What kind of dreams do you have?
Sighted people and blind people experience dreams differently. Sighted people rely on visual information in their daily lives, so perhaps their dreams feel like watching images or scenes. But I am totally blind and navigate the world through sound. My dreams flow through my mind as voices or noises—much like recalling what someone once said. In this way, how we dream is different.
I think the way we enjoy things also differs. For example, I love anime. I can’t see the artwork, so I can’t appreciate the characters’ appearance or movements, but I’m fascinated by the distinctive voices in anime. When I hear my favorite voice actor, I get so excited I can hardly contain myself. It may be a little different from how sighted people enjoy anime, but this is my way of enjoying it.
Can you still enjoy your hobbies even if you are blind? When I was little, I loved looking at photos. But my life without sight began very suddenly. I never imagined I would become totally blind, and it began when I was so young that all I remember is thinking, “Hmm, I keep bumping into walls all of a sudden...” It has now been 15 years. Of course, I don’t think of being blind as something positive, but it isn’t negative either. I can live without sight, and I have my own way of seeing the world and enjoying things.
Hearing this, you might think I have a positive personality. However, I also have a side that’s not so positive—I find it hard to accept compliments. For example, I’m not very comfortable about eating with other people. When I was in the early grades of elementary school, I couldn’t use chopsticks well, so I practiced over and over for two or three years.
Thanks to that effort, by the time I reached middle school, people even began praising the way I used them. But even now, rice grains scatter and are hard to pick up, and I often spill them. At times like that, I think, “I don’t look very graceful when I eat.” And even when someone praises my chopstick skills, I can’t help thinking, “They’re just judging me by a low standard. They think it’s impressive that a blind person can even hold chopsticks.” I know I’m doing my best in my own way, but when I compare myself to people who can do things better than I can, I still can’t accept the praise sincerely.
Nowadays, people talk a lot about diversity—about recognizing and respecting the differences we are born with.” I can accept the differences in others, but I struggle to accept my own. When I compare myself to people who can do things effortlessly, I end up thinking, “It’s embarrassing that I can’t do something so simple.”
Do you acknowledge your own efforts?
I’ve been praised for being able to read braille. Meanwhile, a friend of mine with low vision practiced reading and writing hiragana, katakana, and many kanji. The more complex the kanji, the harder it was for her to make out the strokes, so she used visual aids and sometimes brought her face as close as she could, straining her eyes to read and write. If the characters she wrote happen to be a bit distorted, would that be something to be embarrassed about? No, of course not. I certainly couldn’t memorize that many kanji myself. She’s amazing. I truly respect her.
There are things we who are blind simply cannot do, and differences we cannot completely overcome. But isn’t that true of sighted people as well? Whether you can see or not, if you are doing your best in your own way, that effort is nothing to be ashamed of. So, do you acknowledge your own effort? I want to learn to recognize and respect the things I work hard at.
I have something I want to try. I want to be able to walk around even in places I’ve never been before. I want to go into different shops on my own. These things I dream of might seem completely ordinary to people who can already do them. But for me, as someone who is totally blind, the hurdles feel high. One wrong step and I could bump into something or fall—it takes a toll both mentally and physically. If I could achieve this dream through mobility training at the school for the blind, I’d be able to go out whenever I wanted, as often as I wanted, and I’d be bursting with excitement. My dream isn’t something big like “winning a gold medal at the Paralympics,” but I still want to keep dreaming my own dreams, without feeling ashamed of them.
The dreams you have are yours alone—no one else can see them or claim them. What matters is that you affirm those dreams and acknowledge them. Let yourself recognize your own worth.
So, once again, I ask you: What kind of dreams do you have?
I am now 36 years old.
I have experienced deep despair twice in my life. I began playing baseball in the first grade of elementary school, and I quickly fell in love with the sport, I was completely absorbed in it, practicing every day. For high school, I left home and enrolled in a prestigious school in Ishikawa Prefecture known for its powerful baseball team, aiming for the Koshien—the national high school baseball championship.
In the fall of my first year, just when I was fired up and ready to give my all, the first heavy blow fell. I was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, a disease known to be difficult to treat. At the hospital, the doctor told me, “You’ll have to choose between your life and baseball.” Hearing these words, all the strength drained from my body and I felt an emptiness in my heart. Having lost both my purpose and my dream, I drifted through the rest of my high-school years in a state of hopelessness. But a single remark from the school nurse threw me a lifeline: “Why don’t you try becoming a physical therapist?” That was my new goal.
After graduating from high school, I started living on my own, working during the day and attending a vocational school at night. I passed the national physical therapist exam on my first attempt. Later, I discovered surfing, too. On my days off, I headed to the coast in pursuit of the waves, surfing all year round. It dawned on me that life somehow has a way of working out.
However, those happy, joyful days did not last. There came a time when my ordinary, everyday life suddenly came to an end.
In my third year working as a physical therapist, I woke up one morning with a high fever, diarrhea, and vomiting. I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with a gastroenteritis, and I was admitted. But the next morning, I suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage. I was in a critical condition. I was rushed to a hospital with an emergency unit and underwent surgery.
The doctor told my family, “We’ve done everything we can. Now it’s solely dependent on the patient’s will to live. But he may never regain consciousness. And even if he does, he may remain bedridden and unable to communicate.”
I regained consciousness two months later. I could hear the sounds and voices around me, but I couldn’t see anything. I had no strength at all. I couldn’t move my tongue. With a tube in my throat, I couldn’t speak. I had no idea where I was or what had happened to me. When I became aware of my surroundings, I was lying in a hospital bed. Nothing had prepared me for this drastic change in my circumstances. Dozens or hundreds of times, I wished it were all just a bad dream.
Why is it that God burdens me with so much suffering? Baseball was everything to me, and that was taken away from me. Then even my sight was taken. I could no longer surf—the thing that meant so much to me—or drive the cars and motorbikes I loved. I couldn’t see anything. What was there left to enjoy? What was the point of living? I just wanted to die. That’s honestly how I felt. I couldn’t accept reality, and the treatment was unbearable. I often thought that dying would be easier—that was the second time I fell into despair.
I can’t see. I’m scared, I can’t take any more of this. More than once, in despair, I tried to take my own life, but the nurses always caught me. “You’ll only end up hurting yourself,” they would chide me. I was angry and frustrated every day, convinced that no one could possibly understand what I was going through. I snapped at the nurses and even at my mother when she came to visit. People told me, “God kept you alive because there is still something only you can do.” But none of those words got through to me.
Six months after I was admitted to hospital, the tube in my throat was finally removed. I still couldn’t speak well, but at least I had a voice again. With rehabilitation, I learned to walk with a white cane. But my sight never returned. I couldn’t accept that, and even after I left hospital and went home, I took out on my anger on my parents and anything within reach. Even so, with the support of my parents, siblings, friends, and so many others, I slowly began to think: if my life has been spared, then I should at least try to live it.
It really is a miracle to be alive.
Even without sight, I can walk, I can still have hopes and dreams.
Someone has supported me every day—sometimes encouraging, sometimes scolding, and often showing me great kindness. I’ve learned to do my best in everything I can do, to live to the fullest this life I’ve been given, and always have a sense of gratitude. These are the things that became clearer to me after losing my sight.
Being totally blind is limiting, but it doesn’t make me unhappy. Life itself is a challenge! I can change myself and my future.
Thank you for listening.
It gives me confidence. It sets me free. It has become part of me.
What did you think when you first saw a white cane?
When I first held one, I thought, “It’s heavy, it ties up one hand, and it’s a bit of a nuisance,” and even, “It’s a little embarrassing to use.”
But now, I see it as something essential—something that makes up for what I can’t see. It’s no longer the cane that embarrasses me; rather, I would feel embarrassed not to have it, because without it I would be lost.
I would like to share how my first impressions of the white cane changed so completely.
I have low vision, with very narrow visual fields on both sides, and I have difficulty focusing.
It was in fourth grade that I began seriously practicing how to walk with a white cane, encouraged by the people around me. At first, I trained by wearing an eye mask and relying solely on the cane as I walked around the school grounds and to the nearby bus stop.
At first, I would stray from the Braille blocks that I was supposed to be following with my feet. I would suddenly have no idea where I was and freeze on the spot. When I tried to cross pedestrian crossings without Braille blocks, I couldn’t walk straight and once ended up falling into a rice field slightly to the right of where I should have been.
More than once, I somehow wandered into the road, and my teacher would scold me, “Why are you standing there? What would you do if a car came?”
Thanks in part to my teacher’s strict instruction, I kept practicing, and by the time I finished elementary school I could walk to the bus stop with confidence—even while wearing an eye mask.
From the junior high school onward, using both my slight vision and the white cane, I deliberately took streets that I had never walked before and went out more often by bus and train. I practiced buying train tickets using the audio guidance system and had my own “Hareca Half” bus card issued. (*Hareca Half is a rechargeable IC card for residents of Okayama City who are elderly or have disabilities, offering a 50% discount on bus fares.) I felt as if my world had suddenly expanded. I was thrilled.
There have been times when I felt embarrassed for not having my white cane with me.
After finishing my shopping and leaving the register, a clerk called out loudly, “You forgot your change.” Normally, when I have my white cane, the clerk makes sure to remind me so I don’t leave my change behind. That day, without it, I realized I had made a mistake.
My white cane has helped me on many occasions.
When I’m holding it and looking around in confusion, many people kindly ask, “Can I help you?”
At first, I thought, “This is a little embarrassing.” But when I was truly lost and in need of help, their assistance made me think, “How grateful I am! What a relief.” Having a white cane gives me a strong sense of security.
Since I started using a white cane, the biggest change I've noticed in myself is that my fear of going out alone has disappeared.
Ever since I was little, I always went everywhere with my family. If I wanted to go somewhere, I would ask my mother to take me. When she couldn't arrange transportation, I would just put up with it.
There was a time when I gave up, thinking, “I’m different from my sister and brother, who can go to school and go out on their own.” But now I think, “If I want to go somewhere, I’ll just go by myself.”
This March, there was a movie I absolutely wanted to see—the film adaptation of my favorite anime.
“I’ll be brave and go to see it on my own,” I decided.
I told my mother about my plan.
“No, you can’t. What if something happens?” she said, worried about me. Going out alone used to be too scary to even consider, but I really wanted to give it a try. So I told my father, “I want to go to the cinema by myself.” He was probably worried too, but he gently let me go, saying, “OK, you can go. Just be careful.”
It takes about an hour to get from my home to Aeon Cinema, including train transfers. I was so excited and restless that I couldn’t wait, and ended up leaving four hours early.
I made a small mistake along the way, but when I arrived at Aeon Cinema two hours ahead of time, I felt a deep sense of relief and was filled with joy and pride at having made the trip on my own. Riding the wave of excitement, I enjoyed the movie even more.
With my white cane, I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. I’ve gained that confidence.
My goal now is to take my family, who always support me, on a trip. I’ll lead the way and guide them.
From now on, I want to take on new challenges with my white cane.
My white cane has truly become a part of me.
Thank you for your kind attention.
EN