How I deal with the fear of death and non-existence

Recently I got two email messages from someone who said he shared my fear of death and non-existence.

The fearful feelings were bothering him. He felt like no one else understood what he was going through. He wondered if he was going crazy. He asked me how I dealt with this fear, and if I wanted to live forever.

Here's the reply I sent to him tonight.

Sorry for the delay in replying to you. Anyway… 

Yes, I would like to live forever. And yes, I do think like you. I’ve had the same feelings as you — the fears and thoughts about death. They just didn’t seem to last as long as yours, and maybe they weren’t as strong as yours.

 

No, you’re not mentally ill. You’re just a sensitive person who is in touch with feelings that most people aren’t. Most people either do their best to deny to themselves that they’ll ever die, or they believe in some sort of afterlife, usually in association with believing in some sort of God.

 

So I give you a lot of credit for facing head-on what most people try to avoid: dying and the fear of death. I realize how tough and disturbing this is for you. But honesty and truth are better than lying and falsehood. You’re being honest and truthful with yourself. 

 

Maybe it seems like you’re the only one you know who can’t cope with death. The way I see it though, is that you may be the only person who is honestly aware of what it means to die and possibly be gone forever. Congratulations to you for that.

 

Here’s a few ways that I deal with my own fear of dying. At the end of this message I’ll also share some blog post links on this subject. 

 

(1) I remind myself that I don’t really exist. At least, not in the way most people think they do, as a non-material self or soul that isn’t part of the physical world. Science and Buddhism both say that we humans don’t have a “self.” We aren’t something separate and distinct from the physical world. You and I are our brain/mind. When the brain/mind dies, so do we. This is true of everything living, everything that has a brain.

 

So since I’m not anything special, I can’t expect to be treated in a special way by the universe. Everything else that is alive dies. So will I. Of course, most alive things aren’t self-aware, so they don’t worry about this. I try to look at our dog and think, “She is smarter than I am in some ways.” Like, in the way she just lives each day as it comes, mostly happily, and doesn’t worry about dying one day.

 

(2) I also remind myself that nothing is certain. There is a chance that I will live after I die. I don’t think this is a big chance, but it is possible. I won’t know until I die. Until then, there is no way to know. No one does, because no one has ever actually and truly died, then come back to life. 

 

This gives me some relief from my fear of dying. I don’t have to believe in God, heaven, or an afterlife. I just need to recognize the truth: that life after death is possible; that we may have, or be, an immortal soul. There isn’t much evidence of this, but there is some evidence, some reasons for believing this. Again, this takes some of the intensity out of my fear of dying, sort of how I’d feel better as a passenger in a plane that is about to crash if the pilot said, “Things don’t look good, but there’s a chance we’re all going to make it.” 

 

So you might focus on the small chance that life after death exists, rather than the larger chance that it doesn’t. Hey, whatever works.

 

(3)  I don’t drink a lot of alcohol or use a lot of marijuana. But I use these substances regularly. They relax me. Marijuana particularly helps in lessening my sense of self, my ego. I feel like my problems, including the problem of dying, aren’t as large as they seem normally. Only you can decide whether alcohol or some other drug helps you more than it hurts. I just believe that a change of consciousness can help relax us, make us feel less tense and fearful, whether or not this change comes about “naturally” or some other way.

 

(4) I mediate every morning. As I blogged about recently, I’ve started listening to guided meditations on the Headspace web site. The first ten were free. Now I’ve paid $70 or so for a year’s worth of being able to listen to the guided meditations. I take my laptop to where I meditate, plug in some headphones, and spend 10 to 20 minutes being led through a relaxing set of instructions, including following the breath.

 

This seems to help me be more relaxed. About everything. Following the breath is an especially useful exercise for me, because the breath is connected with being alive. I used to worry a bit that my breathing might stop if I paid attention to it. Now I understand that breathing isn’t much under my control. I can’t stop it for very long. So I think following and paying attention to the breath, particularly in a guided meditation like the ones I’ve been listening to, indirectly helps with my fear of death.

 

(5) Periodically I try to cover my Cosmic Meaning? bases by praying in a decidedly non-religious way. Which goes something like this: “Whoever or whatever might be out there, aware of my consciousness though I am not aware of yours, it’d be great if you’d pay me a visit. Since I have no idea whether you exist, in what form you might exist, or how you might communicate with beings like me, I’m open to surprises. Give me some signs, outward, inward, or whatever, that you’re there; then hopefully you can educate me about what the cosmos is all about, including whether the consciousness of living entities like me survives bodily death.”

 

I feel like maybe the most likely outcome could be getting some communications from alien beings who are able to tap into the consciousness of humans. Sure, that seems impossible to us, but aliens could have capabilities much superior to ours. Or, if our reality actually is a computer simulation run by an advanced civilization, maybe whoever is in control of the simulation has it programmed to respond to certain entities who ask within the simulation, “What is this all about?” Who knows, I might get lucky. Of course, my asking is part of the game, as would be any response I get.

 

Knowing I was just part of a computer simulation seemingly would make my death easier to accept, as I’d feel like since I’ve never really existed as a “real” being, failing to exist in my flimsy state of existence wouldn’t be that big a deal.

 

(6)  I haven’t consciously thought that I’d do some dangerous stuff in order to deal with my fear of dying, but I think this helps me feel more comfortable with death. For me it’s sort of like looking closely at something scary until it doesn’t seem as terrifying. There’s also the sense of feeling so satisfied with an activity, I can think “If I died at this moment, it would be OK.” 

 

So I’ve enjoyed riding a big maxi-scooter (Burgman 650), practicing several forms of martial arts, taking up senior citizen longboarding/skateboarding, and some other risky activities. Motorcycle or scooter riding strikes me as especially beneficial in getting more comfortable with the prospect of dying, since you have to pay so much attention to all of the many risks on the road — cars, trucks, slippery pavement, deer in the road, etc. — at pretty much every moment. 

 

Somewhat along the same line, I think its healthy for people like you and me to admit both to ourselves and to others, “Yeah, I’m afraid of death and non-existence. But I’m damn well not going to let this fear stop me from doing whatever I want to do, even if it is risky. Someday you’re going to get me, Mr. Death. Until you do, I’m going to defy you by enjoying life as much as I can, for as long as I can, even if some form of that enjoyment kills me."

 

(7) Lastly, unless I think of more ways I deal with my fear of dying. I like to ponder a fact that seems likely to be true: whatever happens after death, everybody is in the same boat — even if it is a leaky, decrepit, sinking boat. Meaning, I very much doubt that Christians go one direction after death, while Hindus go another direction, and atheists still another direction

 

Thus whatever will happen to me, will happen to everybody. This realization takes away a feeling that I’m missing out on some special Salvation Treat others will enjoy. Knowing that billions of people have died before me, and billions will die after me, with the same thing happening to all of us after we take our last breath — that is comforting. 

 

Yet I readily admit: I’d like to live forever. Who wouldn’t? We just don’t always get what we want, though, as I recall the Rolling Stones saying in a song. In a way, we do though — since it seems that as people grow older, and their health gradually declines, death becomes, if not welcome, something not to be feared. In other words, nature seems to have a way of naturally reducing our youthful fear of death.

 

Here's some links to blog posts I've written about the fear of non-existence:

 

Death and the primal fear of non-existence
Uncertainty: the key to dealing with death and non-existence
Overcoming the fear of non-existence
Benefits of realizing you're just a brain
Coping with death and the fear of non-existence
Real spirituality is realizing you aren't a soul, or self
More thoughts about the fear of non-existence
Looking into the void... and waking up
Scientific quasi-remedies for a fear of death
Roger Ebert: "I do not fear death"
How to live happily until you die
Bad news: I'm going to die. Good news: I'll be nirvana!
"How to die in Oregon" made me less afraid of death
Keeping it real: facing death without God
Directionless, I feel like I've found my way

 

     — Brian

Comments

[David]

Sorry Brian, I don't get it. I can't imagine anything worse than living for ever. That would be hell. The older I get the more comforted I feel by the certainty that this life will end. Oblivion for me please. In the meantime, I'll enjoy what I can of this life. But I shan't be sad to go. Dying may be painful but how could there be anything to fear in death? Thank goodness I don't believe in an afterlife. That really would scare me shitless.

[AV]

Why do you meditate ?

[Brian Hines]

AV, I meditate partly out of habit -- 45 years of getting up each morning and spending some quiet time reading and meditating before I get outwardly involved with the day.

I enjoy that time. Plus, there are lots of benefits to meditation, as summarized on the Headspace site where I've started listening to their guided meditations.
https://www.headspace.com/science

I view meditation, in part, as exercise for the mind. I'm committed to exercising physically, and it also makes sense to spend some time exercising my mind.

Though meditation is more like "unexercising," really -- relaxing, calming, letting thoughts come and go rather than trying to control them.

[Brian Hines]

David, your attitude is much like my wife's. She said almost the same thing after I read her this blog post last night, after I'd written it.

I agree with much of what you and she said. I guess I optimistically assume that if I were able to live forever, this would be a happy, contented, joyful living where I didn't get tired of eternal life.

Like you said, though, it's easy to envision nasty forms of the afterlife that would be worse than living.

[Jen]

Really enjoyed this post. I also question whether I really exist, is this some kind of dream, and also am interested in the computer simulation type theory.

Alien beings with super intelligence? I often wonder if we actually were something like that and decided to incarnate onto this planet to experience what its like to suffer from amnesia.

Contact? The problem is no-one believes you when you tell them about it. It's all in the mind dear, is the attitude. Still very intriguing though.

[x]

There's no way to "deal" with death because it's not negotiable. You will die, and it may not be under ideal conditions or in a timely fashion, so you might want to consider an alternative to the usual custom.

[777]

"""There's no way to "deal" with death because it's not negotiable""".

Tragic !

It's very negotiable

You just EXPERIENCE ( not believe it but DO so ) that y'r not the body
that it is even hilarious to think that

and as you can't do NDE by will , . . do the better, the sweet way

777

[Turan]

It would seem that our chief fear of death comes from our 'self' structure. A 'self' is as far as I can see a construct comprised of past experiences and information and as such is not real in the sense of being an entity.

Perhaps we humans have been conditioned to believe that this structure is who we are allowing it to usurp the naturalness of protecting and maintaining our bodies to protecting and maintaining a 'self'?

Death to such a 'self' or 'ego' is therefore abhorrent to us - even very elderly people whose bodies are ready to go do not want to 'give up' due to the dominating ego/self.

Our bodies (and brain) have their own intelligence and naturally avoid pain and death but at the right time will 'let go' Unlike the ego/self structure that cannot abide the concept of not existing, hence many of the beliefs in an afterlife - or historical notoriety.

[Kathie Weston]

As always, I enjoy your posts....probably because they validate what I have come to from Sant Mat to here. I just read Oliver Sack's autobiography and found the last few chapters fascinating on the brain....makes a great case for no self. Thanks for your blog.

[x]

It would seem that our chief fear of death comes from our 'self' structure

Yes, but without the illusion of self you'd be an inarticulate ape with no capacity for narrative or abstract thought who couldn't think about the human condition. This might make dying easier, but it wouldn't be much of a life.

[Turan]

Yes, a self is indeed necessary to live and survive – even animals have a sense of ‘me’ and not ‘me’. Our problem as I see it is that we have become so identified with the contents that comprise the self that we believe it is who we are to the point of devising numerous concepts to maintain its structure far beyond natural survival. Various beliefs such as are inherent in religion and nationality can become so dominant people become angry and even kill if they are threatened in some way.

Regarding the reality of death and the ‘self’ (as was pointed out in a couple of blogs ago), just believing there is no self does not help the fear of death issue. But perhaps the experience of seeing the on-going process that creates the self/ mind/ego may allow us to see the insubstantiality of the various belief/concepts – including the way we think about and death.

[aye]

Quote Brian, "Marijuana particularly helps in lessening my sense of self, my ego. I feel like my problems, including the problem of dying, aren’t as large as they seem normally."

-- For me, after smoking marijuana, the opposite is the case. I am more self-aware and whatever problems, fears, etc. I have become amplified and are deeply analyzed, including fear of death and other neuroses. Sometimes a solution is realized, but then, as soon as it comes up, it vanishes, as more thoughts percolate up to take the realization's place. Alas, my profound insight, gone with the wind! In short, the weed increases anxiety, self consciousness and paranoia.

I have found that there are two main types of people (with sub-types to varying degrees) whose minds/neourochemistry are affected differently by marijuana. The first type is like Brian and then there are those like me.

Which one are you?

I tend to think that Brian's group is the smaller one because only about 10% of the U.S. adult population smokes weed "regularly" even though 44% have "tried" it. But 10% is a lot of people. Enough to keep the weed business thriving into perpetuity.

[yo]

It is clear that we just die. It is obvious to those who think clearly and do not let themselves be deceived by their own minds or someone else's (same thing). Life doesn't mean anything except whatever meaning we choose to give it, but life doesn't care. It just is what it is right now until it isn't.

We are a part of this life we are in and all parts are inseparable, interconnected bits of the whole with the same life running through us. There could be some comfort in that.. the life that runs through us and is us keeps running without us.