Dream of Dead Friend

August 9, 1999

This is shortened account of a very long, detailed dream.

I was waiting in line somewhere when a good friend of mine who had died less than a year ago walked up beside me. I knew he was dead. We walked away talking. I thanked him for coming to visit me. We walked up Hillside Drive, the street I grew up on in Davidson, North Carolina. My friend pointed at the house next door to my old house and said, "That's where he lived", meaning himself (which was not true in the physical world). Then he explained his remark saying that after you die you no longer consider your physical body yourself, which is why he had referred to his physical body as "he".

My parents' cat, Charlie, was in the front yard of my old house. My friend picked Charlie up and petted him a moment, and then dropped him roughly. I told my friend I thought it was neat that he could interact with the physical world like that (when in fact he was interacting with the dream world). He said it was very difficult and he could not do it for long.

My friend began having trouble communicating. He chose incorrect words and mispronounced words. He asked the correct way to wear an east Indian robe a long time ago. He wanted to know what "Hermann Hest" would have looked like wearing one. I asked if he meant "Hermann Hesse" the German author of Siddhartha. My friend said that's who he had meant.

We went into my old house and downstairs to my room. I took a fishing tackle box off of a shelf and told my friend I wanted to show him something I had found recently. I pulled out a rubber minnow with no hooks and tossed it to my friend. My toss startled him. He cupped his hands to catch the minnow but it went right through his hands and landed on the floor. He smiled and shrugged as if he meant, "What can I say?"

Then we walked down a very old roadbed in the woods. Horses, wagons, and erosion had made the trail about four feet lower than the surrounding ground level. My friend reached into a hole in the dirt wall of the roadbed, and pulled out a big wad of old currency (bills). I could see how old the money looked. Some of the denominations weren't modern. I looked at an old shack near the road. When I looked back at my friend the money was lying in the trail at his feet. He had not been able to continue holding it. He thanked me for all I had done for him. Then my friend dropped a box onto the ground beside the old money. I looked inside. It contained stacks and stacks of contemporary currency. I knew that the value of that money, plus the old money, would be enough for me to live on the rest of my life. My friend said he had owed me money, but he had died before paying me back. The old money was for his debt, plus interest. He said he was no longer able to comprehend our view of time. He hoped the money was enough. I told him the money was far too much. He explained that he couldn't use it, I had helped him a great deal both before and after his death, and he wanted me to have the money with his thanks. I thanked my friend for the money. Two hikers approached on the trail, so I dropped my coat over the money to hide it. The hikers passed. Then I picked up all the money and stuffed it back into the hole.

A good friend (living) walked up as I hid the money. I asked him not to touch the money and he said he wouldn't. He said he had come for our class. My dead friend told us that he was allowed to teach us every morning until we broke the rules. When we broke the rules than he wouldn't be able to teach us anymore. My living friend was extremely eager to participate, which is why he had arrived early. My dead friend began our class. He began drawing a picture, a very good picture. It looked like a full-color painting of a haunted house in the woods. There were two ghosts flying out of the windows. The first ghost looked like Casper. I started laughing and said, "You're going to teach us about Casper the Ghost?" My dead friend smiled and said to bear with him. He said he was going to have to cover several preliminaries before teaching us about ghosts and dead people. He said he could do this class every morning with us for a long time. I thought about how awkward it would be for me to tell people I had to sleep late for class. I realized if I was investigated for spending the money my friend gave to me, if I told the truth, then I would be ridiculed, jailed, or hospitalized... maybe all three. I woke up and recorded the dream.


Copyright 2009 Jon Maloney