“I Have Two Memories” – The Story of a Man Who Can Read the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript

This is an exchange on an internet message board about a strange experience that a Japanese person had. The original poster (OP) shares his experience, and multiple participants comment on it. In Japan, strange experiences and ghost stories are often shared in this format on message boards.

I recently discovered that I might have visited another world in the past. I’ve been busy and couldn’t put it all together, but today I finally decided to write it down! I myself still feel strange about it, so I want to clarify things more. So if anyone is reading this, I’d be happy to get replies, questions, anything!

I realized that I might have gone to another dimension last year. It was during Obon when I went back to my family home. Although I say “family home,” it’s not really in the countryside but in a fairly developed area in Kanagawa Prefecture. By the way, I live in Tokyo. So, I was bored at home and decided to go for a walk. I didn’t have any particular destination in mind, just wanted to stroll around my hometown and feel nostalgic. I visited memorable places like my elementary school, the slopes leading to beetle-catching spots, feeling nostalgic about them all.

• [6] Hmm, interesting. Please continue
• [5] I’m reading casually, so no need to rush

In Japan, “Obon” is a period in mid-August for ancestor veneration, when many people return to their family homes. Kanagawa Prefecture is adjacent to Tokyo, with a mix of urban and natural areas.

Sorry for the delay. I just got back from taking a bath. Thanks everyone for the replies! I’ll continue. At that time, I suddenly remembered a place. It was a river that I often visited with my brother, who was three years older, during elementary school. It was our favorite spot. As I mentioned earlier, my hometown was fairly developed, so most rivers were paved and had artificial riverbanks without the atmosphere where fish would swim or where you’d find freshwater crabs. However, that favorite river had crystal clear water. Many fish swam there showing their shiny scales, and freshwater crabs were everywhere. The river flowed along the mountain, and branches hanging down from the mountain formed a kind of tree tunnel, making it cool even in summer. There was always an old man at that river. Or rather, an elderly gentleman. He looked about 60-70 years old, and usually wore something like work clothes with a dark brown hat, I think. He was quiet and didn’t talk much, but occasionally he would caution us saying things like “that’s dangerous” or praise us saying “that’s great,” a nice old man who looked after my brother and me. We called him “the river man” or “the river grandpa” and were quite attached to him. The old man taught us various river games. I remember he even taught us how to skip stones. Among all the activities, what my brother and I loved most was catching river fish. The old man would bring a tube-like trap, set it up, and wait a bit. When the time was right, he’d lift the tube and amazingly, river fish would be caught. My brother and I were delighted. But there were several strange things.

• [10] I’m watching, so please keep writing
• [11] Hmm…

In urban Japan, most rivers are concrete-lined and maintained. “Skipping stones” is a popular game among children in Japan where flat stones are made to bounce across the water surface.

To continue. First, as dusk approached, the old man would disappear without saying anything. When that happened, my brother and I would think, “Well, the old man is gone, so let’s head back.” His disappearance became like a signal for us to go home. Also, when we came to the river, it was always like the old man was suddenly there. Another strange thing was rainy days. Even on rainy days, my brother and I often headed to the river without even using umbrellas. The route to the river from our home was: cross the national highway and just keep walking. After a while, you reach an area that’s a mix of farmland and residential areas, giving the impression of being fairly well-developed. Continue toward the mountain on the main street, and midway the road splits into two paths; take the left here. Then there are several roads going left and right, but there’s just one unnaturally unpaved exposed dirt road. If you follow that unpaved road, there’s a large temple-like building with a forest around it. If you follow the animal trail right next to the temple, you come out at our usual river. But only on rainy days, we could never find this unpaved road. No matter how desperately my brother and I searched, this particular road was nowhere to be found. It was as if the road had disappeared. So we always gave up on rainy days.

The story is gradually becoming more mysterious. An “animal trail” refers to a narrow mountain path that wasn’t created by people walking but naturally formed by animals passing through.

I’m sorry if things are a bit disorganized from the beginning, but I’ll keep going until the end. To continue. But thinking about it carefully, both things were quite strange. First, would a kind old man leave two elementary school children alone by a river that’s about to get dark as night falls? If he wanted us to go home, he could simply say, “It’s getting dark, you should head home.” As for rainy days, it’s a complete mystery. I think that when you’re a child, even if you don’t understand the exact location, you have a kind of intuitive sense of the surrounding scenery and land that prevents you from getting lost in places you visit frequently. Finding this a bit odd, but still enchanted by this river that fully satisfied the curiosity of the adventurous boys we were, we loved it. During summer vacation, we went there almost every day except when it rained.

• [21] Kanagawa, huh…

It’s in the part of Kanagawa that’s relatively close to the urban center~

• [22] I can’t wait to read more. Exciting. When we were kids, there were lots of small paths that seemed to lead to other worlds.

To continue. Then one day, something strange happened. That day, as usual, I was playing with my brother and the old man at the river, when my brother and I started making a dam-like structure. Haven’t you all done that? The game where you pile up stones to make a dam and block the river. Things were progressing well, and getting carried away, I said, “At this rate, the whole river might get filled up!” Then the old man, who usually had a gentle expression, suddenly changed his face and had a scary look I’d never seen before. An eerie expressionless face. I wondered if I’d done something wrong, and feeling awkward, I immersed myself in the work again to distract from that.

The story is reaching an important turning point. Summer vacation in Japan lasts from late July to late August, about 40 days, and children often play outside every day.

A little while later, my brother said, “Huh? The old man is gone.” It was still bright out, and too early for the old man to disappear. We searched around but couldn’t find him. My brother and I, now scared, decided to head home and quickly left the riverside. The temple-like building area was also unusually dark, and my brother and I hurried back. After that day, we stopped going to that river. The fear outweighed our desire to go to the river. The topic of this river somehow became taboo between my brother and me, and eventually we forgot about it.

Is anyone still reading? To continue. While reminiscing about those times, I became strangely curious and walked around that area searching. When I couldn’t find it easily, I asked people in the neighborhood, describing in detail and asking, “About a dozen years ago, wasn’t there a road leading to a river?” But everyone responded with something like, “I wonder if there was such a road.” But one elderly woman told me something interesting: “In the past, there was a river flowing along the mountain here, and I think there was such a road, but I believe it’s been filled in now and doesn’t exist anymore.” I was extremely shocked to hear it had been filled in. But I thought, that’s it! I asked the elderly woman the name of the river. The T River. Apparently, it was a river called the T River. Curious about how long after my brother and I stopped going it was filled in, I searched on my home PC, but not finding much detailed information, I headed to the library.

• [29] I’m still reading!
• [28] Exciting

The story has entered the mystery-solving phase. River filling is often done during urban development in Japan, but the discrepancy with the protagonist’s memories deepens the mystery.

Thanks for the replies! I’ll continue. At the library, I searched for books about the local geography to investigate the T River. Then, in an old book, I found a black and white photograph of a familiar landscape. Yes, it was the river where we always played. However, the timeline recorded something unbelievable. Showa X year, landfill construction started. Showa X year, landfill completed. This didn’t make sense. Clearly, the river where my brother and I played was the T River. But that T River had apparently been filled in long ago. Looking further into it, I found that the filling was decided for town development, and that some people stood up to oppose it, wanting to preserve the rich natural environment.

“Showa” is a Japanese era that lasted from 1926 to 1989, two eras before the current “Reiwa” era. The protagonist’s childhood seems to have been during the following “Heisei” era, so if the river filling was completed in the Showa era, it would mean the river didn’t exist when the protagonist was playing there.

To continue. Returning home with a clouded feeling, I found that my brother had also come back, so I immediately asked him if he remembered the T River, and indeed, he remembered it clearly too. He mentioned having the same memories as me about playing there often. We talked about the old man and the strange occurrences, reminiscing about what a mysterious place it had been. Then I told my brother everything I had heard that day and what I’d researched about the T River. My brother was silent for a while and then said something like maybe the old man had been trying to tell us something.

To continue. On the last day we went to the river, I used the keyword “the river getting filled.” Perhaps the old man was someone who had opposed the river filling, and that word angered him… I think. If the old man’s strong attachment to the river created that parallel world that shouldn’t exist, then that would be an incredible force. I don’t know why we were drawn into that parallel world. Maybe we just wandered in by chance. But I feel like we did something really bad to the old man. Well, but now it’s just a good memory from my boyhood days. That’s the story of the parallel world I experienced. Sorry for the messy writing. Thank you to those who stayed with me until the end!

• [33] Thank you for sharing!! That was interesting.
• [34] So it was like a time trip lol. Seems like everyone has these experiences when they’re kids. Thanks! That was interesting!

The protagonist’s story concludes, and the discussion moves to reflections on this strange experience. In Japan, bodies of water have traditionally been viewed as boundaries between “the other world” and “this world,” and many ghost stories and folktales depict rivers and ponds as gateways to other realms.

Sorry for all the mistakes lol. It’s still really mysterious to me. Do you think children are more likely to have these kinds of experiences?

I’ve searched the internet quite a bit for people who have had parallel world experiences, and it seems like many people, including myself, have met older men. Maybe there’s some close connection there.

• [38] Maybe kids are small and easily sucked into space-time distortions? (Just guessing). But in my case, it wasn’t an old man but a family, so the pattern was different

A family?! That sounds interesting lol. I’d love to hear about it if you don’t mind!

• [47] This happened when I went to a museum with my family during elementary school. It was my second time at that museum (I’d been once on a school trip), but it was my brother’s first time, so I was showing him around the cool places like the fossil booth with a smug face. So, I was jogging to show him the endangered species exhibition when I noticed it was extremely dark. At the time, I thought “Huh? Did they rearrange things?” but then I realized my brother was gone, and no matter how far I walked, there was just a pitch-black hallway with only tiny white lights like small bulbs on the floor, and I started getting scared.
• [48] Also, this was before anyone had even heard of LED lights, so I was thinking “As expected of a museum! So cutting edge!” and my mood improved, and I gradually stopped feeling scared. Then I found myself in a space with several bright objects. There was something like a zoo fence or railing, and beyond it were chained, screaming humanoid creatures. It’s hard to explain, so I drew a picture, but sorry if it makes things more confusing. In the drawing, the yellow represents the light sources, and the blue is where I was standing, and I made eye contact with the red dot thing.
• [49] The humanoid creatures were lined up, some naked, some wearing white things like what you see in Greek paintings, and various others. The one I made eye contact with was a naked humanoid close to a white woman who was screaming and crying when our eyes met. That’s when I thought, “Is this really a museum?” and thought if it was a museum, there should normally be information plaques explaining the exhibits. So I looked for a plaque and found one, but with my difficulty reading kanji characters and all, I couldn’t read any of the words. By the way, this is unrelated, but the plaque had black background with white text, and the white parts were glowing like subtitles in a Star Wars-type movie, which looked pretty cool lol. Though I couldn’t find a single character I’d learned in school, there were number-like figures, so thinking they might be birth years or extinction years, I was looking at them when I saw absurdly impossible numbers like 704~500143. Finally realizing this wasn’t the museum I had first come to, I looked back at the humanoid creatures, and their eyes changed from threatening to frightened, and I also felt a presence behind me, so when I turned around, there was what looked like a family consisting of a father, mother, a child being held, and a prince-like child smaller than me, all of them impossibly beautiful. But thinking back, I remember they were clearly not Earth human colors. But this was the first time I’d found anyone who looked like a visitor since getting separated from my brother, so I tried to say “Hello” with a smile, but before I could even get out the first syllable, the prince-like child pointed at me and screamed, and the mother joined in screaming a beat later. Then the father mumbled something, took the child from the mother, and ran away, which left me confused, and I happened to turn around.

A museum… that’s interesting. I’m still reading~

• [57] This might sound a bit out there, but I received words like “Run away” directly into my brain from the chained white woman-like person, so suddenly I felt in danger, thinking I might end up like the people in front of me if I got caught, and I fled.
• [58] Running through the darkness, using the light from the exhibits as a guide, I found something that looked like it might be hiding place, about the size of a mahjong table and about one and a half adult umbrella heights, with writing and pictures on it. I crouched behind this object to hide and closed my eyes, when suddenly it got bright around me, and when I opened my eyes, I was back in the original museum with the endangered species exhibit. But I was still confused and half-doubting if I had really returned, so I moved around looking for other people, and after a while I met my angry mother, so I was relieved to have made it back. (The end). By the way, I’ve been to that museum several times since then but have never gone to that dark space again, so it remains a mystery to this day lol

This participant’s museum experience differs from the protagonist’s river experience, but what they have in common is the accidental opening of a “gateway” from everyday life to another world. In Japan, there are many folk beliefs about “boundaries between worlds,” which also influence modern urban legends.

It seems quite a few people have experienced other worlds. Thanks for sharing such an interesting story.

• [40] Does it feel like you went to the past?? I wonder if there’s something spiritual about how the old man appeared and disappeared suddenly…

Since the flow of time was the same as in the real world, maybe the flow of time near the river went backwards to the past? But I don’t have the feeling of having gone to the past!

• [41] It reminds me of the mysterious tunnel in My Neighbor Totoro and Haku from Spirited Away.
• [43] Interesting

The participants are referencing “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away,” animated films by director Hayao Miyazaki, both featuring children encountering other worlds. In Japanese pop culture, such encounters with “other realms” are frequently depicted.

Thanks for the replies. Oh, and now that I think about it, there were also rules similar to the famous Kisaragi Station. We couldn’t take home any creatures we caught in the river. When I caught a huge crab once and threw a tantrum wanting to take it home, the old man silently grabbed my arm and made me return it to the river. Other river fish and frogs were also absolutely forbidden. Other worlds might have rules, or taboos that must not be broken.

“Kisaragi Station” is a famous urban legend that spread on the Japanese internet, about people being taken to another world after straying into a non-existent station. Here, the protagonist realizes there were “rules of the other world” in his experience, bringing the story to its conclusion.