The bardo of becoming

"Oh child of noble family, you will see your home and family as though you were meeting them in a dream, but although you speak to them you will get no reply and you will see your relatives and your family weeping, so you will think, “I am dead, what shall I do?” And you will feel intense pain, like the pain of a fish rolling in hot sand. But now suffering is no use. Oh child of noble family, blown by the moving winds of karma, your mind without support rides the wind like a feather, swaying and swinging. You will say to the mourners, “I am here, do not weep,” but they will not perceive you, so you will think, “I have died.” And now you will feel great pain. Do not suffer like that. All the time there will be a gray haze like the gray light of an autumn dawn, neither day nor night. Oh child of noble family, at this time the great tornado of karma—terrifying, unbearable, whirling fiercely—will drive you from behind. Do not be afraid of it. It is your own confused projection, dense darkness, terrifying and unbearable. It will go before you with terrible cries of “Strike!” and “Kill!” Do not be afraid of them. You will feel that you are being chased by various terrifying wild animals and pursued by a great army in snow, rain, storms, and darkness. There will be sounds of mountains crumbling, of lakes flooding, of fire spreading, and of fierce winds springing up. In fear you will escape wherever you can, but you will be cut off by three precipices in front of you, white, red, and black, deep and dreadful, and you will be on the point of falling down them. Oh child of noble family, they are not really precipices…"

—Tibetan Book of the Dead, Trungpa/Fremantle translation, edited here and there