Scared of Nothingness?

Question

I have this fear of there being completely nothing, and it's really stressing me out, how do I stop it? I keep wondering that when we die, there might just be nothing, but black, and we wouldn't have any memories or thoughts or anything. I'm also extremely stressed out about the fact that the Universe will eventually end, and there would be nothing but blackness forever and ever even though it will take a LONG time until then. People keep on telling me that we've "been there" before we were born and that there's nothing to worry, but it still doesn't help :(. It's 4 in the morning and I can't sleep since I'm so worried, so could anyone help make me feel reassured? Thanks :)

PS, I'm athiest, so I would appreciate it if you didn't mention god, thanks (not that I have a problem with Christianity)

Answer 1

I know what you are feeling. Thanatophobia. Some people use religion to offset this fear.

Unfortunately for us, we must deal with it with psych methods.



this question belongs in mental health and the others are right:

we won't be conscious of oblivion. It is consciousness that makes us fear oblivion.

Emotions are by their very nature not based on reason.



I suggest you see a therapist and do some mindfulness meditation.

Also spend time with friends. Doing so will "ground" you to your life. Think that while your consciousness disappears, your "self" will become one with nature. Be spiritual without being religious. Also, try to find something engrossing you really want to do for the rest of your life so that you can always have something to think about that is not "nothingness."

Answer 2

Scared of Nothingness? No Thing Ness? What is that?



Can it be tasted? Can it be touched?



Can the black sky be seen or can it be unseen?



Why are we even here?



Do you think that maybe we ARE the nothingness and WITHOUT IT ALL We would have no thought of nothingness to begin with?

Answer 3

BG 2.13: As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A sober person is not bewildered by such a change.



BG 2.14: O son of ****ī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.



BG 2.15: O best among men [Arjuna], the person who is not disturbed by happiness and distress and is steady in both is certainly eligible for liberation.



BG 2.16: Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both.



BG 2.17: That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.



BG 2.18: The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata.



BG 2.19: Neither he who thinks the living entity the slayer nor he who thinks it slain is in knowledge, for the self slays not nor is slain.



BG 2.20: For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.



BG 2.21: O Pārtha, how can a person who knows that the soul is indestructible, eternal, unborn and immutable kill anyone or cause anyone to kill?



BG 2.22: As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.



BG 2.23: The soul can never be cut to pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.



BG 2.24: This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, present everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same.



BG 2.25: It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable and immutable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body.



BG 2.26: If, however, you think that the soul [or the symptoms of life] is always born and dies forever, you still have no reason to lament, O mighty-armed.



BG 2.27: One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.



BG 2.28: All created beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unmanifest again when annihilated. So what need is there for lamentation?



BG 2.29: Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all.



BG 2.30: O descendant of Bharata, he who dwells in the body can never be slain. Therefore you need not grieve for any living being.

Answer 4

oh please no one should probably be afriad if death is so called the nothingness your nothing you would have fears feelings or emotions or you cant talk or see or breath you dont feel you dont matter you cant act you cant picture or theorized anything your nothing you dont even know your black your just the ethernal of forgotten of nothingness you dont know what you are your a clueless soul blinded dead nothing thats all death thats what i belive

Answer 5

Well,

I will mention Science and one of many books on this subject:





The Afterlife Experiments:

Breakthrough Scientific Evidence of Life After Death [Book]

by Gary E. Schwartz, Deepak Chopra (Foreword by), William L. Simon

Answer 6

What is happening to you is that your mind is developing, and just ran into what is called philosophical subjects. Such development happens to us all, but the questions are different.



To your questions, one day we die, we stop thinking. You talk about darkness forever, but that is a problem only if we are conscious. After we die, we are not thinking entities anymore. The person will not exist anymore.

Answer 7

Nothingness is the ultimate state of being.



It is your clinging to an eternal concept of ego which creates the fear.



Religion is the crutch that our individual egos have collectively created to maintain the illusion of continuity beyond our lives.



There is no greater peace I can imagine than the cessation of the constant demands and clamour of the ego.



In the meantime there is work to do.



Study Zen or Vajrayana Buddhism. It is NOT a religion, contrary to popular opinion. It is a means of accepting, absorbing and practising the discipline of ego transformation.



Nothingness is no more than the state of mind beyond egotism. All else is illusion, ie conceptualisation.



.

Answer 8

What kind of answer are you looking for? None of us really know what dying is like, I believe in a divine creator so anything I say would be spiritual. Look up scientific facts on what happens after death, do some research, maybe it will help you some. Better than us on Yahoo answers can.

Answer 9

If you REALLY think about it, there was NO" darkness"," nothingness", or awareness BEFORE you were" born". What makes you think it will be any different when you are "dead" ?

I wouldn't "lose any sleep over it". At least you aren't fretting about whether a "hell" or heaven" awaits you.

Frankly, all things considered, just live your life and forget about the rest, (it's wasted energy). Hope that helps. Peace.



@ responding Avatar Df, it appears that he can't help but IMPOSE his religious doctrines on you despite your plea to the contrary. It appears that he is already in the "dark" and "nothingness" despite the length of his convoluted rant misdirected.. That's how some are. Peace..

Answer 10

Pal you can't ask a question like this and then ask for the answers to remain secular. Look there is no such thing as nothingness. This fear you are feeling is trying to tell you that there is a God and eternity. Don't go against the flow man. Your emotions are pointing you in the right direction, don't try and once again to convince yourself of the lie that there is no God. Search out these matters objectively.

Answer 11

you wont be conscious. there wont be black. there wont be awareness. there wont be.

Answer 12

Epicurus once said that "death is nothing to us", so we shouldn't have to fear it. No one can experience nothingness other than a peaceful blackness after death. But who really knows nothingness? It's a complete and total mystery.

Answer 13

A psychiatrist can help you

Answer 14

You are made of a special combination of DNA, which made the physical you. It's taken billions of years to get you to exist in that combination. Math says the probabilities of your genetics reoccurring in the future after your death is good. Perhaps billions of years from now. Perhaps on another planet much like our own. But the time between your death and theoretical birth is non-existent. There is no waiting period for you to live again, because you have no brain, consciousness of time does not take place. Therefore billions of years can go by, and your next probable birth would be instant to you. You would not know your last life, it would be as it was your first. Perhaps you have lived before.



I don't know what happens after we die, but I do not believe nothing happens.

Answer 15

Whatever Pingu Just get your father to iron the clothes you never wear