. She says Snape would never flunk anyone in his house. She says Arthur Weasley is head of Gryffindor, Xenophilius Lovegood is head of Ravenclaw, I have never heard the name of the person who is head of Hufflepuff, and Lucius Malfoy is the head of Slytherin.

Speaking of Lucius Malfoy, McGonagall meet up with him in one of the halls. He doesn't seem too happy to see me, but at least he is making an effort to hide that. He McGonagall has something she needs to attend to, and she needs me to wait. Right there with Lucius? Don't take too long... So there I am in the hallway with Lucius, and it seems a bit awkward, so I just wait there silently while Lucius is giving me a strange look. While I am standing there thinking the situation rather sucks, someone even worse comes along. Dolores Umbridge comes along down the hall. She is still not pleased to see me, but it seems she is currently more angry a Lucius for some reason. She walks right over to Lucius and says she should curse him into next week for that trick. She says it took her hours to find the proper counter-curse to get rid of that obscenity from her forehead. I remember the word BITCH being tattooed on her face, I look to see if it is really gone. Lucius is also looking, he says it's good she cleared up that label... the word BITCH didn't properly describe Umbridge. I look and now the words UGLY BITCH are displayed on her forehead, glowing and changing color constantly. I say Lucius is right on this one, Umbridge's forehead looks much better now, then I turn away quickly because I think I might start laughing. McGonagall comes out of the room where she had gone, she looks at Umbridge and gasps. She is staring, all she can say is, "Dolores! Your face! It's..." I interrupt McGonagall and say her face sure does look a lot better. McGonagall is about to say something else when Umbridge takes a look at me, gives a huff, then says I shouldn't get too comfortable since I won't be at the school for long. She leaves in a huff. McGonagall makes no further attempt to stop her, but she does want to know who put it there. I say I didn't do it, but I think it was Q. Q has a sense of humor and would no doubt find that amusing. From the closed door of a women's restroom a bit farther up the hall comes, "Lucius Malfoy!!!" There are a few other sounds, then Umbridge comes out of the bathroom and storms over to Lucius. I notice that, unfortunately, her forehead is now clear of writing. Damn. She got rid of it. She points at her forehead and tells Lucius that she has countered how curse. As I am watching, however, the words DUMB UGLY BITCH appear on her forehead in neon pink. I snort a bit of laughter, turning it into a cough, though it still gets Umbridge's attention. She heads off in a huff again.

I follow McGonagall through the rest of the tour of the castle, though nothing more worth noting takes place. I am thinking it would be sooooo easy to get lost in there that it isn't even funny. I wonder how the students manage to find their classes at all. I guess it is something they get used to, but it seems the setup would lead to a lot of tardy first years, at least for a while. The tour ends back where we started, back in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. McGonagall says again that everyone, or most everyone, is glad to have me aboard. So don't pay any attention to Umbridge, she is all talk and there really is nothing she can do now that I have been voted in by a majority of the board members at Hogwarts. Speaking of Umbridge, she storms into the room and demands to know where Lucius Malfoy is, I see her forehead now sports only one word, and that is FUCKTARD. Q must have heard Tigress use that word. McGonagall says that is really immature, but she seems to be snickering a bit, too. I wonder what it will say next... I was fortunately able to wait until McGonagall left the room before I woke up.

Concert Shirt Swap
I am in a large room, it is an auditorium, and there are people coming into the room and taking seats, it looks like there is going to be a concert going on soon. I am thinking I somehow got in without a ticket, and I am hoping I don't get caught... because the ticket price is outrageously expensive, there's no way I could afford one. I am trying to remember who is playing, is it even worth that kind of money? Well, no matter, I got in free, so I'm happy. It turns out that they are even giving out free t-shirts, one of the employees gives me one, so I look at the shirt, and it displays the names of the bands to be playing. There are a couple opening acts I don't recognize, but the headlining groups are Metallica and Disturbed, awesome! I take my shirt off right there in front of everyone, not really being concerned about the people who are around me to see. I put on my shirt but then I realize I have a big hole in it! That really pissed me off, so I switched back to my own shirt. I look around and I see that some people have laid their shirts around, I figure I will make a swap. Bit when I try, someone calls me on it, I say I thought it was mine... Sorry. The music starts, it's Metallica playing, I am hoping I haven't missed Disturbed. Of course now the place is darker, so I am able to swap my shirt with another. Then I make my way towards the front of the crowd to get closer to the band. It's Metallica, but I don't recognize the songs.

A River Runs Through It
There is a river running through our yard, across the driveway, blocks the driveway. The water is rancid. Oil in it. Can't get out, worried about dogs... what if they drink this crap??? They can't reach. Not an issue. What if it erodes and grows wider? We need a bridge. Mom talking to my brother, John about the bridge. I follow the river to see where it comes from, can it be diverted? Somehow I become lucid... that's John! I don't want to lose him again... I hug him, I don't want to let him go, he wants to know what brought that on...

I am in my own bedroom, I get up off the bed and go out into the living room. I haven't been sleeping, I have been lying in there relaxing, but now I think it is time to get doing something. I go outside to get a bit of fresh air, but there is something weird about the yard. It takes me a bit to recognize what is wrong with the yard, but I finally see that there is a river running through it! I see my mother out there talking to someone, I go over to see what is going on, because I know there isn't supposed to be a river in the yard. The river flows across the driveway, so it is impossible to get our cars out of the driveway. I find it is my brother John that my mom is talking to, I also get a closer look at the water. The water is disgusting. There is a lot of oil and crap in the water, and it also smells bad. My mother is talking to John about leaving the river there and building a bridge... but why would she want to keep the river stench going through the yard?! I follow the river to the west to see if I can find out where the river is coming from and maybe it can be diverted. Somewhere as I'm following the river I become lucid, though I can't identify exactly where.

Now that I'm lucid I head back to where my mom is talking to John still, but now I realize it's a dream and that as soon as I wake up John will be gone again. This realization makes me sad, I miss my brother. I decide to take advantage of the time I have with him. I run over to John and I throw my arms around him in a great big bear hug. He seems a bit surprised, but he returns the hug. I keep hugging him, I really don't want to let go. It seems almost as if, by holding on to him tightly enough, I can pull him from the dream into waking life. Of course that isn't possible, but I hold on to him tightly just the same. I am still holding him when I wake up, and of course he isn't there.

Note: The rest of the night was filled with fragmented dreams, and they are all listed out here:

*Tower Defense*
I was on top of a tower. There were four of us there, and one of the other three was Tigress. I didn't recognize the other two people, but they were men. The tower was circular and quite tall. I could see far out over the surrounding area, which included a cleared meadow area and then a thick forest. The meadow was too circular to have been natural, so I figured it had been cleared to provide a defendable area. The four of us were covering all four directions from the tower. Tigress was on my right. We all had bows and arrows. Enemies were storming the tower. We were picking them off with our arrows. The enemies were firing arrows back, but it was proving harder for them to get their arrows up to the top of our tower than it was to shoot arrows down from the tower at them. I was surprised at my own accuracy. I glanced to my right and saw Tigress was also picking off enemies with deadly accuracy. The fight continued for a while, and was actually rather boring. The enemies seemed to be slowing down, and it was shortly after picking off the last enemy and seeing there were no more enemies coming that I woke.

*What Goes Around Comes Around*
I was in a subway tunnel. I was walking along the walkway at the side of the tunnel. The path was there for maintenance purposes. I saw there was a subway intersection ahead where two tracks merged into the one. There was a young man on the path with me. He was using a hot glue gun to form words on the wall of the subway tunnel. The words were not very visible, but they would be raised off of the wall slightly. He was doing that when another young man came over and got all kinds of pissed off at him for that. The second man grabbed the glue gun from the one who had been using it on the wall. The second man shoved the hot glue gun in the first man's mouth and pulled the trigger, filling the first man's mouth with hot glue. The first man's cries of pain were muffled. The second man kept adding hot glue until it covered both the first man's mouth and nose, then he dropped the first man onto the ground and watched him suffocate. The killer laughed and kicked the victim a few times as the victim suffocated. The killer headed down the path towards the intersection. He stepped out to cross to the other side of the intersection. Right as he was in the intersection, two speeding subway cars, single subway cars, collided there in the intersection and crushed the killer between them… The car operators somehow got out of there uninjured, there was no one else on board either car… only the killer had been killed. Well that was karma for you…

*Metallica's New Member*
I was at a Metallica concert. I had a ticket to get in. I went inside the arena. It wasn't a very large arena, and I felt I was very fortunate to have gotten a ticket. I went to find my seat, but my seat sucked. I thought maybe I could find another seat that hadn't been filled. Maybe someone had been unable to attend. I walked through the seats and saw most of them were filled. The concert was about to start. I saw an empty seat. I sat down, it was only five rows from the stage. The concert started, and it was loud. I watched as the band members came out on stage. Lars Ulrich was on drums, James Hetfield was on guitar and singing, Kirk Hammett was on guitar, and then the fourth member came out… and it was MoSh! I did a double take! Wow! MoSh had joined a band! And not just any band, he was now the fourth member of Metallica! I thought that was awesome, I would have to congratulate him after the show. And this meant I know one of the members of Metallica! I could meet the rest of the band, too! I was so excited while I watched the concert. MoSh was rocking! He did a solo part way through the concert… my only thought was wow! The concert ended, and I was headed to the entrance to back stage to see about talking to MoSh, I told the bouncer to just tell MoSh that Raven was there to see him. The bouncer didn't believe me, but I saw MoSh back there and he waved at me, telling the bouncer to let me through.

*Winter in June?*
I was in my normal house. I left the house to go get the mail. The ground outside was covered with snow! In spite of the fact I live in a desert and this is the middle of summer, I didn't think to do a RC in response to the snow. I threw a couple of snowballs at a large cactus. I threw a few at the house. I hit my mother with one of them. She was not pleased. She told me to stop messing around and go get the mail. For some reason our mailbox was so far away I would have to drive to get there. I left the house in my car. It really was a long ways to the mailbox. I drove down a couple long streets and made several turns before I realized I was hopelessly lost. I figured things must look too different being covered with snow… and so I wasn't recognizing the place. I didn't want to admit to anyone that I had gotten lost when looking for my own mailbox… so I kept looking for it, and I figured to explain why it took so long I would just tell everyone I had gotten stuck in the snow.