To feel terrified by the idea of time going on forever

[Lavenderfarmcottage]

I recently lost someone close to me and I feel that she’s in heaven or a better place. I find it incredibly difficult to believe she isn’t. However, ever since I was very young, the idea of heaven just going on and on and on with no end has terrified me and I have to stop thinking about it whenever it occurs to me, such is the uncomfortable gut feeling it gives me. I don’t know why this is but it just does. I feel also scared about the alternative that life just ends. Does anyone feel similarly and has anyone been able to soothe this fear with any sort of comforting ideas ?

Me too.

@Lavenderfarmcottage As a child ( 5 or 6) this used to really give me a strange feeling
“ space never ends”
As ti Heaven or some other plane of existence, it would be wonderful-
But we have been “ Unalive” before we were born.

I like to think my loved ones who are deceased ( Humans and animals) are waiting.

Even though it’s unscientific to think that way.

Me too, it jolts me awake at night. I find it really unbearable.

After my dc1 was born I got a bit obsessed with death and this feeling that, what's the point of loving someone because you'll just die eventually. (Turned out I was very very anemic which was making me depressed - also was a bit traumatised by having had sepsis.)

But it still gives me shudders when I think about it, so I try not to.

For example, atm dc1 is learning how to read, phonics etc. This thought sometimes pops into my mind: why bother learning stuff and taking on new ideas if you're going to die anyway and those thoughts and ideas will just cease to exist?!

I suppress the thought whenever it appears but it's upsetting and I don't have the answer

And yes, I'm also very bewildered at the thought that my children didn't exist at all 5 years ago. Where were "they" then? Where were their thoughts and ideas, did they grow out of nothing?

It upsets and worries me, I try not to think about it.

We will be a different type of being in heaven. We won't be aware of such things, as heaven is where we're meant to be and it will be our norm - or something like that☺

When I try and talk to dh about this stuff he is at a loss and just says "don't worry it'll be a long time before any of us dies" and reminds me to take my iron supplements.

He's right, of course. I wish I could just not worry about any of it, like he does

I find it much more comforting to think that after death, the lights just go out and that is it. If you are of a religious disposition, it opens all sorts of terrifying thoughts. Like your loved one being stuck in limbo or somewhere other than "heaven".

Personally, I don't believe in an afterlife and I'm not at all religious. I believe when you're dead, you cease to exist completely. I can understand why some people find that notion very sad and upsetting, but I find it more comforting than the idea of existence forever. I find the thought of 'knowing' you are dying upsetting and frightening but not the state of being dead – it's just like before birth, which was nothing. And for me, that's the way it should be – I don't see what meaning forever has. I find far more meaning in that people are only here for a finite time.

It's completely up to you what you want to believe, but I think you might find it helpful to start thinking about 'time' in a different way if you find the notion of endless time frightening. Time, as we know it at least, is a human concept, based on a linked series of events, the progression of past into the future. Human memory formation is really the only basis for the conception of time. It might be helpful to think of time as something that is not experienced in that way after life. You don't 'know' how it is experienced differently, but do you have to know? Can't it just be unknown? Or not knowable? If you believe in a plane above the existence of the living – which is quite fantastical – then I think it stands to reason that their can be some re-imagining of the concept of what you think of as time too. Otherwise it's just all very literal, isn't it.

In a similar vein, I get freaked out by the concept of infinity. That the universe has no end, ever. What was there before the galaxies? If it was just a void then that void must have been something. It's all too much!

I think heaven would exist outside of time and space, like God would have to, so it wouldn't be part of time at all.

I sometimes wonder if we have lived before ?
A very young child in our family ( English) was in the back seat of the family car

He started to become very anxious as we were driving in South Wales- I asked him what was wrong

He said “ I don’t like mountains ~ when I was little, a mountain fell on my school “

( He wasn’t attending school when he said it, as too young)

No internet then.

There was a Disaster ( Aberfan) - but that had happened decades before he was born.

It was very strange- He’s an adult now and can’t remember that journey.

They weren't anywhere, they didn't exist in any form so they had no thoughts or ideas.
Hopefully the same is true after we die, if there's an afterlife I'll be properly pissed off.

This is exactly how I feel.

Yes. I remember this very thought made me start crying in church when I was very young. The idea of everything going on for eternity was overwhelming to me. Everyone was asking why I was crying and I couldn’t explain it. I think I’m more comfortable with the idea now than there being nothing.

I think this too, in quite a matter of fact way, because it is true.
There is absolutely no point in doing anything. In 100 years, you, me and every other person on this planet will be dead, so nothing that we do really matters. It's all just a way of killing time.

IMO the logical assumption is that it’s the exact same situation as pre our existence. When we were born in to the world we became conscious beings. Our consciousness didn’t exist before we were born. Our consciousness is our brain. It’s what makes us unique. When we die, our brain also dies, so does our consciousness.

The is nothing to be frightened of
as we won’t know about it. Exactly in the same way as before we were born. We don’t exist.

We get one life, the hear and now so live it the best way.

I feel sad it’s all so final and that we don’t all meet up in heaven and get to meet our loved ones but sadly I think that’s the reality

Well a very hard scientific chap (Doctor) says that we are made of molecules that are millennia old.

The Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Sulphur &c cannot be destroyed, only recycled.

We are made of ancient atoms.

When we die physically we recycle.

But look at wonderful art and architecture and music created by past people- Their art shines on 💖

This is the sort of thing that kept me up at night as a young child in a Christian school who bought into the ideology and couldn't comprehend the infinity of it all. (I was also kept awake by the thought of me going to heaven and my parents not, but that's not relevant here.)

I'm not religious at all now, so don't believe in heaven, but as a former professional scientist recognise that time as a concept is infinite - so it's understandable to be overwhelmed at the concept of time being infinite in death.

If you're up for a lighthearted comedy series with a strong grounding in moral philosophy, I highly recommend watching The Good Place. Their take on the afterlife was comforting to me, particularly around the infinite nature of "the Good Place"

I don’t believe in God, heaven or the afterlife. I think it is just something people use for comfort, and if it helps to think there is then there is nothing wrong with that.

I really struggle with the concept of death and losing my parents. I have of course lost grandparents, cousins, friends but when I think about my parents not being here I really struggle with the thought of it, which I guess is normal. I think as I get older and I know that time is getting nearer it is something that plays on my mind a lot.

Exactly. What's the actual point of existence.

My parents were very scientifically minded and not religious at all. Regularly we had intense conversations over mealtimes about religion v science. I remember them being shocked when I said that I thought religion and science were the same thing that religion was just a very early way to explain scientific happenings that weren’t understood.

I totally relate. I have thoughts like those and just squash them and distract myself!

When I worked as a teaching assistant, I spent a lot of my working day with one particular lad who was autistic and very matter-of-fact. One day I was trying to coax him to engage with his GCSE revision and he just let out this massive sigh and said: ‘I just don’t really see the point. I’ll sit the exams. I’ll either pass them or not. And then I’ll have to get a job and then I’ll just do that for years and years and then I’ll die’ I couldn’t argue with him on that really 😂

@MagentaRocks, if it helps at all, I used to worry a lot about how bad it would be to lose my parents. As a teenager, I used to become quite preoccupied with worrying about it.

I lost them too early, in my mid 30s, and only 2 months apart. It was awful, obviously, and it changed me. But…I survived it and in some ways the anxiety over it when I was younger was more terrifying than actually just living the grief.

Just to exist as a physical being in a physical world. I think a lot of people want there to be a greater meaning to life, for it to be something profound when actually for a lot of us it will be quite mundane. Good things a bonus, sad or awful things an experience that we just have to navigate.