# Do You Fear Your Death? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 28, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525 "2021-09-28T16:50:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2021, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/101 "2021-11-01T11:58:12Z")
Given the direction in which human civilization is going, it may end up being a peaceful escape. In any case, I don’t dwell on it. Much better is to put your energy and thoughts into living, not dying. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/102 "2021-11-03T01:33:17Z")
OP, I’m swimming against the tide here, but I don’t think you should avoid thinking about death so much. In fact, I think you should contemplate it more often. Of course, anxiety isn’t good, and some people do have obsessive fears about death, but while some people have overcome the very natural fear of death, maybe some of us still confuse a refusal to think about it “because I’ll be dead” with acceptance. We all know that we Americans tend to be weird about death, maybe because we _don’t_ think about it much. I once knew a woman whose childhood home was attached to her dad’s funeral parlor. She and her siblings saw corpses daily and often played in rooms where embalmed bodies lay. Some people thought this sounded twisted, but she’d had a happy childhood and was too familiar with death to fear it. But I suspect she’s an exception and that [Karma Ura](https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20150408-bhutans-dark-secret-to-happiness), Director of the Center for Bhutan Studies is on the money when he says “Rich people in the West have not touched dead bodies, fresh wounds, rotting things. This is a problem. This is the human condition. We have to be ready for the moment we cease to exist.” Though I’m not Buddhist, I like the Buddhist saying, “Go to the places that scare you.” In Bhutan, where Buddhism is the official religion, people contemplate death–serenely–five times a day. While the country has its problems, fear of death sure isn’t one of them. I’m also a fan of Caitlin Doughty of “[Ask the Mortician](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN7ZD9uw7LQ)” YouTube fame. Doughty says, “Death is so terrifying in part because we can’t really imagine it.” She points out that while some people take comfort in the notion that they didn’t exist before birth, either, “That’s a hard pill to swallow for us while we’re still alive because most of us are pretty into this whole being-conscious thing we got going on.” She, too, recommends learning and thinking about death. I read an article once about how helpful mindful thinking about death is in all sorts of ways. I’ll try to dig it up. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2021, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/103 "2021-11-03T04:58:16Z")
Do I fear death? Ha! ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/1/1e606b205e229a7424056680df2806a9d6268157.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Danger\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Danger\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danger_Man)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/104 "2021-11-04T19:59:40Z")
I fear death, a lot. I try not to think about it and enjoy my life. Maybe I will come to peace with it sometime, but I am not anywhere close to that at the moment. I also find that the better my life is the more I fear it, because I have more to lose. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/105 "2021-11-04T20:56:52Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > I read an article once about how helpful mindful thinking about death is in all sorts of ways. I’ll try to dig it up. I actually think about it very frequently. Not like, “I want to die”, but uh, I guess mindfully. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/106 "2021-11-04T21:04:04Z")
Thanks for reminding me to search some more for the article. I think I found it, though there’s stuff in there I don’t recall from reading it however long ago I did. > **[Being 'mindful' can neutralize fears of death and dying](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110228151800.htm)** > > Death can be terrifying. Recognizing that death is inescapable and unpredictable makes us incredibly vulnerable, and can invoke feelings of anxiety, hatred and fear. But new research shows that being a mindful person not only makes you generally more... ---
**Author:** ![Honolulu\_Lulu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/87869e/32.png) [@Honolulu\_Lulu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honolulu_Lulu)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2021, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/107 "2021-11-07T14:51:49Z")
Fear of death is an evolutionary trait. Those that do not fear death will, on the whole, die younger and have fewer offspring than those that take an active role in living to a ripe old age. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2021, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/108 "2021-11-07T22:38:03Z")
While acknowledging that I haven’t faced my own death at close range, recently, I certainly fear severe disability with a loss of control more. Recently I cared for an old woman whose family just will not let her go. She has no autonomy or control of her person and no hope of recovery. This was one of the worst examples I’ve seen recently, but not they only one. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/109 "2021-11-08T00:24:29Z")
there’s a lot of overlap between NDE symptoms and being high on DMT. you can try that too. Also I think MDMA is used in some terminal patients to help them adjust to the idea of dying soon. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/110 "2021-11-08T00:43:19Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I did. 1,200 miles or so. It wasn’t to Samarra by any chance, was it? ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/111 "2021-11-08T00:47:31Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > OP, I’m swimming against the tide here, but I don’t think you should avoid thinking about death so much. In fact, I think you should contemplate it more often. Buddhists agree with you. The practice of monks meditating in graveyards is not a myth. Catholics too. Memento mori. On Ash Wednesday the priest marks your forehead with ashes and says “remember you are dust and to dust you shall return”. I am personally cheered by this. I would like to be dust with all the other dust. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/112 "2021-11-08T02:23:20Z")
I can’t say it cheered me, but as a kid in Catholic school, I loved Ash Wednesday. Turning to dust seemed so far in the future as to be unimaginable. I just liked breaking up the school day by going to mass and getting to wear ashes on my forehead. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2021, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/113 "2021-11-08T03:22:26Z")
> [@Amulet1](#): > > I had a massive heart attack and my heart stopped . I felt peace, no pain at all. Then felt a jolt and heard the cardiologist say we got him back, I then felt at peace again and saw my grandparents and they told me not yet then jolted back again. Then woke up again and saw my wife standing by the bed. I could tell she had been crying. A few minute later my sister came in and said they thought they had lost me. Stuff like this scares me more than oblivion. As someone quoted Mark Twain earlier, I had ego death for the first 13.7 billion years of the universe and it never bothered me in the slightest. The idea that there is some kind of plan behind life and we die on a timetable according to a plan is terrifying, because life is so random and evil. A meteor could hit the earth at any time and kill billions of humans and endless trillions of other life forms. Is there some kind of plan behind that? If so then its evil and I want nothing to do with it. I’d rather just turn into nothingness than be told all the evil and randomness of life is somehow part of a plan I can’t change. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2021, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525/114 "2021-11-22T05:05:11Z")
Death sometimes scares the shit out of me. But I am prone to anxiety, especially at night, when I am plagued with existential dread. And though I am an atheist, I have a lingering and irrational fear of hell from my fundamentalist days. So I worry that something unbearable is going to happen after I die. But this is directly tied to the amount of adrenaline in my system at any given time. When I’m not anxious, it doesn’t bother me. Right now my biggest fear is dying before my son is grown, which means I’ve got to hang on until I’m 55 at least. I’ll probably make it. The reality of death does make the time here more meaningful, no question. As my son ages, it makes me more aware of my own mortality. His life is finite, and so is mine. And it’s already going so fast, he’ll be grown and I’ll be old before you know it. Everything is so fleeting, it’s a miracle we experience anything at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-fear-your-death/951525.md?page=5)