(Note: I use AI to help me translate my stories from Japanese to English.)
I had a mysterious experience more than 20 years ago.
At that time, I stopped going to graduate school. It was the first major setback in my life. I felt strong stress from human relationships, so I quit going to school.
I worried a lot and didn’t know what to do.
I was in great pain, and it felt like a life-or-death situation.
Then, one night when I was walking outside, I had a mysterious experience.
The outside world was shining. It was very beautiful, like illuminations. Cars, pedestrians, and buildings were shining.
Back then, I didn’t know why the world looked that way. But after reading a book written by someone who experienced something similar, I finally understood what had happened to me.
Kazukiyo Imura (1947–1979) was a Japanese doctor who passed away from cancer at the age of 31. Before he died, he wrote a book, and in it he described the following experience:
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“I had cancer in my right leg and had it amputated. But whenever I took a deep breath, I felt pain in my chest. I was worried, so I had an X-ray.
When I saw the X-ray images, a chill ran down my spine. The cancer had spread to both lungs. There were several tumors, and the largest one was four centimeters in diameter.
I thought I was going to die, but if I took immunotherapy, I might get better.
I decided to take immunotherapy as soon as I left the X-ray room. I didn’t have to be hospitalized, and I could keep working during the treatment.
That evening, as I parked my car in a parking lot, I saw mysterious scenery.
The world was shining. The customers in the grocery store were shining. The children running outside were shining. Dogs, telephone poles, and even small stones were shining. When I got home, my wife looked so precious that I felt like putting my hands together in reverence.”
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A Japanese scholar who experienced something similar wrote about this mysterious experience like this:
“When you realize that your life will soon end, even the most ordinary scenes in your daily life begin to shine.”
I saw the world shining that night because I felt that my life might end soon. I was close to death.
More than 20 years have passed since that night, and I have not seen such scenes again.
I learned that the world can look bright or colorless depending on me.