Haruki Murakami’s The city and its uncertain walls function as a unique visionary apparatus, enabling readers to recall memories from the past. The works stimulate readers’ imaginations by using words to depict scenes, emotions, and the inner thoughts of characters. As a result, readers can associate their own experiences and past memories with the content of the work.
For example, memories of childhood are portrayed in the novels, prompting readers to recall their own childhood memories. Also, when characters in the work are in specific locations or situations, readers may remember their own experiences in similar circumstances.
Furthermore, Haruki Murakami’s city and its uncertain walls encourage readers to feel empathy and emotional identification. This allows readers to recall their own emotions and past experiences, immersing themselves deeply in the world of the work. In this way, the city and its uncertain walls possess the power to evoke readers’ past memories and experiences through words.
Visionary experiences refer to seeing fantastical scenes or images that differ from normal vision and reality. Visionary experiences can occur during states such as dreams, imagination, and hallucinations. The timing of visionary experiences varies between individuals, but they are generally experienced in situations like the following:
Between sleep and wakefulness: Visionary experiences may occur just before falling asleep or just before waking up, during the so-called hypnagogic state. This phenomenon occurs during the transitional period between wakefulness and dreaming. Dreams: Within dreams, one can see fantastical scenes or images that differ from reality. Dreams primarily occur during REM sleep. Hallucinations: Hallucinations involving fantastical scenes or images that differ from reality may occur due to drugs, alcohol, mental stress, or illness. Situations involving imagination and creativity: Artists and writers create their own worldviews and images using creativity and imagination. In this case, visionary experiences occur in a consciously controlled state. Meditation or trance states: By entering meditation or trance states, one may be able to see fantastical scenes or images that differ from reality. Visionary experiences vary depending on an individual’s mental state and environment, but in these situations, one can experience fantastical scenes or images that differ from reality.