Why are we all afraid of death?

I am not afraid of being dead. I am, however, afraid of dying a painful death. I know that death is the beginning of another existence.

I highly recommend everyone to read books about Near Death Experiences, and Shared Death Experiences, especially books written by Dr. Raymond Moody. There have been thousands of documented cases where people clinically died and were revived and they came back as changed persons with a totally different outlook on life. They have left their bodies and entered the spirit realm where we all came from and we all will return.

I know non-believers will say these stories were the products of the dying brains. But then, how can they explain Shared Death Experiences? These happened to the persons who were attending to the persons dying and had the same experiences as the dying. Many documented cases where the attendees saw the light, saw the loved ones who have passed, saw the life reviews of the dying person, even left their bodies to accompany the person who just died to the edge of the spirit realm, and then came back to their bodies.

People sometimes casually say they saw their lives flash before their eyes, that really does happen when we die.

Many hospice doctors and nurses have seen mists raising from the bodies of the person who just die. Those mists are our energy, our spirits.

I feel most people fear the unknown more than they do dying.

Or they have unfinished business of some sort and want their lives neatly and perhaps perfectly all wrapped up. That’s a ‘fairytale’ ending.

How many people in this world have the perfect, ‘And they lived happily ever after’ ending? No one!

I love hearing about Near Death Experiences!

Every now and then I will read an NDE book or view the YouTube videos from hospice nurses.

It seems everyone that has experienced an NDE does not fear death and actually looks forward to death.

They see it as the beginning of life instead of the end.

Many people believe in reincarnation as well.

I have a friend that developed a severe phobia about bridges.

She had to cross a bridge to visit her mom.

She panicked as she was approaching the bridge so she decided to go to a past life regression session with a therapist.

I listened to her without judgment and what I heard was very surprising.

She went on to tell me that in her last life she was a passenger on the titanic and that is why she was afraid to cross over water!

I didn’t know how to respond. It’s her life, her beliefs and her business. I acknowledged how she felt and left it at that.

For myself, I would rather die quickly than linger suffering.

Death is part of life. For most of us, it's isn't a pretty end, but just like the hard times interspersed throughout a lifetime, death is just another ingredient that makes up a life.

People may not be so much afraid of death as they are of dying. I, for one, would like to die in my sleep rather than go thru a long painful journey to death. Nobody knows what death is like but we all know what dying is like and some of it isn't pleasant. Dying in and of itself does not necessarily involve painful processes—some forms of death are painful and others are not. And many acute injuries are actually more painful afterward (in people who survive them) than they are at the moment of injury. There is no reason to think that the experience of temporarily losing consciousness is any different from the experience of permanently losing consciousness, in terms of how the actual process of slipping away feels. I just had surgery and I wonder if slipping away due to anesthesia is any different than slipping away permanently as far as how it feels.

Some of us may have already recovered from a more painful experience than we will realize at death. Maybe one blessing of AD or the dementia diseases is that often there's no pain. My wife was never in pain and died peacefully after 14 days in a coma. And who knows, maybe there is a happy, peaceful afterlife that we should look forward to rather than fear. After all, death is part of life.

As for being afraid of death comes with how other family member react to death.

My parents, their parents, their siblings, my cousins, we all tend to look at life as a circle, with death being at the end of the circle. It would be interesting to trace to see if one comes from farming communities this is the norm or not. As life and death on a farm is a regular thing.

On the other side of the coin, my sig-other is overwhelmed by death. He is so afraid. He still writes on the calendars the day of death for his immediate family even if the family member passed 50 years ago. For most of his passed family members all I know about them is the day they died. Couldn't imagine living a full life only to be remembered for that one day.... [sigh].

I noticed sig-other had passed that emotion onto his children. And from family stories, that seemed the norm. If an Aunt's husband had died, she was to wear black for the rest of her life, rarely re-marrying, even if the widow was young. Yet, the Uncle would be re-married by the end of the year, that was ok. That could be a culture thing, too.

I personally have ZERO fear of death. A life long atheist and someone with a career in nursing, I have never seen any reason to fear death. To me we go where we always were before we were born. I love Annie Dillard's quote that "We live as if there hadn't been a hundred thousand generations here before us, and another one hundred thousand were not still to come". We are a blink of the eye. Not even. IMHO.
What I DO FEAR is pain and suffering and I fear that a lot. I suspect if you really talk with folks it is indeed the pain and suffering they fear. I fear losing my legs or my eyes or my mind. Most of all my mind. And yes, I fear the torture of being kept alive when I cannot say i want out now.
I think also that "death" is a difficult concept to "get". It is hard to "imagine" not being here, right? Even if I am correct and it is like before we were born, which if I recall is "nothing", it is still a hard concept for our very active minds which are always always always chattering away, to imagine them not chattering.
Many many elders I cared for longed for the peace and quiet of death. They mostly expressed themselves as exhausted with it all. They often were unable to discuss things with family, because family wouldn't go there with the subject. So they often expressed this to their nurse.

I have never experienced death as anything but a deliverance.

funky...........you are right about hospice; then we come here & read post after post after post after POST about how 'hospice killed my mother' and it's terrible. WHY prolong someone's life for a few more days or a few more weeks when they have a terminal illness to BEGIN with????????? I thank God every day for the services hospice offered my dear father during the last 19 days of his life on earth; he was comfortable & not in pain or anxiety ridden as he transitioned. Those who insist that 'hospice killed' their loved ones are those that fear death & want their loved one's life extended at any & all costs, seems to me.

I don't think we are all afraid of death. I know I'm not. Being a Christian, I know that I will be going to a better place someday; a place with no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. That sounds pretty darn good to me. Death is only sad for those who are left behind, as they are the ones who have to carry on without their loved one in their lives. And you are correct, there does come a point when medical intervention does seem barbaric, especially as one nears the end. That's the good thing about hospice, as they don't take any extreme measures to keep someone alive. They just try and keep them as comfortable as possible, until the Good Lord calls them home. Praying for God's peace to be with you as go on your mom's final journey with her.

We're afraid of death, many of us, because we think death is the end. That we die, are put in the ground and that's it. Fear of the unknown is profound.

For those who believe that life is eternal and that our souls live on forever, we're not afraid to die. We likely do not WANT to die, but we're also not afraid TO die.

Take my father, for example. When his brain tumor was growing, there was nothing more that the doctor's could do for him. He accepted that news with dignity & grace and decided to give up the fight. He told me he was not afraid to die, and passed away 19 days after we hired hospice. It was a relief, his suffering was over, and I held a celebration of his life rather than a sad funeral of his passing.

My mother is 94 on Wednesday, with moderate dementia & chronic neuropathy pain, CHF, and about 10 other issues I won't go into. SO petrified to die that she hangs on for dear life, certain that nothing and nobody awaits her after she passes. In spite of the fact that she feels dad with her in the bed at night (she says). So my mother will cling to life to the bitter end, fighting tooth & nail & asking for medications to extend her life, no matter what, which saddens me & prolongs everyone's grief & suffering in the end.

That's my 2 cents on the subject.