2SPnm9ZVc

332 THE TIBETAN BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINGThe colors are beyond description, the colors here are so drab bycomparison... In this place I saw people that I knew had died.There were no words spoken, but it was as if I knew what theywere thinking, and at the same time I knew that they knew whatI was thinking 285. Different RealmsIn the bardo of becoming, as well as many other kinds ofvisions, the mental body will see visions and signs of differentrealms. A small percentage of those who have survived a neardeathexperience report visions of inner worlds, of paradises,cities of light, with transcendental music.One woman told Raymond Moody:Off in the distance ... I could see a city. There were buildings—separate buildings. They were gleaming, bright. People werehappy in there. There was sparkling water, fountains ... a cityof light I guess would be the way to say it... It was wonderful.There was beautiful music. Everything was just glowing, wonderful... But if I had entered into this, I think I would never havereturned... I was told that if I went there I couldn't go back ...that the decision was mine. 29Another person told Margot Grey:/ seemed to find myself in what appeared to be some type of structureor building, but there were no walls that I can remember.There was only this all-pervading beautiful golden light... Inoticed about me many people that seemed to be walking ormilling about; they didn't even appear to walk, but seemed somehowto glide. I didn't feel apart from them at all; one of the feelingsI remember most about them was the feeling of unity, of beingtotally a part of everything around me and about me. 306. Hellish VisionsNot all descriptions in the near-death experience, however,are positive, as you would expect from what we have spokenof in the Tibetan teachings. Some people report terrifyingexperiences of fear, panic, loneliness, desolation, and gloom,vividly reminiscent of the descriptions of the bardo of becoming.One person reported by Margot Grey spoke of beingsucked into "a vast black vortex like a whirlpool," and thosewho have negative experiences tend to feel, rather like thoseabout to be reborn in lower realms in the bardo of becoming,that they are traveling downward instead of upward: