Childhood Experience in Madeira

A few years ago, me, my brothers, and my parents went on our yearly holiday to Madeira, which is the birthplace of my parents and is where they began their life together before coming to London. It was pretty normal for us to go annually, as our grandparents were living there. We would sleep in the home of one of our grandparents, while during the day we would go to festivals in summer like Semana Do Mar (Week of the Sea). If you do not know much about Madeira, then this story will probably give you a better idea. Madeira is mainly Orthodox Catholic, as its very religious to the point that practices like witchcraft is believed to occur. Some would say it's quite old fashioned thinking, but this holiday did give me the creeps for some time.

As a child, I was told by many Madeiran people about people becoming jealous over material goods and how they are willing to go to extremes (in their mind, they mean activities associated with the Devil). This was quite a cultural idea that was tied in with society, even to the point that if someone in the community was believed to do anything like witchcraft, they would be isolated and ignored by everyone. This is usually in fear that being associated with them would occur in the same outcome.

It's not that a physical thing occurred that holiday, it was just this nightmare that became very real for me as a child. As I said before, I was staying at a grandparents house while in Madeira. I had a room to myself on the upper floor; it was pretty creepy since my grandmother loved Victorian-style dolls. Once I was able to fall asleep, I had a creepy dream that I can't forget. In the dream, I woke up from my bed and could hear movement on the floor. I looked down to see the floor was covered in black insects, crawling around. I could not see the almond brown wood floor and began to yell for help. Someone opened my door, and I saw my little brother come in, but behind him was a woman in a hideous, purple dress. I never saw this woman before, but before my brother even came closer to me, I saw the woman force her hand into his back and tear out his heart. I remember screaming in the dream, and all the woman said was, "Your parents aren't here," and I woke up. I was so scared that I went into the next room where my brother should have been asleep, but because it was dark I couldn't see him (I was a dumb kid). My anxiety went even higher and I ran out and got downstairs where none of my parents were around. I started to panic more because of what the lady in my dream said and started to cry even more. Then I heard my older brother call my name from up the stairs that I just went down. I told him I had a bad dream and he stayed in that room after showing me my little brother snoring away in his bed. He played songs by Eminem until I calmed down and finally slept again that night.

The next morning, my brother told my parents how I behaved, so my mother asked me what happened. I told her about the dream with the lady in the hideous purple dress. My mother's face became serious and she looked worried. I didn't know why, since that was unusual of her.

About two years later, I was going through my parents wedding album in our home in the mountains of Madeira while I was sorting out the top floor of the house with my younger brother. I noticed that one of the pictures was ripped in half. I thought it was unusual, so I began looking through to see where the other half was. It wasn't in the album. I brushed it off until about an hour later when I was going through one of the drawers in the living room cabinet. I saw this picture of a woman in a purple dress, she looked almost identical to the woman in my dream. It was that same dress. I began to get goosebumps, so I got the album back on a table and opened it to the page with the teared picture. I began to shiver once the tear of both pictures fit too well together. With worry, I began to ask my mother who was in the image. All I know to this day is that she is perceived as a witch, and fled Madeira soon after the community began to believe it.

This is possibly all just a coincidence, but it does send a shiver down my spine how it feels like culture has played a big role in my dreams. But I don't know if that explains the specific details that I may never forget.