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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: My death anxiety [Re: Mr. Mushrooms]
    #8790506 - 08/18/08 11:16 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Senor_Hongos said:
I don't have any thoughts or advice I am willing to share as far as the anxiety goes.  But I am sorry to hear you have it.  It takes a big person to admit weakness.

:thumbup:




Is this a weakness? Or is it natural to all whether conscious of it or not. I believe it is and I base that only on my observation of myself and all others I have known or know about.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleIcelander
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: deCypher]
    #8790511 - 08/18/08 11:18 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

The Cypher said:
Quote:

One day I had an extraordinarily profound experience, one more "real" than I had ever had. I experienced the fact that some day I was going to die, And just before I died, two things would happen: One, I would regret my entire life; Two, I would want to live my life over again, and then I would die. -- Hubert Selby Jr.




For a blissful month and a half after first starting to use psychedelics, I was convinced that there had to be something deeper after death.  Then I snapped out of it and went through a long, dark nihilism of the soul until I mostly came to terms with the fact that I am going to die someday.

Dunno what to tell you, really.  I still have this anxiety myself.




Well why wouldn't you? It seems at some point to be a survival mechanism.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleWhiskeyClone
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: MOTH]
    #8790514 - 08/18/08 11:19 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

MOTH said:
Isn't it a matter of simply knowing that it's okay to die?  That every other living entity that has gone before us, has also died?  That I wasn't afraid to be born, so why should I be afraid to die?  It's okay to not exist. 

For me: I cannot change death; it's coming no matter what (and that intrigues me) but due to the inevitability of it, I can either accept that I will not exist one day and let the fear go and be at peace with existence, or I can get wound up about non-existence and let that interfere with my life...

The first option is what I aim for. 

Non-existence in your mind is only an illusion.  It's not what's now.  It doesn't exist for you yet.  It's a little funny... fantasizing about your non-existence, which doesn't even exist. 






:thumbup:

I don't get this death anxiety everyone talks about.  If I'm dead, there's nobody there to 'not be.' I can't cease to exist, because as soon as I die, there is no 'I' to not exist.  There is literally nothing to be afraid of.

Life anxiety makes sense to me, and IMO 'death anxiety' is just a form of it.


--------------------
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: MOTH]
    #8790535 - 08/18/08 11:23 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Yeah, I get anticipatory butterflies just like anyone about death; but I've also come to see it as a necessity for life; as natural as birth.  I am not worried about preserving my 'self.'  My personality/identity doesn't matter that much to me, or at least, that's how it feels this moment (things change all the time).  I like the thought of Nature devouring me.  I like the thought of being part of that Cycle.  Makes it easier to be alive, anyway, knowing that I have "my brief moment in the sun to flourish" and then imperceivable rest. 

I wonder how much of death-anxiety is culturally induced.



Good post. I feel all this too. I feel it at the conscious level but I still notice the anxiety at work below and around it. But as you said, we reduce the anxiety by understanding it and I believe by looking into it as often and as much as possible.

If most of our actions are in service of death anxiety then you will see that some actions are much more skillful than others and allow for a quality of life that is truly worthwhile. This is a big thing. How one deals with  their death anxiety. I think we can't look too deeply into this.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleIcelander
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: elbisivni]
    #8790548 - 08/18/08 11:26 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

elbisivni said:
I get an awful feeling in my chest when I think to myself that one day I will die and cease to exist for eternity.

At the same time, imagining anything happening without end devastates me.  But so does the thought of there being an end to eternity, because then there would be nothing forever.


I take some comfort in the fact that my body will decompose and provide nutrients to grass and maggots.

Sometimes when I'm really able to grasp it I feel alone and hopeless and I cry.  It was worse when I was a kid, before I was able to build up defenses in my mind.

Neither Heaven nor Hell could be an answer, only another problem.  There is no personal comfort in the reality of eternity imo.

Sleep forever without so much as a dream.

(We're on a road to nowhere | Here is where time is on our side)




WORD

Great and honest post, thanks for sharing it.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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OfflineMr.Al
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Icelander]
    #8790549 - 08/18/08 11:26 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Any and all of our individual beliefs and perceptions color our personal view of reality.  We honestly don't know.  We can't claim to be certain of anything.  Seemingly solid objects are made up of mostly empty space.  Our senses lie to us.  This "reality" seems very much fake to me.  None of this is really real yet here we are.  It is much like David Bowman from the Space Odyssey sequel where he is in the apartment and remarking about how none of it was real at all.  Perhaps the physical body is to help us learn how to become real?

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InvisibleMiddlemanM

Registered: 07/11/99
Posts: 8,399
Re: My death anxiety [Re: WhiskeyClone]
    #8790554 - 08/18/08 11:27 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Dying is easy, watching someone you love die isn't.

True confrontation with death does not take place in the mind.

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: redgreenvines]
    #8790583 - 08/18/08 11:31 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
it's pretty straight forward to me
this issue is fraught with anxiety.
you have addressed it directly for years - it is adequately addressed.
the big work
the enlightened work
the mastery yet to be mastered
is to walk from the battlefield, drop the armour, drop the sword, drop the valor, drop the chivalry, drop the fame and =glory and leave the field.
end the carnage
let peace reign.

this is not surrender to the issue (the issue is dry and over worked)
it is the issue itself being surrendered (transcended). life goes on.




It is not yet adequately addressed in my case at least. And for others it may be the first time contemplating it.

Oh I say I surrender to it all the time. Yet I notice in all my actions this is not true. Don Juan put the concept of using death as a constant advisor as a first step on the path of a warrior. He never let it drop through all the books. Fear, the first enemy of a man of knowledge which is the end of the battle for almost everyone who aspires to go beyond it is all about death anxiety.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: WhiskeyClone]
    #8790592 - 08/18/08 11:33 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)


Life anxiety makes sense to me, and IMO 'death anxiety' is just a form of it.


There is definately a connection IMO. Yet if you could live forever I believe most if not all of the life anxiety would disappear in the realization that we had forever to learn how to be fully alive.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Middleman]
    #8790600 - 08/18/08 11:35 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Middleman said:
Dying is easy, watching someone you love die isn't.

True confrontation with death does not take place in the mind.




Dyin is easy? I don't notice this in our world.

Watching someone you love die would be a very potent reminder to the self that death is always the end.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Invisiblederanger
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Icelander]
    #8790612 - 08/18/08 11:36 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: WhiskeyClone]
    #8790614 - 08/18/08 11:36 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

I don't get this death anxiety everyone talks about.  If I'm dead, there's nobody there to 'not be.' I can't cease to exist, because as soon as I die, there is no 'I' to not exist.  There is literally nothing to be afraid of.





This is an intellectual reaction to the idea of being mortal.  Death anxiety is not intellectual.  We may be able to consider this issue on the "surface" of our consciousness, IOW with our new brain, and claim (truthfully, as far as we know) that we are not anxious.  However, it seems quite evident from the behaviors of humankind that our deepest motivations do not arise from our new brain, but from the more ancient R-brain and limbic system.

It is this ancient brain center which initiates death anxiety, leaving our somewhat clueless new brain to attempt to resolve the unresolvable.

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OfflineLion
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Middleman]
    #8790616 - 08/18/08 11:37 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Middleman said:
Dying is easy, watching someone you love die isn't.

True confrontation with death does not take place in the mind.


I disagree.  All is mind.  Life and death are illusions and mind is the illusionist.  That's not to diminish their significance.


--------------------
“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”

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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Icelander]
    #8790621 - 08/18/08 11:38 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

you have to get past don juan too
it's time


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: redgreenvines]
    #8790642 - 08/18/08 11:45 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Who are you to tell me the time? Do you know me? Do you know all my strengths and weaknesses and all the motivating factors that brought me here? Do you know the truth?

This is poor advice IMO. We sould stick with things as long as we need to. My working here could take me places you never dreamed of.;)


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleMiddlemanM

Registered: 07/11/99
Posts: 8,399
Re: My death anxiety [Re: Lion]
    #8790654 - 08/18/08 11:49 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Lion said:
Quote:

Middleman said:
Dying is easy, watching someone you love die isn't.

True confrontation with death does not take place in the mind.


I disagree.  All is mind.  Life and death are illusions and mind is the illusionist.  That's not to diminish their significance.




'All is mind' does not refer to the same 'mind' I was referring to.

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InvisibleChronic7

Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 13,679
Re: My death anxiety [Re: Icelander]
    #8790661 - 08/18/08 11:51 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
I certainly have it. In my life I have tried to find and face what is true. I certainly would like to believe that I'm somehow special and eternal and that I can go on until I find bliss and fulfillment in eternity.

However I have not found real evidence for it. As I have looked deeply at my motivations for my thoughts and feelings and beliefs they all lead back to the fact that I am afraid of not being.

All the beliefs I have adopted are in service of reasuring my insecurites that I am not a temporary event with no more importance than a thought that quickly passes and is no more.

Even my belief that I have no permenence but the energy of my being goes on is in service of reassuring myself that I am part of something enduring that is personal (I am part of everything) (see, I'm always saying "I"). I just can't get away from death anxiety.

I believe that I am going to go on this way until I find out one way or another. I just can't really find a way to convince myself that I'm sure of anything at all. That creates anxiey whether I like it or not.





I would say this is going on within you to make you stop identifying with whats finite, your inner Self is tired with all these concepts, especially the concept "I am the body" Your beingness wants freedom from finite constructs to discover its infinite nature.

Id suggest you to keep facing this painful truth of death as it will clean your beingness of all this dross & leave the truth as it is...

:peace:


--------------------

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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Chronic7]
    #8790667 - 08/18/08 11:54 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

You could be right, how could I know at this point?

We are on the same page here brother as I have no intention on letting it go just yet.:lol:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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InvisibleMOTH
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Veritas]
    #8790669 - 08/18/08 11:54 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Veritas said:
Quote:

I don't get this death anxiety everyone talks about.  If I'm dead, there's nobody there to 'not be.' I can't cease to exist, because as soon as I die, there is no 'I' to not exist.  There is literally nothing to be afraid of.





This is an intellectual reaction to the idea of being mortal.  Death anxiety is not intellectual.  We may be able to consider this issue on the "surface" of our consciousness, IOW with our new brain, and claim (truthfully, as far as we know) that we are not anxious.  However, it seems quite evident from the behaviors of humankind that our deepest motivations do not arise from our new brain, but from the more ancient R-brain and limbic system.

It is this ancient brain center which initiates death anxiety, leaving our somewhat clueless new brain to attempt to resolve the unresolvable.




Maybe it's not death anxiety; maybe just a natural will to survive that we humans fixate on and wonder about, due to having the brain capacity to do so. 

I don't feel consciously afraid of death. 

Unconsciously, I might be.  But if I am not aware of it, it seems more instinctual, more ingrained.  A way for Nature to preserve itself.  'Anxiety' seems to be just a label to describe an emotional reaction to a thought which is rooted in the survival instinct. 

No thought = no anxiety (in my experience)

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InvisibleWhiskeyClone
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Re: My death anxiety [Re: Icelander]
    #8790683 - 08/18/08 11:58 AM (15 years, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:

Life anxiety makes sense to me, and IMO 'death anxiety' is just a form of it.


There is definately a connection IMO. Yet if you could live forever I believe most if not all of the life anxiety would disappear in the realization that we had forever to learn how to be fully alive.




Ahhhh... and there's the real fear: not death, but an 'incomplete' life.

Much scarier.  And more familiar to me.

But still, that fear is just a thought, and that thought is just a part of life.  This fear and other useless thoughts occur when I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing.


--------------------
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man.  For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire.  Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it.

~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

:heartpump:

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