When the gemara tries to prove that dead people have a working knowledge of what goes on in the living world, it brings the story of the chassid who, after getting into a fight with his wife, spent the night in the cemetery where he saw two spirits talking, and one of them went to find out what would be decreed in the coming year. Based on conversations he overheard for two years in a row, he became very successful in his farming. His wife, wanting to know the secret to his success, got the information out of him, and told the mother of one of the spirits that she had buried her daughter in a mat of reeds (considered very cheap and poor). The next time the chassid went to the cemetery, he was unable to hear anything from the spirits because the spirit said "our conversations have reached the living." The gemara derived from here that the dead know what's going on in the living world.

The Ritva says on this whole story that every time the chassid went to the cemetery and heard these spirits, it was all a dream.

I don't understand the Ritva. If the whole thing was a dream, what's the point of the gemara? What proof is there that the dead know whats going on in the living world from a dream? Since this poor chassid had given tzedaka right before rosh hashana, maybe Hashem put into his dream this information as a way of rewarding him. The gemara's proof falls away by saying its a dream?

Hashem would not have to resort to having two spirits talking, to inform him of coming events. The fact that these two spirits were discussing worldly matters,does in fact show knowledge of what goes on on this world.In a dream or not.

Why would Hashem "not have to resort to that"? He wanted to inform the chassid of the outlook for the crops, and did so via the spirits. He could have informed him lots of other ways, true, but what's to say that He wouldn't do this specifically?

Would Hashem convey something not true,even in a dream? The fact that the spirits told him in a dream,shows that they have knowledge of current (and future)events.

Where's this Ritv"a? I checked both the "new" Ritva (mosad harav kook) and the "old" Ritv"a on this daf and couldn't find anything.

My maggid shiur said it was the ritva. I can ask, maybe it was someone else. But I thought he said Ritva.

The Ritva is cited in the Maharsha.

The Gemara is very odd. Why wouldn't the spirits have known merely because he told his wife? Is it because they only know what goes on in their own families, like the children of R' Chiya discussed?
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In a related question, the ultimate answer of the Gemara that R' Yonason changed his mind because Mosh Rabbeinu brought the message to the Avos, doesn't either seem to fit. Until that point, the Gemara considered recently deceased people conveying the news, as inability of dead people to know about our world, and now that he had this Medrash about Moshe dying and giving a message to be proof that they do know? I suspect there is more here than meets the eye. (see Maharsha). Perhaps in the beginning, R' Yonason felt that once people are dead, their existence is not one that can possibly have any awareness of this world, since it is such a different sphere.

I think, as Nooch is saying, the fact that it was a dream doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

While the vast majority of dreams are false and not actual events these dreams of the spirits were actual events that occurred. The proof is that these conversations brough him success in business...

Why can't we bring a proof from all the people who have brought dead people's spirits up using the bones (kishuf)?

Are you refering to Shaul Hamelech conjuring up Shmuel HaNavi?

Sure. And I think there are other examples as well.

I dont exactly recall the conversation,but Shmuel Hanavi is not exactly an outsider to what would be going on in G-d's court,so to speak. But for your average ghosts hearing what goes on me'achurei hapargud is a great chiddush.

True.