Artistic Expression

Date: 5/15/2019

There were ghosts who had just graduated from some kind of ghost schooling program. They were assigned to haunt certain families/individuals. These assignments seemed to be pretty non-negotiable & permanent. They could either be assigned as benevolent ghosts who haunted good people, or wraith type ghosts who haunted evil people -- not to punish the evil people, but to help, like, increase their ambience of evil or something. One of the tasks they had, regardless of assignment, was to paint. They would create paintings that suited their assigned master's atmosphere & personality. Benevolent ghosts seemed to have more freedom in this area, as wraith ghosts had to make sure their paintings were sufficiently sad or angry or creepy or otherwise evil. It wasn't clear whether these paintings were requested or just had to be done, whether the person/people being haunted knew they would appear or was just meant to find them on the walls at random. It might have been a combination of both? For some reason, several of the ghostly graduates assigned to such jobs were in an abandoned mansion. The sky was dark and overcast, the rain was soaking the land, there were cobwebs everywhere, and things were falling apart in strange places. It was a classic haunted mansion, like in video games or movies. The whole class might have been there, actually. They were making their way through the mansion, individually or in groups, seemingly on their way to their new assignments. I like to think there was a reason for them being in a mansion to do this, like portals being placed throughout the mansion that would take them to the locations of their assignments or something. I never did find out if that was the case in the dream, though, or what significance the mansion held. Maybe it was one final lesson on haunting for them before they left school for good? Either way, our main ghost was traveling alone when they ran into a classmate. I don't remember what the classmate was like, but our main ghost took the form of a skeleton in graduation robes. The classmate tried to make small talk about their graduation, commenting on their own assignment. They said that they were lucky to get a benevolent assignment, since they liked having freedom to paint what they liked & since they couldn't stand being around evil people. They were grateful they didn't get stuck working for any dark, evil people as a wraith. These comments hit our skeleton right where it hurt, & they ended up giving a reaction that said as much. The classmate quickly backpedaled, saying that it was okay for other ghosts & they'd support the skeleton if THEY had a wraith assignment, it just wasn't what they preferred personally was all. The skeleton tried not to make things any more awkward, because wraith assignments didn't suit them either. They were dreading their new job, but knew they had to do it anyway. That was just how things worked. As they continued on with their classmate, the skeleton thought about all the moody paintings they'd have to make. They'd always found painting to be their favorite part of the job, & now they'd be restricted to things that would depress them. The very thought of this future was already bringing them down. They quietly moped about this while their classmate tried to pretend neither of them had assignments they'd dislike. Then, while taking a rest break, two more classmates stumbled upon them. I don't remember too much of what happened here, but the original classmate did have it confirmed that the skeleton was assigned a wraith type job. One of the new classmates got grossed out by this & urged all non-wraiths to go with her instead of hanging around the skeleton. The original classmate tried to defend the skeleton, but they really were uncomfortable with wraith jobs... so, they left as well. Alone & still moping about their job, our skeleton somehow made it up to the roof of the mansion. At some point, they changed from a skeleton to someone in classic Victorian era clothes with long, wavy blond hair & pale hands. They sat on the roof & watched the dark sky (which no longer seemed to be raining, just cloudy & gloomy) while sighing. They thought about skipping out on their new assignment altogether, until the wildlife of the area got to them. A young duck flew over the wrought iron fencing on the roof, & approached our mournful ghost. It even nuzzled their hand, making the ghost smile. Its parents were close behind, trying to usher the youth away while yelling at what they perceived as a threat. The ghost even laughed a little at that. The ducks were so pretty, & going about their lives on the stormiest of days. Our ghost felt inspired. They would paint! They would paint ducks! Just because they had to stick to a certain mood, didn't mean they had to be restricted in their subject matter. They would paint things that made them happy, but in an oil painting style that would make them seem mysterious & deep just the way evil people (at this point I began to suspect they were less truly evil & more just emo/goth) so often liked. There was a brief scene of another mansion, with several moody oil paintings of ducks. Someone in a very fancy coat straightened one of the paintings, & our ghost smiled with pride. That's all I remember from this dream. Until next I wander.