Dreams, of course, count, but it depends on the situation. One is during the forty-nine days of the death of a close relative, that is, the time between the first seven days and the last seven days, and the other is during pregnancy. Obviously, Granny Yang does not meet these two situations.
There are also several kinds of dreams, which are relatively useful for reference, but their value is not high. One is a dream from a deceased relative, just like what Grandma Yang encountered. Of course, this also includes most of the spontaneous dreams caused by longing or other reasons. For example, if I fantasize about getting rich all day long, I may dream about myself lying in a mountain of gold and silver at night. The deceased’s dreams usually give some hints, such as asking for something. hungry? Go and burn incense. Poor? Go burn paper money. cold? Go and burn clothes etc. This is also one of the most common contents in dreams, and it changes due to local customs. For example, when Chinese people die, they will think that they are going to the underworld before they die. When foreigners die, they will feel that they are going to heaven before they die.
In addition, there is also a kind of dream called "lucid dream". The occurrence of lucid dreams is not limited to the period of Qingming, but there is no specific time.
Strictly speaking, lucid dreams are not actually dreams, but a manifestation of the separation of body and soul. As said before, the body is just a container, and the soul is the root. If the body is a machine, then the soul is the power source. When the body is sleeping, it is like cutting off the power supply, and the soul can move freely, because the soul does not need to sleep. There are two types of lucid dreams, one is subconscious and the other is unconscious. The subconscious one is easier to understand. It is like self-training. It trains oneself to leave the body while sleeping, and also trains oneself to know how to go back. As for unconscious ones, they mostly occur in children, the elderly, and various people with weak health.
People who are weak often get sick. From a metaphysical point of view, illness is also seen as one of the manifestations of the incompatibility between the soul and the body. Because of this incoordination, the soul may "accidentally" slip out while sleeping. For children and the elderly, it is because one is not fully minded, the other is already aging, one has just come from another world, and the other is about to leave for another world. Such people are more likely to resonate and intersect with substances from another world, including ghosts and other souls.
Therefore, based on the above classification of the situation, Granny Yang could only have been asked to dream, or she had a lucid dream when she was not paying attention. Either her wife asked her to burn incense and money, or her soul accidentally left her body.
So I asked Granny Yang, what did your dead wife say to you when you dreamed about it? Grandma Yang said, he was standing at the door of the house, waving to me. I didn't seem to realize in my dream that he had been dead for many years, so I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted me to play with him. Granny Yang said that it was not until he said this that she recalled that her wife had died many years ago. According to folk customs, if you dream of the deceased asking you to follow him or take you to play. , whenever he asks you to move your steps to be with him, he will start to curse, no matter how close you are to him, you will still curse like this.
Grandma Yang said, so she cursed at that time, you son of a bitch, get out of here, don’t come to me, crawl away! Crawl away!
As Granny Yang spoke, she showed a disgusted expression based on the context, and gestured with her own movements at the time. I find it a bit funny. Women who have lived through the old society, although they are ignorant and feudal, are still quite strong. So I asked Granny Yang, what happened next? Did he crawl away? After I said this, Master couldn't help but laugh out loud. It was obvious that he had been patient just now. Granny Yang said, of course he is leaving. I originally thought that if he refused to leave, I would step forward and slap him a few times before talking.
Grandma Yang also laughed. It was a little different from the smile she had when she first saw me. She probably thought it was funny too. Master asked Grandma Yang, "You are doing the right thing. Then why do you think this dream is related to this matter?" Grandma Yang said, you don’t know this. My wife left half a year after my second son was born. It’s been more than forty years now. Although I said I dreamed of him, I just felt It's him, but I can't be sure.
This time it was my turn to be a little confused, so I asked, what's so uncertain about this? Shouldn't you have known it when you saw him? Granny Yang said, because I had long forgotten what he looked like. The person I saw in my dream just felt very similar, and I thought it was him at the time. When I woke up and thought about it, I found that I couldn't remember my wife. Here comes the look.
Master and I looked at each other, and I think our guesses were almost the same. So Master said, if this is the case, then the deceased person who appears in your dream is probably not your wife. Otherwise, even if you meet again in your dream, you will not be able to remember him after you wake up. Comes like this. Grandma Yang, you most likely had a lucid dream, and your soul saw the ghost waving to you with your own eyes! The master paused and said, if this is the case, all the strange things you have encountered these days, including last night, are most likely caused by this ghost.
After hearing this, Granny Yang suddenly stopped talking and looked depressed. Master said to her, don't worry, these are all our guesses based on the current clues, and we can't be sure yet. I will check with my apprentice later, and I believe there will be results soon.
So after chatting for a while, Master said to me, let’s go and see the three tombs. Then he said to Granny Yang, there is no need for you, old man, to follow us. This place is only so big that we can find. So Grandma Yang was left to rest at home, and Master took me out of the door.
As soon as I walked out of the door, Master lowered his voice and said to me, Shan'er, we may have to prepare to spend the night here tonight.
What? Staying up late again? Master, do you know that I didn't sleep all night last night, and I just took a nap on the carriage back today. You can't treat me like a young man and torment me like this! When I'm with Master, it's easy for me to talk about things that are not big or small. If I had said these words in the past, Master would have probably laughed at me, but at this moment he did not. Instead, he said seriously, what happened to Granny Yang was probably not as simple as having a lucid dream. It sounds like many of the strange things she just mentioned might have been done by the old cat. If the ghost she saw in her dream later had bad intentions, then this meant that she had The first time her family encountered these situations, the ghost had been haunting her.
The master said that on the way here, he asked Granny Yang politely and asked her if she was in good health. Granny Yang indeed mentioned that her health has not been as good as before since this year, and she is prone to dozing off and often loses focus. This seems to be a common condition among the elderly, commonly known as geriatric disease, but it may also be caused by ghosts borrowing their energy.
Master told me that this is what he is most worried about, because the strange things he encounters are becoming more and more frequent and bizarre, which means that the power of ghosts is becoming more and more powerful. If a ghost haunts a living person for a long time, it will absorb and borrow the spirit of the living person. When the essence of a living person is sucked away, part of the evil energy will be replaced and enter the body of the living person. This is actually very possible in Granny Yang's case.
I asked Master, but wasn’t the cause of this incident because Granny Yang heard the cat meowing in the grave? It’s not just her. I think anyone who encounters the same thing would find it difficult not to be frightened. If they are in a bad mood, they can easily be taken advantage of. So after that, she would pick up the things she had forgotten.
The master stopped talking and frowned in thought as he walked. After a while, he told me, you are right, no matter what, the missing old cat, or whatever it is that meows, is the most critical part of this matter, so, what do you think? What should we do?
I was silent. After all, I still had to hear the cat meowing at night before I could make a conclusion.
Master took me to find three tombs side by side. Two of them had tombstones on them. There was also an embossed five-pointed star on the tombstones, which read "The Tomb of the Anti-Japanese Martyr Yang" and "The Tomb of the Revolutionary Warrior Yang" respectively. ” words. These two should be Granny Yang's two sons, and the other grave that looks much shabbier should be Granny Yang's wife.
We looked around the tomb and found nothing unusual. The tomb was well sealed. Master lit incense in front of the tomb, but we could not find any trace of ghosts at this moment. However, I found a few pieces of white paper in the weeds behind the grave of Granny Yang's wife, which had become wet and dry due to wind and rain.
I picked it up, looked at it, and handed it to the master. Judging from the faded handwriting, it was none other than the torn off but missing calendar paper from Granny Yang’s mouth.
Master looked at the calendar paper in his hand, then at the tomb, then looked back at the distance from Grandma Yang’s house to the tomb, and then looked at me. The master shook his head and said only two words: evil sect.
