Ginko pays a visit to a man's house after hearing rumours of the latter having prophetic dreams which coincide with happenings in the future. Instead of being impressed by the man's ability, Ginko expresses his concern at this phenomenon. When the man is bewildered by Ginko's words, he explains that the reason why the man keeps having these dreams could be due to the Mushis living in his dreams. As such, to prevent them from breeding further, Ginko gives a pack of medicine to the man for consumption. However, the man should only start taking them when the frequency of such prophetic dreams increases to about 50% and any overdosage will be hazardous to his health. On the other hand, if he allows the situation to go out of control, there may come a day when he will never wake up from his dream. With this advice, Ginko embarks on his journey and states that he will return when the medicine is about to run out.You mustn't talk to someone while he is sleeping because the words you hear will be from the underworld...
True to his word, Ginko returns to the village but is surprised to see it in a state of despair even though it's been less than one year since he last came. When he arrives at the man's house, he finds the latter waiting for him as if knowing that Ginko will turn up some day. Ginko asks about what had happened to the village and the man relates the events which took place after Ginko's departure...
The man whose name is Jin, had a dream of an underground water source in the forest and got his fellow villagers to dig for it. They were elated to find that the dream turned out to be true and showered Jin's family with lots of gifts. However, Jin's wife, Kinu was concerned about the increasing frequency of these dreams and reminded her husband to heed the advice of Ginko. Jin was sceptical about the authenticity of Ginko's theory but assured Kinu that he will drink the medicine so as to keep her at ease.
Subsequently, Jin's dream helped him warn a family in advance to escape before a landslide buried their house. As such, this made Jin feel scared about those dreams because everything came true as if Jin had wanted them to. Kinu remarked that the dreams were probably given to Jin so as to help the villagers so he should not feel guilty over it. Although Jin tried to show Kinu that he had gotten over this matter, the truth was that his fear overcame his judgement and he started to consume the medicine so as to suppress the dreams.
One day, a tsunami struck the village and resulted in the deaths of many including Jin's daughter Mayu who was at the beach. Due to the fact that Jin failed to see this disaster coming, the villagers were rather unhappy over this. Jin also blamed himself for indirectly causing the death of Mayu and decided to stop taking Ginko's medicine. This caused the frequency of his dreams to increase and life slowly got back to normal as per before the tsunami.
Unexpectedly, this marked the beginning of a nightmare for Jin too. He dreamt of a strange illness hitting the village and tried to brush it off as it seemed so vivid. The next day, Jin saw Kinu being struck by the same illness where a green mold would spread from the fingers to the rest of the body before disintegrating the person into pieces. In no time, Jin became the sole survivor in the village.
When Jin finishes his story, he accuses Ginko of lying to him when they first met. Jin only realised this when the plague struck the village because the people closest to him were hit with the illness first. That's when he found out that the Mushis residing in his dreams are not those who forecast future happenings but rather those which re-create whatever he has dreamed of, into reality.
Jin demands Ginko to explain why he had lied and is shocked to find out that the reason was due to the inability to get rid of such Mushis from one's dreams. As such, the only way is to control the Mushis. However, once the host knows the root of the problem, it will be hard for the person to bear with the consequences just as in Jin's case. Jin is agitated to hear this and screams that he should have died to prevent the disasters which happened. Ginko apologises for lying and promises to help Jin overcome the problem as long as the latter continues to live.
Ginko explains that the Mushis residing in Jin's dreams are called Imeno no Awai which live inside and outside the dreams. Due to the movement, that's when they make the dreams come true. However, this doesn't happen all the time so there are a limited number of dreams which are realized in reality. As the number of the Mushis increase, the frequency of dreams coming true would increase correspondingly. The only way to control the Mushis would be to find the medium which is used to enter Jin's dreams from their own world.
As Ginko tries to find a solution to the problem, he is aghast to find Jin consuming all the medicine in a bid to commit suicide because he's too devastated to keep on living. Ginko manages to save Jin and finds that he has started dreaming based on the movements of his eyeballs. When Jin mumbles an apology in his sleep, Ginko replies that neither him nor the Mushis are at fault. However, Jin starts to talk about seeing geese and even replies to a question which makes Ginko realise that this is not sleep talk after all. Suddenly, the screen behind Jin's mattress brightens up and Ginko sees a picture of black objects in the sky where he concludes that these are flocks of Imeno no Awai.
Meanwhile, Jin sees Kinu and Mayu alive as if nothing has happened and sobs uncontrollably while apologising to them. Kinu reassures Jin that he has done nothing wrong at all. Suddenly, the surroundings change again and Jin finds himself lying on the mattress. When a fire in the screen spreads to his pillow, Ginko carries Jin outside the house and rushes to find water to extinguish the fire. Jin realises where the problem lies and grabs a sword to slash the pillow before Ginko can stop him. Little does he know that he's still in the midst of his dream and this action causes him to suffer from the effects of this action. As Jin collapses, the house is swallowed in flames.
Ginko brings Jin to another village where the latter receives treatment for his wounds. When Jin comes to, he asks Ginko if he had expected this to happen after he slashed the pillow. Ginko explains that the origin of the word, pillow means room for the soul as human beings spend a third of their lives resting on it. As such, that's also considered the place when the soul would rest. By slashing the pillow, Ginko had guessed that something would happen to Jin.
After Jin recovered, he became a sword smith again and was sought-after for his skills. However, he slowly changed and even lost his senses before stabbing himself in public. The reason behind this was said to be his fear for sleeping and the soul wandering off. As such, he never had a dream again after slashing his pillow...
I must really commend the author of this manga for her ability to observe daily things which we have taken for granted and using these to spin these tales filled with mystique. This time round, the topic is on sleeping or rather, dreaming which everyone does on a daily basis. As such, it will be easy to identify with whatever is being discussed here as compared to using abstract concepts to illustrate the theme.
Actually, with regards to sleeping, there are many myths surrounding this issue. Besides the point of not talking to someone while you are sleeping, there are also taboos like not placing a mirror opposite your bed because your soul goes wandering during sleep and if the soul sees a reflection in the mirror, it may mean that the soul can get confused and the person never wakes up as a result.
It gets a little creepy to see this episode because I do dream of things now and something identical may happen a few years down the road. As such, I've always believed that dreams do reflect reality but the issue for me is when the event takes place. Of course, I'm not prophetic nor possess such forecasting powers but I'm sure there will be times when something happens and you get the feeling of deja vu as if you have seen this before.
This episode is rather sad because we see a man being plagued by his ability to see events in his dreams which causes his misfortune in the end. I can't help but sympathise with him and the last statement of him never having a dream after cutting the pillow just seemed so ironic. If he had not cut the pillow, he would still be in anguish over the Mushis translating dreams to reality. On the other hand, cutting the pillow meant that he had severed his ties with dreamland and the revelation of the pillow being the medium to there caused him to be fearful of sleeping. Given that his soul and body didn't get to rest, it's no wonder that he finally lost his life. On hindsight, it is easy to come to conclusions but even if Jin had known what would come, would he still continue to dream and forsake the perks which come with it or choose to remain oblivious to what may come and leave everything to fate? That's really something worth pondering over.
No comments:
Post a Comment