Thread: Signs that You Might Be in the Bardo (Dead)*

In a bus or train or any other form of public "transportation".
Compulsively walking from room to room in a house or apartment and you can't seem to stop moving or to reduce the restlessness and agitation, yet your not actually in an anxiety state.
In a small chamber with someone whose face keeps changing subtly, as if the light is playing on it.
Alone for long periods of time, in an older motel room or hotel room.
Continually going into a bathroom or kitchen, or back and forth between bathroom and kitchen.
Waking up suddenly from a "nightmare," or a dream about yourself having just had a different biological machine, not necessarily of the Earth varieties.
Driving in a car for a long period of time.
Watching a clock that moves impossibly slowly.
In an older theater with balconies and basement, watching a film that seems strangely familiar to you but you can't remember having seen before- usually the film will have an unusual amount of senseless violence or seem very religious, or both.
Getting a phone call in the middle of the night, especially from someone you know is dead.
Apparently attending a funeral for "someone else," . . . even more suspicious when the deceased is conspicuously unidentified. . . and perhaps unidentifiable.
Lost in a small but unaccountably complex town or a very large, unaccountably complex city.
Finding oneself playing with cards with pictures on them, arranging the cards in varying order; the mood is exalted, as each combination yields a new set of all-encompassing cognitions. Unfortunately, the cognitions, albeit vast and grand, don't actually refer to anything.
Inside a tunnel,ascending or descending an escalator which seems to get smaller and smaller, eventually requiring a squeeze through--head first, naturally.
In an elevator alone. . .very alone. And the elevator seems to be going sideways.
In front of a television set, seated in a canem wicker or rocking chair, generally of oak, with side arm rests, inable to recieve anything other than soap operas and news.
Traveling a tube while surfing.
Sitting alone in a room for a long time.
Awakening after an inusually long sleep--a full day at least.
At a discotheque, dancing to a loght show and heavy metal or "rock" music--the word "rock" has a very interesting meaning, dealing with an area of basic Creation before the present cosmos was constructed--heavy metal, in the chemical sense, is a very interesting set of elements with a half-life that;s over before it begins.
Sitting or standing in total darkness for an indeterminate--but quite obviously long--period of time.
Standing in front of a mirror for an unusually long time.
In a city which, although large, appears to be abandoned or unpopulated.
Having strange full-blown three-dimensional, totally tactile, hallucinatory experiences of "another life," in "another world."
Dreaming you had died or "almost died."
Seeing people whom you had thought were long dead on the street or in restaurants.
Sitting in a caged area or in what appears to be a playpen for children (you will see red, blue, green, white and yellow lights just out of touching range).
Talking with mysterious strangers who stop you on the street or in a public place and begin speaking to you as if they know you and you know, somehow, that they do.
Feeling very tired and run down although there is no apparent reason.
Getting divorced or married or changing partners.
Feeling apprehension and intense agitationm as though something terrible is about to happen--a feeling of dread.
Getting a new car or new clothes or moving to another house or town, for no apparent reason.
Changing friends or neighbors.
Listening to loud music with lots of rumbling bass sounds in it or high-pitched tones which hurt your ears.
Visiting a recording studio or broadcast station.
Leaving one country and going to another, or going from "state" to "state."

* from AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DEAD by E.J. Gold