Dreams - Grandpa Edition

Both of my grandfathers died before I was born. Grandpa Johnson split when my dad was a little kid and died not too long after. Grandpa Parker died just a few years before I was born. I have a cousin not much older than I am that talked about Grandpa Parker often when we were growing up. She would say things like "Do you remember when Gramps ..." and I would always have to remind her that he died before I was born. From what I have heard of Gramps I would have liked him. My only 2 run-ins with Gramps include walking in to Grams house (which I now live in) and seeing Gramps leather strap hanging by the back door and the smoke in the wall paper. The strap was more of a threat to be good. We knew it was there, we knew we would be paddled with it if we did not behave. I remember Grams grabbing the strap and chasing after one of my cousins who was a bit of a boundary tester. She caught him, he got the strap. I still laugh when I think of Grams chasing him around the back yard; she may have been old but by golly that woman could move. The second encounter with Gramps was just recently when we were stripping the wallpaper in the kitchen and we hit the layer from when he was alive. The house filled with the noxious smell of his cigarette smoke. We had to open the windows and vacate the house while it aired out. He was the last person who was allowed to smoke in Grams house. One more piece of back story for this dream: There is a room in my basement that was my Mom's bedroom back in the day but has more recently been a storage room. This room is not cleaned out of my Aunt's possessions yet. There is a wall of closet space in this room that I have NEVER seen the inside of. I am 35, I have known this house all of my life, I have lived in this house for 2 months now, I have never seen the inside of these closets. Plus the room scares me just a little. I think it is the scary wallpaper.

Well in my dream last night I was moving the Aunt's things out of this storage room and my things in. I opened the closets and found that it actually led to a 3 room cave under the front lawn. In this space I found a bunch of Christmas decorations, Grams paints and a bunch of cards left over from her boutiques, Then there was a closed door. My cousin, the one one who is just older than I am and remembers Gramps, was there helping us move things. She and I opened this door together. It led to my Gramps secret workshop. It was full of wood creations he was working on when he passed. There were toys for kids, violins and bows (some of the bows were made out of old wood hangers ... just because) and all of his tools were still hanging where he had left them. The cool thing about this super hidden place was that there was no dust or cobwebs. I found a really cool cookie jar in the shape of a pig that I HAD to have (I am allergic to pork ... so why not?) When I opened it up I found that it was filled with hard tack candy. (Grams used to have a bowl of hard tack candy sitting out.) I picked up a really cool looking violin, one of the wood hanger bows, and started to tune the instrument. (No I do not play the violin) But magically I was able to start playing "Oh Susanna" flawlessly. My cousin asked me how I knew how to play that song, and my response was "Grandpa's violin is magical." Then I woke up.

The funny thing is that when I woke up this morning I felt like I actually knew Gramps. Like I had these fond memories suddenly of Gramps because I had spent time in his secret room. It made me want to run down to this room and open the closets to find these rooms. Then I had this sudden fear again that it would all be not real (of course it would not be real, it was a dream) so I did not go down. I need to find a pic of Gramps so I can put it up in my house. I have to admit it was the most lifelike dream I have had in a LONG time. It makes me miss Grams and Gramps. Grams only died 10 years ago or so, so I knew her very well. Now that I live in Gramps house I miss him. I miss him and I never even knew him. Is that possible?