Dream - Shaking hands with a ghost

On Thursday morning, June 12, 2008, I had a dream in which I met someone, then later shook hands with his ghost.

A lot happened earlier in the dream. At some point, I was at a mall that sometimes seemed to be a school, or partially a school.

Someone came there who I think was a former senator or representative of some kind. He was there, I think, to make a speech as part of some school event. At some point, either he or I was leaving. I shook hands with him. He was concerned more with someone else, but turned to me and shook hands. He had a firm handshake. He was perhaps around 60, with dark gray thinning hair on top and whitish hair on the sides. His face was somewhat thin and rectangular and his hair was slicked down and combed to the side.

I left and went out to the parking lot and then went back in. He was talking to someone. Other people were around coming and going. He turned slightly and looked at me and frowned a little, no doubt wondering why I was back. I'm not sure now exactly why I did go back.

He left not long afterward, getting into a car with some people that were with him, a car that had pulled up by the curb. A few days later I heard that he had a heart attack and died.

Sometime later, perhaps a week or two, maybe less, we were outside somewhere at some school function, a picnic or something like that. Some kind of game or dance started where people held hands in a circle and went around in stops and starts. A photographer was there, and now he was in the middle of the circle taking pictures. I came to realize that the person taking pictures was the dead politician. Although at first he didn't really look like him, he looked more and more like him as time went on.

I shook hands with him again. It was firm like before. He smiled at me, leaning into the handshake. The circle of people had dissipated and I was telling someone from the circle, then, a man who was a school administrator of some kind, about the photographer being the dead politician. The photographer was gone now, apparently having faded out after going a few feet to the side.

The administrator kept asking about it, going through some papers that were stapled together, trying to find who was assigned to be the photographer, asking was I sure. I took him to the camera, which was sitting on the ground now, an odd device with a broad back that had an LCD display low on it. When activated, the name of the photographer crawled across it, with some letters between them, perhaps three, that were evidently a company name. The first name was ANDY. I don't remember what the last name was, it was perhaps ten or twelve letters. It was the name of the dead politician, though, though I don't think I ever knew it before that point.

I was then going toward a car parked at the street in the city. Everything was gray. Some people were standing by it in dark clothes and long coats, talking and looking around somewhat furtively. The dead politician was there. I was seeing something that had happened earlier. He had been tainted some by association with people who had some underworld connections. I realized, though, that the situation was not as it had appeared and was not as it had been portrayed. The politician was not aware, or at least not aware much, of the underworld connections, and was just trying to do his best for the people. The dream then seemed to blend into the next part.

It was cold. I was going back toward something. A cold rain was falling, perhaps snow even. Everything was gray. I went across the road to an area where nothing was built. In the middle distance across another road was a low building with a large yard around it, a yard that extended a very large distance toward the back, blending in with the land, the land going finally toward a low rise and then back down again. Then a much smaller yard and then a row of small darkish buildings, perhaps houses or businesses, leading away from me.

Everything was shades of gray. I walked on gray grass, flattened down, wet with rain and slushy ice, and headed toward more of the same. Two figures were going from the direction of the large low building across the land behind it, heading toward the low ridge. There seemed to be a fight or struggle going on between them, as every now and then one would turn, the one slightly in the lead, and attack the other somehow. I don't think it was usually hitting with fists. I don't remember now exactly what was happening, but one was hitting the other with something, maybe a coat sometimes, though I think something else was used too, maybe the slushy ice, picked up and loosely packed together. I think the one attacking kept trying to take something the other had and was wearing, a coat or shirt, perhaps a T-shirt.

I was dragging a thick hose along with me and turned it on them when I was still quite a distance away, several hundred feet. It didn't do much to stop the fight. It rained a large quantity of cold, large, heavy drops on them with some force. I hoped to break the fight up, but it only slowed it a little. I thought it might melt the slushy ice used as ammunition, but it didn't seem to be having enough of an effect. I think the person attacking got the article of clothing he was after and the one attacked was not able to get it back and finally went down.

I reached the area past the rise in the ground. There was a bit of a dip behind the rise and then the ground rose back up to a normal level. It had stopped raining now, but everything was still wet. It was a little warmer and the slush had melted.

A man came from the small building or around there, and was talking about the fight. I told him I had the hose and could spray them with force. A person came over the ridge then and down the other side, wearing a T-shirt that was not in good shape. He was grinning and denied knowing about the fight, though he seemed to be the person from the fight.

I went back to the road or near it and went toward the big building, going by the side at a distance and around to the front. It turned out to be the radiator shop on Scottsdale Road. I think the man from the small building might have gone with me, but I'm not sure. There were a few cars out front. I went into something like a large van or maybe a trailer and was talking with someone, perhaps the man from the small building, and then someone showed up at the back grinning, evidently the man in the T-shirt. It had big holes in it and strange markings in different colors, like they had been put on with markers.

He gave various stories when pressed on where he had been. He had been somewhere else, he had been to WalMart, he had been to some other place, the story kept changing. He kept changing, too, sometimes seeming slimmer and sometimes more muscular. He pulled his shirt up, apparently trying to show us evidence of some sort. He had more markings across his stomach and chest, across his head and face even, at least one of them changing from a marking to a scar, going in a shallow zigzag across him, a scar that got bigger and raised up, a 3-D pinkish line.

I finally got out and went toward the front door, going in I think and looking around briefly and then going back out, and continuing on past the front and around to the side. Other people were around and I could hear them talking [the radio was on in real life]. My father was somewhere, perhaps inside or perhaps not. I got down by the window by the repair tanks and got inside somehow, I think maybe by peeling back a section of wall. The main worker, an Hispanic man, was somewhere nearby, but I don't think I actually saw him, or if I did it was dimly and not directly on.

I needed to make my way back and find the other guy, the one who had fallen, to see if he was alright. I needed to take someone with me, I wasn't sure what situation I would run into. I think someone was actually urging me to do that.

I went out back and got someone, a young employee who worked on cars I think, and we continued on going back and in a short while reached a building that stretched across the way. It seemed to be some kind of garage run by some rural types, a large number of people, apparently all or most related to each other, suspicious of outsiders. I had somehow acquired a third person and I think a local deputy or sheriff had somehow come and was directing the search. A somewhat paunchy middle-aged man ran the place and was showing us around, at the sheriff's continued insistence. The employees/relatives kept trying things, like going for baseball bats or crowbars and tools of some kind that were laying around, to try to attack us with them, and had to be dissuaded.

It was a big building and had divisions running across it as we went further through it, dividing it into different sections. We got finally to the last section and were looking through it.

The sheriff was still questioning the owner, the employees/relatives were still trying things. At least one time one of them slowly sneaked out from under a bed toward something on the floor. Someone stepped on his wrist, I think, and kicked him back under the bed, it might have been me. They were continually trying things and there was someone every few feet.

The sheriff was talking to the owner and there were people continually sneaking up on both sides that had to be continuously taken care of in various ways, sometimes by knocking the weapon out of their hands or their hands or arms away from the weapon, sometimes attacking them, sometimes just moving threateningly toward them.

The owner seemed unwilling to control them in any way. The owner himself picked up something from somewhere, some kind of shiny tool and was talking, looking slightly past the sheriff in a distracted way, seemingly ignoring what the sheriff was saying.

The sheriff bent down and picked up a heavy dark pencil that the employees had been trying to use and stabbed the owner in the stomach, toward his right side, pushing it all the way in, then pulling it out and stabbing him again and little way from the first, slightly more toward the center but still toward the side, and then pulled it out and stabbed him again, either this one or the one before being a little higher. It was like pushing the pencil into clay. Sometimes it seems I was the sheriff now and sometimes I was watching.

The owner fell down backwards and then got back up, still holding the tool and talking some more but glancing now toward the sheriff and then away and then back again, some concern showing on his face. The sheriff stabbed him again, this time in the center and higher, just under the breast bone.

I started to protest, thinking it was too high, that he had actually stabbed him in the heart. The owner frowned and had a "Hey!" type of expression, and his head turned down then and he folded, falling backward. He didn't get back up.

The scene jumped to a little in the future, then, and the place was full of law enforcers, federal agents I think. The various employees were under control, but they seemed to lose interest in fighting after the owner was killed. The place was being thoroughly searched. The fear was that the missing person might be hidden somewhere, perhaps still alive.

I went toward the north side. A lot of small, low, upholstered chairs were there, with burlap type cloth, set up along the walls and in rows across the narrow space of the long room. Others came with me. I was looking through the chairs, picking up the cushions and looking and feeling under them, pulling the chairs back and looking behind them, etc. Others were doing the same. A time or two some odd things were found, like a pair of children's shoes set neatly under a seat cushion, along with a belt. It might be ominous or it might not be. Finally we had them all pretty much searched. I was by a door that led back toward the front. We had to look somewhere else now, working our way toward the front.

I looked along the wall behind the chairs. It was bulging out with, I think, a thin sheet of paper-like stuff pulled across it. I pulled the furniture, low couch-like stuff, away from it and we started looking, other people doing most of the work. The paper covering was pulled away and behind it were rows and rows of record albums, staggered rows, getting thicker toward the floor and blending in with the wall about mid level, then going back inside the wall, sticking out more toward the corner. A few were found toward the corner that seemed to be homemade ones, showing pictures of a couple of the employees/relatives kissing each other with love and affection.

The sheriff looked sad and uncertain and said there was no way to know what was on them. I was beginning to worry that the owner had died for nothing, that the people here might have had nothing to do with the disappearance of the person, that they might just be strange people, it was hard to know yet and it might be that we would never know.