Chapter 5, Dreams, is also pretty brief.  If you sleep near a ghost, he or she might affect your dreams.  This is an innate ability that they have and not based on spellcraft, but check out these imbuing and transforming spells for how to ward against that.

Some spells have as a prerequisite that you must have dreamed about a particular subject within a certain timeframe beforehand.  The author recommends various basic lucid dreaming tips in addition to ways to stress yourself out about the thing in such a way as to cause dreams about them.  Sometimes placing relevant objects around or in your bed can help.  It seems possible that thinking sufficiently hard about the subject while under hypnosis or the effects of hallucinogens might qualify, but as the book went to print the evidence was not conclusive.  Naturally, if you have a ghost handy, they can help you.

Sometimes dreams are prophetic but it's really only a very small fraction of them; most dreams mean nothing.  Some people claim to have a talent for it and most of them are probably wrong, but if you have strong reason to believe in retrospect that you had one, you can watch out for commonalities between it and dreams you have going forward.

In what way might sleeping near a ghost affect his dreams? Like, does the ghost control how that works, the "ghosts can help you" thing sounds like they do but...

The phrasing does make it seem pretty intention-based, yeah, although not necessarily with any great deal of finesse.

"Have you ever done the dream thing? I'm guessing it hasn't come up."

(Flip)      No

Figures. Onward.

Chapter 8:  Dying.  (Chapters 6 and 7 are as Cam remembers them.)

This one's written in a much more personal and casual style than the others so far—the other chapters refer to 'the author' without use of first person, but this one starts with, "You've only got one shot at dying, so you might as well make the most of it.  Here's my advice."

She suggests dying in the house of a friend, or ideally some friends, and most ideally some friends with children you can tolerate who are going to inherit the place.  Establish signals ahead of time for when you want music or television or quiet or page-turning; teach them untethering and manifesting spells.  "End things at an appropriate age, before you deteriorate—but be wary of acting too soon!  Youngsters too often think youth is everything there is to life, but there's fullness and richness well beyond your twenties.  Leaving a pretty little ghost is not at all an equal trade for another thirty or forty years of heartbeats."  She excepts people with debilitating diseases or injuries from this, though she notes that "Little things like arthritis will clear right up upon death and need not factor into your consideration."

Once a place and time have been decided, the author recommends using the act itself to further any goals you might have.  "There's a lot you can do with a corpse, and much more so with an expected one and a bit of cleverness!"  She recommends implicating people you don't like in your murder.  There are lots of ways to do this but in particular she recommends getting some friends to banish your corpse and then retrieve it somewhere inconvenient for your enemies (see chapters 18 and 19).  "As for the method, you yourself know what sorts of pain you tolerate best.  I recommend morphine, if you can get a hold of it without suspicion, or drowning.  And you may always ask your associates to desecrate your corpse once your ghost is well secure."

He will have to approach this person cautiously if he gets a useful response from the publisher. He would not care to be implicated in her murder.

Anyway!! Next!

Ghostly Lands!  The author continues to know very little about what is actually up with these (see chapter 6), but here are the bits and pieces she's picked up so far.

Ghosts tend to visit them for more regular stretches of time than they tend to exist or not exist, though the periods still do grow longer as the ghost grows older.  A typical visit for a relatively new ghost will be around two weeks, sometimes half that and sometimes twice it, but without the wild differences in range that occur for existing or not at their tether.

Ghosts have much wider range in Ghostly Lands than on earth; Ghostly Lands are approximately ball-like in shape and ghosts can fly across their whole surface.  (And underneath it, and up from it to a certain height that varies with the size of the Land.)  The 'approximately' there is key; at least one is made of enormous and very thin spikes, like a miles-big sea urchin.  The sizes, even accounting for the variations in shape, are clearly also quite different from each other.  Some are small enough to walk around in a handful of paces; some take hours to circle at top ghost flying speed.

Whether a ghost (or moored set of them) will meet others they're not moored to in a given Land is inconsistent; it seems to be more likely the larger the Land is.

An incomplete list of Lands the author has heard of:  One that's on fire.  One with an elaborate cave system, made of various crystals, more translucent towards the top and more opaque going down.  Lots of ones with both water (or at least liquid more generally) and rock formations, such that there are beaches and cliffs overlooking the sea.  Many desert ones.  Many with thick, dense fog in various colors, much larger than the solid portion.  Ones with interesting sky colors, in combination with whatever other traits they have.

Do ghosts get to decide to go to Lands or does this just happen sometimes?

Just happens sometimes.

Without like, warning or anything? Jeremy could go be somewhere that is on fire mid-conversation at any moment?

Well probably not Jeremy personally, what with the axe-murdering ritual keeping him moored, but almost all other ghosts:  seemingly yes.

Sounds inconvenient, though possibly better than not being able to go anywhere ever.

Next.

Negotiations.  This is another casual chapter; it's not immediately obvious why those weren't put next to each other.  There are suggested page numbers for untethering spells, for the most convenient possession spells for bribery (balancing being pleasant for the ghost against the comfort and safety of the host), for an exorcism spell that can be performed fast, for something to give a ghost a little zap of pain.

There are several pages of what appear to be completely mundane cooking recipes, with which to bribe possessors.

"Push and pull (carrot and stick, if you will) are both essential.  However, a light touch is required with negative motivation; spirits are much less stable than their living counterparts, as a rule, and it's quite easy to ruin a working relationship with only a little sharpness.  Often, all that is necessary is to remind the spirit that your support and continued presence relies upon his or her cooperation.  Gently, gently:  that's the way.

"But this fragility is also to your benefit—of course one may motivate ghosts with messages conveyed to living persons, or with sensory experiences, but even a little expressed sympathy, costless to you, can sometimes get you what you want.  The offer of a hug to a possessor about to leave his or her host has more than once been the act that convinced a spirit to work with me.  But perceived insincerity or aggression is intensely detrimental; use careful judgement."

She notes emphatically that work and entertainment should be kept separate, when it comes to ghost relations.  The spell on this page to put a ghost in more extended pain may be amusing to some, "but even those who find joy in these things should really know better than to sling it out on a spirit from whom they want something.  It does not help.  Only fools do this."

(Though she does mention that she suspects that if both you and the ghost believe in free love, this could be useful on both the sensory-bribery and social fronts.  She has not personally tried it although she knows of spellcasters who have; it seemed to work pretty well for them although you have to be mindful of keeping your hosts cooperative, if you don't have lots of options handy.)

There's also a warning about lying to ghosts.  The ability to visit a Ghostly Land and happen across another spirit with a language in common—potentially at any time—rules out nearly all of the most elaborate deceptions one might otherwise attempt.  Of course the risk with lesser fabrications is not so high; one can often lie to ghosts about their geographically-distant relatives quite safely.

Ultimately, interacting with people is a skill you have to develop over time—whether those people be dead or living.  Go with what works best for you on a personal basis, she instructs.

This lady is a fucking sociopath. Wow. Is there more said here on how possession works?

All the ones referenced here have the approximate structure of drawing some diagrams or placing some objects on the floor, and then having the host-to-be stand in a certain spot and perform an incantation.  They're also all time-limited, lasting between hours and a week.  None of them seem to allow the host to take actions while the ghost is in residence, seemingly including by communicating telepathically with the relevant ghost.  But 'Possessing' is its own entire chapter of spells; he sees one on an opposite page where both parties can share at least some control.

So it's not something ghosts ever initiate by themselves?

If he wants to have a guess at that he may need to skip ahead and read the rest of this chapter.

No, no, he's going in order.

The last chapter of the "Background' section is Locations of Note.  Mostly it seems to be a Yellow Pages of ghost tether spots, centered in the Midwest US but with occasional forays into Europe.  Here's a ghost who knows a lot about math; these ones are good at composing music and have done so for spells before; this one rewards in mysterious ways any impressive and interesting magical accomplishments brought before them; this one loves to know what's going on and will do useful tasks for anyone who brings them sufficiently detailed world news.

..."mysterious ways"?

Those are the words it says on the page, yeah.