What Did I Do?

“Você pagará pelo que fez.” (You will pay for what you did.) I heard a deep voice in my dream and woke up around 4am. I was begging for forgiveness the moment I woke up, but will then become conscious, and would wonder what really or who really did I talk or was with. I always forget what I have dreamt of but I remember that is the voice that always wakes me up and I feel that it is a linked dream… Somehow scary, somehow odd, somehow there are lots of fights and arguments.

“Heh… Was the dream in color?” my friend asked me.

I shook my head and answered, “Nah, I don’t really remember, do you dream continuous dreams like a continuation of a video?” I asked my friend. She was very into dreams. Reading and her accuracy was not too bad, but don’t misunderstand this because later this case is going to be a little weird.

“Is the whole dream in Portuguese?” my friend asked.

“Yes, I mean…maybe? I don’t remember… Are you going to read my dream? I got very little details” I said in a way trying to stop my friend from talking about my dream.

“I feel that I can tell the meaning of the dream if you tell me more details!” my friend fussed around still trying to ask about the details of my dream.

Suddenly, I heard a voice from a distance “…jamais…” (Never ever… Or something like that) “O que?” (What?) I replied naturally. My friend stood there and looked at a direction, I looked the same direction and saw a shadow passed away. “Did the shadow speak?” I asked my friend.

“Eh? No… I mean… That just came out of you, right?” she replied.

I did not understand what happened, so I ignored that day and went out. I came back the evening and asked what really happened at that moment when both of us saw the “shadow”.

“well, etto… That shadow I thought I saw it came out from your back” she answered as if she was not too sure about it.

“Do you know anything about that?” I asked.

“Remember the trip we went last week to Noboribetsu?” she asked.

Yes, we went to Noboribetsu to a place call the Jigoku-Dani, otherwise the Hell Valley. That place is not really what it sounded like or haunted, it is just a volcanic area full of hot springs and minerals, sulfuric gases and boiling hot water will still be seen around. Not too far away we saw a dead animal not sure what that was but it was helplessly dangling at a cliff (cliff? Or maybe it was a tall rock, not sure).

Why did I bring up this trip here? That’s because my friend believes that animals could curse people when they are in spiritual form. A very “Japanese thought”, because traditionally Japanese thinks that haunting and cursing are categorized as the same. Not going to explain too much because this may mislead the story.

“Yes, I remember at the Hell Valley, we saw an animal dead dangling on a cliff, does the shadow you saw look similar?” I asked in a way trying to to be both understanding and kind of skeptic.

“I think it’s a bear, and you know, bear in Ainu Culture is…” she tries to tell me as if she is sure what really happened.

“You will need to be a little more scientific, see? I am not trying to say that you are wrong but we were not bear hunting and it is not logical if the bear to be haunting or cursing me” I said not letting her finish up her sentence.

“Ryuji, I know! But the shadow was huge and it is not a person, I saw it went out from your backside, it was shocking! If that was not a bear…” she said in a tone as if she was very heated up and stopped at the middle of her sentence.

“What happened?” I asked.

She pointed back because there was a eared shadow right behind me. I smiled and said to her “It’s Aleshanee playing under the lamp” we both laughed.

From that day on after the shadow went out I did not dream of anything strange, and luckily nothing really bad happened. I am still kind of looking the answer for what that shadow really is and what the dreams really are about.

Do you consider this as a spiritual experience?