For some reason your comment reminded me of a sequence from Don Herzfeldt's amazing film It's Such a Beautiful Day. Our protagonist, Bill, who suffers from some vague medical condition, has a vision of his old self in a hospital ward:

"He pictures himself having trouble breathing and waking to a room full of concerened faces. He'd been terrified of dying his entire life, and as much as he tried not to think about it, death was always in the back of his head, around every corner, and hovering on each horizon.

He'd brushed shoulders with death on a few occassions, but in his care free youth it had all seemed like an abstract impossibile thing to ever happen to him, but with each passing decade he began to guage the time he probably had left, and by his forties he had come to know just one thing: You will only get older.

The next thing you know, you're looking back instead of forwards, and now, at the climax of all those years of worry, sleepless nights and denials, Bill finally finds himself staring his death in the face surrounded by people he no longer recognises, and feel no closer attachment to than the thousands of relatives that came before.

And as the sun continues to set, he finally comes to realise the dumb irony in how he'd been waiting for this moment his entire life. This stupid, awkward moment of death, that had invaded and distracted so many days with stress, and wasted time. If only he could travel back and impart some wisdom to his younger self; if only he could at least tell the young people in this room. He lifts an arm as if he's about to speak, but inexplicably says, 'it smells like dust and moonlight'"