Hashima Island (端島, or simply Hashima, as -shima is a Japanese suffix for ‘island’), commonly called Gunkanjima (軍艦島, meaning ‘Battleship Island’), is a tiny abandoned island off Nagasaki, lying about 15 kilometres (8 nautical miles) from the centre of the city. It is one of 505 uninhabited islands in Nagasaki Prefecture. The island’s most notable features are its abandoned concrete buildings, undisturbed except by nature, and the surrounding seawall. While the island is a symbol of the rapid industrialization of Japan, it is also a reminder of Japanese war crimes as a site of forced labour prior to and during World War II.
In the poem “GHOST ISLAND” Hashima is considered as a symbolic transcendental doorway between our material and spiritual worlds. The author of the poem wrote it after watching hundreds of interviews with people who died and had NDE [Near-Death Experience].
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire
ocean in a drop.”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
People who who who who died and had Near-Death Experience
