This incident happened to my husband’s distant maternal aunt who is already deceased almost 40yrs ago. As told by my mother-in-law, she had an elder sister who got married in a rather odd way much different from the rest of her other siblings.

Apparently, this little sister somehow caught the attention of a male spirit (no one knows how he knew her though) who was madly in love with her. He followed her home and visited her dreams every time she slept. In her dreams, he was very persistent and courted the girl he fancied. She was initially taken aback by shock which culminated to fear. The girl confided of her constant persistent dream of the same guy to her sisters whom she was very close with. However nothing like an exorcism was done to dispel the girl’s fear as her story seemed almost too tall to believed and the girl continued to have constant dreams of this young man in her dreams each time she sleeps.

Before long, the girl herself had started to fall for the man in her dreams and they courted as any other normal couples would but only in her dreams. Each night or whenever she had the spare time away from work she would never fail to look forward to sleeping. No one noticed any difference in her until a week later, one morning, the girl was found dead in her sleep. The coroner’s report put it to unnatural death. She was only in her mid 20s and still perfectly good in health then.

The girl’s wake was held and everyone in the family mourned for the loss of their sister. Still, it never occurred to anyone that the love dream their sister constantly had would be the caused of it all. Barely a week after the demise of the girl, she appeared in the dreams of her parents almost every night and speaks of leading a happy and satisfied life with her new lover in the other world and that she had agreed to his marriage proposal. It seems that just one day he proposed to her and urged her to come along with him and she accepted, thus leaving the mortal world for the spiritual realm to be with her lover. She then gave instructions to her parents on how they should approach the guy’s family with his full name and address as well. In the old days, to encounter such dreams, it is hard not to believe. The girl’s parents then made their way to find the guy’s family with the address given. What greeted them was shock when the other family welcomed them wholeheartedly. Apparently, the guy himself had appeared to his family long even before the girl passed away. He told his parents that he had met a mortal whom he was so crazy in love with and how he wanted to marry her so much. His family wasn’t given much details on the girl so they just waited for the girl’s family to start the ball rolling instead. The guy’s family also showed the girl’s parents the alter of their son. He was a very charming, good looking young man who unfortunately, wasn’t blessed with a good long life.

There needn’t much discussion between the two families as both of them readily agreed to their children’s death marriage. A priest was called in to preside over the wedding ceremony. A real living rooster was one of the ‘items’ essential in the ceremonial process. I don’t know what’s the significance but in the traditional Chinese ghost marriage a rooster is always used to represent the male. Apparently it was supposed to symbolize the guy whose spirit is supposed to be in the rooster itself. I am unsure what was used as symbolization for the female part though. All I could recall was that each respective family would carry the ‘items’ that would hold the spirit of their deceased children and complete the ceremony by bowing to the alter and the other party’s family. Of course, it is not as simple as it sounds. There are certain number of bows when and where, certain things that need to be said, performed and done.

After everything was over, the girl appeared in her parent’s dreams once again. She seemed to be very contented and happy. The girl thanked her family and bade them farewell for she was going to live with her husband in the other world right now. Her family was equally happy for the girl as well as she had finally found someone she loves and married him even though she is no longer alive.