I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, so I used to be terrified of death. They believe that the righteous dead will be resurrected in an everlasting paradise, of course after God’s Heavenly Army has wiped out pretty much everything that makes this life enjoyable. I was scared that I wouldn’t be good enough to be resurrected, I was scared that if even I was good enough none of my friends or family would be there and I’d have to spend eternity alone, and I was terrified that paradise would be exactly as boring and stifling as it sounded in the Sunday Public Talks.
Now that I’m not a JW anymore, I believe that when I die nothing will happen. I’ll just simply cease to exist. It’s really comforting for me to know that all things have an end. I’m not scared of dying at all anymore. The only thing I’m afraid of is that I’ll be caught unexpected and I won’t have had time to tidy up before I go. I don’t want my last thought to be “Oh, shit, there’s a three foot tall pile of dirty underwear in my closet. Someone’s going to see that…”
Ditto that. While I don’t have a visceral (emotional) fear of death, I do have a rational/mental dislike of the idea. Except in cases where I’ve been in great danger or illness and felt like there might be the possibility of dying soon, in which case there was some visceral fear mixed with my strange theory that if I emotionally accepted the situation while at the same time not actively contributing to it’s continuance, that things might turn out OK.
That said, I also have a great intellectual curiousity about whether consciousness might continue in some form or other after physical death, so there’s at least one thing to look forward to. Although since I can’t seem to remember what happened to be before (or even shortly after) I was born, there doesn’t seem to be much going for life after death…
Death doesn’t scare me. It’s part of existence. I’m in no hurry to get there, though! Dying might, depending on how it happens. And if there’s anything that happens after, fine, but I have serious doubts about that. There are a few people I’d love to see again, but I’m not going to delude myself into believing I will. Whatever happens (if anything), happens.
When I was about eight, there was a night where I was lying in bed, with all the lights out and the door closed, and suddenly this very thought occured to me. When I die, I won’t even know I’m dead. Whatever makes me me will cease to exist. That’s it. And that thought terrified me beyond belief. I had nightmares for months before I ended up telling my mom what was bothering me.
I did gradually get over that fear, and I think now I feel more comfortable with the idea of death, but even now if I dwell on it too long I start panicking.
I’ll simply return to nothingness, just like before I was born. In a strange way, contemplating death makes me appreciate life better. We’re only here a limited time, better enjoy every moment.
sometimes I feel very comforted by the certainty of my eventual death, partly just because it is certain, partly because it takes some of the sting out of my fuck-ups, partly because at least one of life’s questions will be answered (or, if not, I won’t know)
That said, I fear my death, like an earlier poster, mostly for my children’s sakes, and I have tried much harder to live healthy and take fewer risks since they’ve been born.
My first child died when she was four months old, and as sucky as that is, and as much as I still miss her (and sometimes, pre-rationally, find myself believing that she will be given back to me), it left me pretty confident of my own ability to survive the deaths of my loved one, so I fear “Death” as an entity a lot less than before that.
I think at an animal level I still fear death. We evolved to be afraid and react accordingly when we have reason to believe our demise might be imminent. I don’t expect the thought, “you know, I don’t really fear death” to keep me cool if I’ve got a gun in my face or a slavering dog at my neck.
Sometimes. Like others have said, I fear dying, or rather the pain potentially involved in dying, and the fear of the unknown (what will it be like…etc). And I don’t want to die before my time and miss out on some things (I know, I know, I wouldn’t realize that after I’m dead…), and possibly leave important things unfinished, those things bother me a bit from time to time.
I love life; I love living, and all the thousands of pleasures–gross and subtle, sensual and intellectual and emotional–that I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy. The thought of losing those, and the memory of them, and the anticipation of more of them, horrifies me.
I don’t fear death, no, but being on the edge of dying is terrifying, and I’ve been there three times now (once on OTC meds, once at gunpoint, once on too much caffeine and stress). Intellectually, I don’t mind the idea of dying at any moment. Like the OP, I figure it’s gotta be interesting, one way or the other. But intellectually I fear a slow and painful death, and emotionally when it’s my time I think I’ll go kicking and screaming either way, if my past tests are any indication. Of course, if I go naturally (I have no reason to assume I will, because of all the freak shit that’s happened so far), it may be more peaceful. When I do, I want it to be quick and dignified.
It’s something that I’ve pondered often in the past few months. I recently completed a regimen of radiation and chemo therapy for the treatment of lung cancer. There have been times when I felt it would be welcome, I’m often just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I’ve experienced several times, in my life, when I was very fortunate to escape situations where I could have died, I always looked at these as some kind of challenge that I overcame, even though I had nothing to do w/ having any effect of the outcome. I don’t feel a fear of death, but I do fear the prospect of the process. I detest the idea of not being in control of my destiny, of being dependant of some extreme medical procedure to sustain life w/ the only objective being quantity, and no thought given to quality. As w/ most people, I would prefer to die in my sleep, w/ no trauma involved, but I doubt that will happen. In the final analysis, it’s inevitable, so it really doesn’t matter what I think, or want, it’s going to happen.
I’m terrified of dying - and I’m also a bit pissed off about having to die. It’s like reading a book and never seeing the end - I’ll never see my great grandchildren, I’ll miss around half of my children’s lives, and all the good stuff I’ve seen and done will be gone.
The scary thing will be that I will be alone, even if there are friends around me, truly alone during the process of actually passing on. I find that very frightening.
However, in the case of a long, lingering death, I’m very worried about the effect it would have on my loved ones. But I reckon in the end it would just be like going to sleep, and that doesn’t really bother me.
In the case of an immediate or accidental death, what I fear is experiencing terror - I recently had several near-death experiences in the course of a few days, and I didn’t like the visceral, reptile-brain reaction they created, that I had no rational control over.
This may be splitting hairs a bit. I do not fear death itself, but I’m terrified of dying.
A sudden death with little or no pain is my ideal. What bothers me is a long, drawn out, and painful process. I’ve seen far too many of my friends and relatives go that way.
Here’s one. The others included being swept out to sea while scuba diving (ever seen Open Water? It was like that), imminent tsunami (that never arrived), and a ferry that very nearly capsized in high seas. All in the course of four days.
Afterwards, I was wondering if I was exaggerating the dangers, but a few weeks later, two ferries capsized, and a plane did crash on the air route we got scared in, killing 89 people.
Care to elaborate?