I read many posts about Jon's dream in AKOK at the Skirling pass, but most failed to note that it is not just a "wolf dream", rather that is a doubleface dream: the second half is a Wolf dream, the first a direwolf's dream.
I mean that Jon in the start does not warg in Ghost in the Skirling Pass, but connected to him in his direwolf'dream.
<When he closed his eyes, he dreamed of direwolves. There were five of them when there should have been six, and they were scattered, each apart from the others. He felt a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness.
Jon "dreamed of direwolves" but he does not dream of Ghost he is inside Ghost's "dream" while the direwolf, in his dream, is trying to reach his brothers calling them. This is because Jon, while dreaming, is able to project his consciousness and warg in Ghost own consciousness finding him. It works like for Bran with Summer:
<Was it any wonder he would sooner dream his Summer dreams, his wolf dreams? Here in the chill damp darkness of the tomb his third eye had finally opened. He could reach Summer whenever he wanted.
Ghost is dreaming and his own consciousness is outside his body in the dream plane trying to reach for his brothers and sisters.
GRRM hinted that Ghost is "dreaming" ouside the physical plane very clearly:
In the dream Ghost is not in the Skirling Pass anymore because there are no forests in the Pass
<It was dark in the Skirling Pass. The great stone flanks of the mountains hid the sun for most of the day, so they rode in shadow, the breath of man and horse steaming in the cold air. Icy fingers of water trickled down from the snowpack above into small frozen pools that cracked and broke beneath the hooves of their garrons. Sometimes they would see a few weeds struggling from some crack in the rock or a splotch of pale lichen, but there was no grass, and they were above the trees now.
<The forest was vast and cold, and they were so small, so lost**. His brothers were out there somewhere, and his sister, but he had lost their scent.
The mute Ghost is howlling loudly letting his cry echoing through a forest that is not there
<He sat on his haunches** and lifted his head to the darkening sky, and his cry echoed through the forest, a long lonely mournful sound. As it died away, he pricked up his ears, listening for an answer, but the only sound was the sigh of blowing snow
And even Bran call out in a silent strong shout because they are sharing the same dream in a kind of mind connection.
<Jon? The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent?
When the 3 Eyed Weirwood with Bran face touched Ghost, his consciousness "was back" in his body in the Skirling Pass. Jon in the meanwhile is still dreaming with his consciousness still warging in Ghost's one.
<And the tree reached down and touched him. And suddenly he was back in the mountains, his paws sunk deep in a drift of snow as he stood upon the edge of a great precipice. Before him the Skirling Pass opened up into airy emptiness, and a long vee-shaped valley lay spread beneath him like a quilt, awash in all the colors of an autumn afternoon.
Ghost dream is not just a common dream because Bran is able to enter it lconnecting to him ike the 3EC did in Bran's coma dream and Ghost used it to search a connection with his brothers.
How does it work ? Even the few old posts I found that noted the double nature of the dream failed to give a good explanation.
I think that this is easily explained using psychic magic powers and abilities. I strongly belived this is the nature of Asoiaf magic as all that visions, dreams, illusion and mind control effects hinted. Also Psychic magic is the most humanized form of magic: it depends from the caster power and emotions, is does not need gods or external powers to work, it is based mainly on the caster abilities that can be innate or charactetistic of a non human race (blood as a genetic vessel).
Wargs are creature with the psychic ability to project their consciousness in other creature's consciousness and control or connect to it.
<The wolf dreams are no true dreams. You have your eye closed tight whenever you’re awake, but as you drift off it flutters open and your soul seeks out its other half. The power is strong in you.”
The 3rd Eye is the ability to control your cosciousness projection and its iteraction in the astral plane, a sort of dream plane where consciousness are linked.
Bran, after opening his 3rd eye, can easily use the dream plane to reach for Summer whoever he is, and can reach for Ghost/Jon consciousness when they are in the dream plane too.
So Ghost tries to reach his brothers consciousness in his wolf dream but could not reach them from beyond the Wall. Jon warged in Ghost consciousness sharing his wolf dream.
Bran, thanks to his 3rd eye, is able to reach Ghost through the dream plane entering his dream even from the other side of the Wall. Bran consciousness is connected through the dream plane to Ghost one and also to Jon one because Jon is warging in Ghost. It works like a mental link so they are able to speak without words.
The dream plane is a place linked to the physic one where time and space works diffently and where everything is shaped by emotions, willpower and memories. People dying or in coma, with altered state of mind, or with powers can access it but their experience differs. Visions are glimpse from that plane. The more you are untrained (no 3rd eye) or lack magic power, the more you perceived the thing in the plane in a confused and symbolic way.
So Bran can clearly see both Jon and Ghost, but Ghost/Jon perceives Bran as a rapresentation of his powers: A young weirwood for his latent Greenseer ability, with 3 eyes because he has the ability to control his iteraction with the dream plane, the smell of man and wolf because of his Warg ability.
<He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only … A weirwood. It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing a he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes? Not always, came the silent shout. Not before the crow. He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death.
<and once he had even touched Ghost and talked to Jon.
Bran explained clearly that opening your 3rd eye you can easily access to everything and everyone at will.
<He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs. Don’t be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this.**
Varamyr death is another example of consciousness projected outside the body and of a connection to everything through the astral plane: while dying the link of his consciusness with his body is severed, he lingers for few moments around feeling the connections with other creature consciousness just the time to seeking out one of his other half consciousness and warging in it for his second life.
< The white world turned and fell away. For a moment it was as if he were inside the weirwood, gazing out through carved red eyes as a dying man twitched feebly on the ground and a madwoman danced blind and bloody underneath the moon, weeping red tears and ripping at her clothes. Then both were gone and he was rising, melting, his spirit borne on some cold wind. He was in the snow and in the clouds, he was a sparrow, a squirrel, an oak. A horned owl flew silently between his trees, hunting a hare; Varamyr was inside the owl, inside the hare, inside the trees. Deep below the frozen ground, earthworms burrowed blindly in the dark, and he was them as well. I am the wood, and everything that’s in it, he thought, exulting. A hundred ravens took to the air, cawing as they felt him pass. A great elk trumpeted, unsettling the children clinging to his back. A sleeping direwolf raised his head to snarl at empty air. Before their hearts could beat again he had passed on, searching for his own, for One Eye, Sly, and Stalker, for his pack. His wolves would save him, he told himself. That was his last thought as a man. True death came suddenly; he felt a shock of cold, as if he had been plunged into the icy waters of a frozen lake. Then he found himself rushing over moonlit snows with his packmates close behind him. Half the world was dark. One Eye, he knew.
TLDR: I think that Jon dream at the Skirling Pass has been largerly misunderstood targeting it as a common Warg Dream because of his last part, but the first part is GRRM showing a glimpse of Asoiaf magic psychic nature and how the 3rd Eye, the astral dream plane and warging works.
