
Image by PhotoVision from Pixabay |
Years ago, I used to live in a house that was built in the early 1900s. There's something about old houses that can be a bit creepy. Every creak and every groan––especially at night––sounds unnerving, as if there is something out there... watching... and waiting. I even swear I saw a ghost a couple of times (I think he was, given how he appeared, a murder victim of some sort) but I put it out of my head for years. So of course I'm rehashing that fear while getting paid to write silly articles on the internet. What can I say? It's a living.
People revisited the specters of their childhood after Redditor redditor_pro88 asked the online community,
"What paranormal things did you experience during your childhood?"
"From the moment we moved to the house..."
"My house growing up was built in the 1920s. While I can think of several things that can be explained by other things such as sleep paralysis, childlike imagination, creaky pipes, and bad wiring, there's some things that have left me and my family members unsettled. I generally think most hauntings can be explained by natural phenomena and I'm happy to think this could be the case too.
From the moment we moved to the house (I was 6) I absolutely hated my closet. I would cry if my parents didn't close it at night. This fear never went away even when I was a teenager, I always had to have it closed or covered up. I can't explain exactly how genuinely terrifying this feeling was but i always felt watched. My whole family was creeped out by that closet too and generally avoided it.
The upstairs was small and had a landing surrounded by our 3 bedrooms and the bathroom. I would wake up with this oddly unsettled feeling and walk to the landing and stair down into the darkness of the stairs, which was odd as normally if I had to go to the bathroom I would sprint there and back. A few times I would find my brother already standing there but looking up at our attic door instead and I'd have a heart attack.
The weirdest for me was the several times someone in my family heard a voice that sounded like one of us but we weren't there. There were at least two times my dad came into my room annoyed at me for waking him up when I was deep asleep and completely tangled in my bedsheets. He told me that I tapped him hard on the shoulder and very clearly told him to get up and that I needed help but when he opened his eyes I wasn't there and he had to search for me. My brother told me about times he heard me talking in a room but when he checked I wasn't even upstairs. It still gives me chills to think about it.
There were also times I clearly heard the door open and my mom come home and call my brother and me but when we got downstairs no one was home. It would be really odd and we'd both definitely heard it, even with headphones in. Sometimes we'd leave the house because we'd be so freaked out by it.
There are other odd stories of things going completely missing and us finding them odd places months later but I've always just put that down as forgetting where we put it or our cats hiding things. Some of my friends refused to come over after sleeping the night but they wouldn't tell me anything other than the place really creeped them out."
Your friends refused to sleep over?
Time to exorcise the house.
"I searched that night before bed..."
"I was about 9 years old, playing with some Star Trek action figures in my bedroom (yes, I was a cool kid). My room was positioned directly above a guest room that was almost never used and I almost never entered. The furniture was outdated compared to the rest of the house, and it just had a creepy vibe. This will be relevant later.
I had a Spock action figure which broke apart easily. His shirt would snap into two pieces by pressing on the seam, and then all his limbs would fall off. He was easy to repair, so I took him apart often. He'd be used for body parts if I wanted to pretend someone had been killed by an alien.
One day just as I had set up a decidedly gruesome Star Trek scene, my mom called me down for dinner. When I came back upstairs after eating, I noticed that Spock was gone. Just him, though. All the other action figures were still in a little circle exactly as I left them.
I searched that night before bed, thinking my younger brother (my only sibling, who was 2 years old at the time) may have somehow gotten into my room and moved my stuff. It had never happened before, but it was all I could think of. The whole family was at dinner and there was no chance for anyone to go upstairs and move anything.
The next morning, I searched the house for Spock. Nothing. Not put away, not in my brother's room, not in the living room. It was baffling. As a last-ditch effort, I decided to check the guest room. The room looked untouched, as usual. Except for one thing: a dismantled Spock action figure, in the exact same position as I had left it in my room the night prior, directly below where I had been playing with him in my bedroom.
I asked my mom and dad. They claimed to know nothing about it. My younger brother could not have made it down the stairs, and also would not have been able to make the same Spock pile that I had made the previous night. It was as if my toy had just translated a few feet in the z-direction, right through the floor.
I still don't have an explanation."
And you won't get one.
I feel like this could be a "Monkey's Paw" scenario, and I'm here for it.
"My mother told me to visit her friend..."
"My mother took me to visit her friend when I was 8 years old. This friend lived alone in an old house. I was exploring the house and went up the stairs where all the bedrooms were. As I got to the top of the stairs I looked to the far end of the hall and saw an old man standing there. He saw me but he was looking through me (difficult to describe). I knew instantly that something wasn't right because the lower half of his body was not really defined. I raced down the stairs to tell my mother and the friend told her that yes, this is the ghost of the house and he is harmless. I have never forgotten the creepy feeling that I had."
Harmless, huh?
Are you sure they weren't just saying that?
"When I was 11..."
"When I was 11, I was staying with some friends at their cabin deep in the woods (in the middle of rural NOWHERE, like literally not another house for miles). We were playing soccer and my friend yelled and pointed to the trees behind the yard, and we all saw a man standing there in a dirty brown shirt and jeans, who walked towards us and vanished behind a tree. We screamed for their dad and he came running out to see what was wrong and told us to go inside while he looked around.
He found nothing, but we didn't wanna go outside and play again. Later that night we had pretty much calmed down and were watching TV in their living room (which had big glass sliding doors facing the forest) when their dog started growling and barking at something outside the glass doors. He hadn't acted like this before, so we called their dad again and he went outside through the doors and found nothing again, but the dog wouldn't stop barking until a few minutes later."
You see?
This is why I won't go into the woods.
I've seen enough horror films to know that's a terrible idea.
"I woke up..."
"I woke up and saw a shadow man run then jump at me while I was in bed. I was so struck with fear I was unable to move but he disappeared right before he landed. The memory was so terrifying I still remember it nearly 30 years later."
I think that's what some people might call a sleep paralysis demon.
Have seen a couple myself. It's not fun.
"But for whatever reason..."
"My great-aunt had a house that was built in 1792. There was an upstairs room that had been made into a sort of playroom for us kids. It was very small, with a sloping ceiling.
Now, this could just have been a kiddo's imagination or a bad dream I had as a child, but I remember before it being a playroom that it was a dying man's room. I remember where his bed was and what he looked like. He was suffering. I could never get comfortable in that room, and I couldn't tolerate more than a few minutes in there alone.
I should add that I'm not a person who believes in the supernatural. I'm open to the possibility, but I've never encountered definitive proof. My husband, who has had paranormal experiences, has had to take me out of places that he thinks are haunted, that's how immune I am to that sort of thing. In supposedly haunted hotels, I sometimes wander the hallways late at night hoping I'll find something to make me believe.
But for whatever reason, I felt something was deeply wrong about that room in my great-aunt's house, and I avoided it unless there was something specific I could duck in quickly and get."
"When I was growing up..."
"When I was growing up I lived in a century home, it was about 115 years old at the time. The house many years back was a funeral showing home, they would hold ceremonies and their viewings. This always creeped me out and may have gotten my imagination running but sometimes I still wonder.
There were a servant's quarters with a separate staircase to the kitchen, oftentimes we would hear footsteps and go check to find nothing there.
Multiple times we would hear the tv upstairs in the servant bedroom connected to the stairs turn on and then off if we went up to the room. It became my parent's room/the master bedroom when we lived there.
A few of my mom's friends told us stories of seeing an old lady in the closet of my sister's room (next to mine) when they stayed over and slept in that bedroom.
My youngest sister would frequently have night terrors and sit up eyes wide open screaming or sulking. Freaked me out big time.
My personal worst experience was what I now believe to have been sleep paralysis. I always slept with a hall light on and my bedroom door open. One night I "woke" up and saw my bedroom door shut slowly as my closet door opened. As this happened a figure of a woman walked to me and sat on my chest staring at me. I tried screaming/calling for my mom but I couldn't get words to vocalize, felt like a whisper/pressure. Eventually, I was able to turn over, and immediately when I did I woke up again and was not rolled over but on my back. The door to the closet was shut and my bedroom door open.
Overall I am personally a nonbeliever and could probably rationalize these experiences/chalk it up to being an imaginative kid. But they still stick with me and make me curious. I haven't experienced anything like this since moving from there. The bottom line is old houses with history are creepy, especially for a child!"
"I saw her when I opened my eyes..."
"The three-headed shadow at the foot of my bed that would move to tuck me in. I saw her when I opened my eyes some nights. It shouldn't have been, I called it a "shouldn't be," but I was never really in danger. I also knew each head was meant to represent my grandmother and two grand aunts but they were not them. They were something else."
It's funny how our dreams can tell us things without explciitly voicing them out loud.
"I have always insisted..."
"I have always insisted that the house I lived in until I was 8 is creepy. It was only a year or two ago that my family casually mentioned that it was built where a Victorian maternity ward used to be. So, it's mildly possible that ghost babies haunted me."
So... still want to purchase that creepy house that the locals say was built atop an old Native American burial ground? Still want to go spend time in that cabin in the woods near the site of all those murders?
You're braver than I. But if you do survive a night (or two) be sure to report back. You're bound to have seen something.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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Being an emergency responder is a high-stress job.
It's a career with long, laborious hours.
There is always a hint of danger. And death is always around the corner.
So we as a society could try to help these people out and not put ourselves in unnecessary danger.
Redditor Diligent-Log6805wanted the rescue workers out there to tell us about the times they rescued people. They asked:
"Emergency responders of reddit, what are some dumb things that have lead to an emergency situation?"
These workers and the world already has enough trouble without my stupid.
"So... was she impressed?"
"Kid driving his new truck down a residential street, wet from a recent rain, lost control and hit a parked car, overcorrected and rolled it once back onto its wheels up onto a lawn. He told the fire chief he had gunned it to impress his girlfriend and the chief just looked at him and asked 'So... was she impressed?'"
AntiMacro
Ricky
"I had a client once who was basically Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, loud, obnoxious, hilarious and every second word was some Maritime slang or a derivative of 'f**k.' He has been on daily eye drops for decades for dry eyes, sure ok cool. I hear screaming down the hall and run in and he's wedged against the wall and the bed just screaming 'I f**ked up boys, I dunno what the f**k is f**king happening but It's f**ked."
"Turns out he mistakenly put Jublia which is an antifungal ointment for toenails in his eye thinking it was his eye drops. The strangest part was the bottle has this miniature sponge at the end so you soak the sponge then paint it on like a gel...he painted this antifungal ointment onto his eye which immediately went red and angry then proceeded to do the other one."
"So he's at the eyewash station and I'm talking to poison control and they are pretty stunned because they have zero data on what happens to a human eyeball when it's painted in antifungal. I can hear the staff at the other end kind of snickering under her breath and she asks can you compare and contrast the eyes? Well... he put it in both eyes. The line goes silent because I can tell she is howling. Guy was totally fine but it was a standout for sure."
krzysztoflee
Will they show?
"Responded to a call of two minors being kidnapped and their parents being beaten in front of them and then taken someplace else. One was around three years and the other one was six. They were held captive in an apartment out of hundreds of residential apartments which not easy to locate, upon reaching there we found out that the boy six was just playin' with us to see if we would actually respond. Their parents were so embarrassed by all of that and vowed to not give them mobile until they are adults."
erectilereptilelol
Bowled Over
"When I was an EMT in NYC years ago we had a call for a man 'unresponsive.' We entered an upscale apartment that was a hoard: floor to ceiling newspapers and magazines, just a mess. The woman who called said her brother was in his bedroom sick."
"We entered his room and it was pretty obvious that he had already passed away. She had placed a bowl under his mouth because he had hemorrhaged which had coagulated the day before it was crazy. We asked her why she hadn’t called sooner and she said thought he’d get better?!"
"The joke around the house was 'if you have to put a bowl under a relative who is bleeding from the mouth, call 911. Don’t wait.' Never thought we’d have to advise anyone to do that. But there ya go. Also, it was Thanksgiving. Didn’t eat any cranberry sauce that year."
Sufficient-Swim-9843
God Only Knows
"Had a guy call because he had the cure to Covid and needed a ride to the local education hospital so he could share it. Dude was so high on meth He ended up having 4 or 5 binders worth of scientific looking notes. God only knows what was actually in them."
Flame5135
Wow, people really need to get a grip. Of their minds.
"Sparky"
"One of my old bosses once built a new shed in his back yard, to replace his old, worn-out one. He moved everything from the old one to the new one, then decided that the best way to remove the old one was by burning it down. He ended up with no sheds and the nickname 'Sparky.'"
Wadsworth_McStumpy
Dead in the living room...
"Paramedic here. We responded to this 54 year old having chest pain. Man was having a heart attack. Dude didn't want to go to the hospital because it too early in the day. That's it. We tried to convince him to go. Got the ER doc to talk to him and he wouldn't budge. He signed a Refusal. Later that same night, his family found him. Dead in the living room. We got to him and started CPR, meds, everything. Dude didn't make it. When we advise you to go to the hospital, go."
Chaprito
Bad Ideas
"Got called to a shooting. A guy says he received a text message from an anonymous number saying his brother has been shot. He checks all the hospitals with no luck. He goes to his brother's apartment but gets no response at his door but sees his car and can hear the TV on. We get there, attempt to get an answer at the door."
"Eventually we kick the door in to make sure he wasn't dying in his apartment. We boot the door, announce police, and find him asleep in his bed. The guy tells us that he got a new phone number and decided to mess with his brother by texting him he had been shot. He then fell asleep and forgot about the text and was woken up by us. So many wasted resources on his idiotic prank."
TheDOC816
The Swimmer
"Got called to a priority job. The caller was kayaking in a lake and said that there was an unresponsive male in the water. So off we went, lights and sirens. We requested paramedics and fire to attend as well for the rescue operation. There were about 6 emergency vehicles attending including a rescue boat. We got there within minutes and met the caller who showed us where the guy was."
"He was just swimming, minding his own business. The caller said he was unresponsive, but really he was just ignoring her. Had a chat with the guy, he seemed alright, said he swims here every day and likes the quiet. No issues. Would have been nice if the caller told the operator that he was still conscious and swimming rather than 'unresponsive.'"
amazingbecauseitis
Chew Slowly
"Well, I was taking a lady home from dialysis and she decided to eat a snickers in the back of the ambulance, and she started choking. Had to do the heimlich, and tell her to finish her food at home."
HotSoupInYourA**
If it's not a true emergency dial 311. Please.
I hated science classes.
As soon as I could I ran.
But it follows me.
Because science can be downright disturbing.
That's why I blocked out so many of the details.
Redditor Flimsy_Finger4291wanted to compare notes on all the frightening facts that are a definitive. They asked:
"What's the scariest thing that science has proven real?"
As if knowledge isn't scary enough, let's her more...
Hello Terry
"Some tumors have teeth, hair and even eyes."
Twat_Waffle_Stomp
"My sister had one minus the eyes! It was cantaloupe sized on one of her ovaries before it was found. She named it Terry the Teratoma."
Karina_is_my_cat
Hungry Bacteria
"Brain-eating amoebas."
dark_n_lovely_qu33n
"My best friend and bunk mate from summer camp died from one of those when I was in 7th grade. Happened so quickly, we were a week into camp and he got really sick. They gave us all heavy meningitis shots because they didn’t know what it was and within a few days he was dead. Turned out to be a brain eating amoeba."
"Edit: strangely enough on the same day he started getting sick one of the lifeguards that was sitting out in a boat waiting for the next group of kids for what we called Trojans Vs. Spartans day had a seizure, fell off the boat and drowned. Only deaths they’d ever had in the 50+ years the camp had been open."
Csharp27
Far Far Away
"The size of our galaxy, how many other galaxies there are and how far away they are. When you can actually see something that incomprehensible.."
Jfonzy
"The nearest star to us would take the Voyager 70,000 years to reach. The nearest galaxy to ours would take the Voyager 749,000,000 years. If we some how managed to take on the monstrous task of speed of light travel it would still take 25,000 years to reach the nearest galaxy. And it's even further apart after you read this. Wild stuff!"
ConqueredCorn
Head Changes
"How the brain is literally rewired and chemically altered by childhood neglect and abuse."
petalumaisreal
"It's genuinely kinda freaky, playing a puzzle game, and noticing how quickly you're getting better at it. The kind of puzzles that were a real blocker in the beginning become baby-easy after like an hour of playing puzzles like it."
LtLabcoat
"My sister faced horrible abuse at the hands of our father, and she has been working through it with multiple therapists over the last 10 years and she is only now starting to get her life back. I feel like she was robbed at a fair chance at life because of our a**hole father."
Pehdazur
Awake
"Prions, horrific and totally unpredictable."
geordiesteve520
"Fatal familial insomnia is a prions disease where you can't sleep anymore, you just stay awake until your brain deteriorates and you die."
DrinknEspresso
Now I can never UNKNOW about prions. Perfect.
Days gone by...
"Ageing. I'm content with death but the idea of my body growing old, frail and eventually falling apart before the end game gives me goosebumps."
EvidenceOfInnocence
Bursts
"Gamma ray bursts. No warning, no escape, no defense, no survivors."
Swampwolf42
"If you're talking about supernovas if the star isn't too close the gamma burst would probably only destroy some part of our ozone layer. And gamma radiation is actually the least lethal out of all types of waves."
Broccoli_sauce24
Sizzle
"Entropy. Time shall consume all things. Inevitable heat death of the universe."
Revolutionary_Elk420
"I personally want the 'Big Crunch' to be true. That instead of fizzling out it all gets sucked back into an infinitely small/dense particle and then another Big Bang happens. It’s my explanation for the multiverse. It’s all one timeline. Just infinitely long."
ChoppyWAL99
They're Watching
"More like a theory, the 'orangutan paradox,' when we film a documentary on orangutans, they can’t realize that we are observing them, yet they are the most intelligent species of their category, so aliens might be watching us and we are as oblivious as an orangutan."
Time_Succotash
Fade 2 Silent
"That hearing is the last sense to leave, when dying."
User Deleted
Well that is the antithesis of comfort. Life is so fun.
Ever since Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope opened on May 25, 1977, a devoted fanbase developed.
And that fanbase has opinions.
Lots and lots of opinions.
Redditor Ebo8000 wanted to know:
"What is your most controversial take on Star Wars?"
Doors
"LASERS LOCK DOORS. LASERS OPEN DOORS. LASERS KNOW WHAT YOU WANT THE DOOR TO DO."
- SlamVanDamn
"But if you get past the door and close it behind you and you don’t want anyone to follow you through it…"
"…you shoot the bloody door panel!"
- treeonwheels
"Also, f*cking hell, we're in the future (or in the past), whatever, and people have better technology."
"Why put the door control RIGHT NEXT to the door? Put the door control system in a breaker box."
"Build every door so in case of malfunction they all shut closed (after all, they're in space and you don't want to lose air in decompression, do you?)"
"Shoot the breaker box, now the whole floor is closed until someone can figure out what happened."
"Almost look like those doors just exist as dramatic elements..."
- smegma_yogurt
The Past
"I’d like a film about when the Republic was at its height. 1,000 generations is 25,000 years and we’ve had 9 movies about the last 60."
- Musickat18
The Future
"Not sure if controversial but they need to take the franchise and yeet it 200 years in the future."
"I'm tired of the Empire era where they need to justify why more than 2 Jedi and 2 Sith exist at one moment alongside knowing everything is pointless until Luke leaves the farm."
- Alandrus_sun
Design Fail? No!
"The Death Stars weren't badly designed they were just badly managed."
"Yes, designing them assuming large scale assaults was stupid given the political state of the galaxy but the second Death Star wasn't even finished so that doesn't count, it's all Palpatine's fault. As for the first one that was finished, the Alliance made three runs on the exhaust port."
"The first was called off before they made it to the trench, the second failed and the third was carried out by space Jesus which isn't exactly fair."
"All in all it sounds like a fairly effective defence when you consider the design philosophy."
- Engeneus
Cool Factor
"The entire universe has a cool factor that outweighs the atrocious storytelling."
- Ozty
"Bro imagine the following movies, but if they were in Star Wars universe."
"Magnificent 7 - A Jedi, Bounty Hunter, Ex-Imperial, Pilot, Wookie, a Droid, and Lawman team up to defend a town against pirates"
"Dredd - Two Jedi climb up an apartment block to confront a new dark side user who has mental control of the entire apartment block"
"Supernatural (T.V. Show) - A Jedi and their apprentice go around and solve and defeat Dark Side Force spots—where the Force consolidates from emotions and creates foul creatures to fight"
"Top Gun - But it's you know, Wedge or something"
"Ford versus Ferrari - But it's podracing or swoop racing"
- BoutsofInsanity
Ships
"Something about the ships in the original series always felt more like real ships than in any of the later movies, despite the objectively better effects of the later films."
"Some of this is probably the use of models (i.e. actual three dimensional objects), but I think there is some critical difference in the design that makes them feel more real (probably because they were designed to be things that would actually work as models)."
"Whatever it is, I LOVED the ships in the original series and never really liked any of the new ones."
- UnspecificGravity
"The original trilogy changed the world by showing a universe in space that was dirty and lived in. The special effects from the later movies did not recognize this."
Boba who?
"Boba Fett is an oddly overrated background character, and even after watching The Book of Boba Fett, I don’t really care about him."
- imidoesonlyfans
"He was never a character. He was a cool helmet."
- JimPlaysGames
"He was a cool jetpack too."
- RipperFromYT
Time for the weather...
"Han is actually older than Obi-Wan due to Time Dilation."
- Snowbofreak
"Time dilation in a universe where every planet and moon has the same gravity and atmosphere?"
- suman_issei
"And just 1 biome."
- DogShampoop
"That way they only need one Weather Channel per planet."
- The_Most_Superb
"And over to Klaatu for the Tatooine weather report. Klaatu?"
"It's still sunny."
- Budsygus
These are the droids we're looking for.
"Star Wars is actually the life story of C-3PO—think about it."
- jonguy77
"I disagree. I think its R2-D2's story. He had a much greater presence in Episode 1, 2 and 3, and got the same amount of screen time as C-3PO in 4, 5 and 6."
‐ MacGregor_Rose
Fan is short for fanatic.
"Fans ruined the whole franchise."
- SeaworthinessNo5209
Ouch...
So, did your controversial Star Wars opinion make the list?
Death is a subject many people shy away from because what they don't know beyond our realm of existence can be intimidating.
Hollywood hasn't helped, as movies and TV have typically portrayed death as something sinister and violent.
How could anyone be convinced death is a peaceful transition, and that what awaits on the other side is actually an unimaginable utopia?
Curious to hear strangers' thoughts about death, Redditor GoodNess2020 invoked a quote by an iconic literary figure and asked:
"Mark Twain once said, 'I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.' Why do you agree/disagree with his statement?"

People clarified what actually terrified them most about death
The Process
"I don't fear being dead. I fear dying."
– magicbluemonkeydog
"Yeah, that's usually the issue. It's why that quote doesn't mean much, to a lot of people."
"It's not a fear of eventually dying and not existing anymore. It's the act of dying itself. He didn't constantly die for all of time. He just wasn't alive."
– appleparkfive
Concept Of Loss
"To have not existed for billions of years is to have spent billions of years never knowing loss. To die is to know loss."
"If you look into a new bank account and see zero dollars, it’s nothing. If you look into a bank account that once had a million dollars and see there’s nothing in there, you’ll know it’s absence."
– -CrestiaBell
People provided an analogy to articulate what ceasing to exist must feel like.
It's About Time
"Time is only relevant to you when you are alive. He is right. Have you ever been sedated for surgery? You go under, and then instantly wake up and procedure is done.... or you died so no worries."
– 20190419
Consciousness Is Life
"You won’t be feeling anything in death though is the thing. That infinite/instant sensation was a living feeling, you just weren’t conscious for it - your body experienced it anyways. No body, no experience."
– Parradog1
Like Being Under
"That is very true, but for me, that's the closest amalgamation of what it probably feels like."
"No one can tell you what actual death will be like. It's impossible for you to experience nothingness."
"Thinking about death can be paralysing sometimes, and when I remember that the closest thing i can link as an experience I had, being put under, was actually sort of pleasant. I then think maybe death will be like that, and honestly it doesn't seem that bad."
– IamEclipse
When In Deep Sleep
"Yeah in contrast to sleep where you can actually feel like time has passed when you wake up."
– GreyFoxMe
Think Line Between Death And Slumber
"As CGPGrey puts it, your bed might very well be a suicide machine."
"Given our lack of understanding for the fundamental processes of our sentience, it's entirely possible that when you fall asleep, your mind is functionally killed, disassembled, analyzed, sorted, tweaked, and adjusted by your biology, before being reassembled when you wake. Every night."
– Mazon_Del
People opened up about their insecurities around the concept of death.
Fear Of What Comes Next
"I’m just paranoid that something does happen after death and it’s just based on one thing that you didn’t know about."
– PsychoDog_Music
The Circle Of Death
"There’s nothing to fear in oblivion. Unless, of course, your consciousness survives death. If so, it would be reasonable to fear the sensation of consciousness without senses, suspended alone in the cosmos, with no one to hear you, and no way to make yourself known. No reference point for counting time – a count that does not matter anyway in a literal eternity."
"You might wish that you still had a corporeal form, only so that you could make your mouth move to express your terror, to make the universal form of a terrified scream – the form of a letter O."
"But you won’t be able to. You just won’t!"
"This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Brought to you by shame, loneliness, and the letter..."
"O....."
– CecilSpeaksInItalics
When Faith Fails You
"what do you mean I'm going to hell?! I was a good person and attended church regularly!"
"Ah yes, but you failed to put a blue feather in your hat and then turn in circles the times praising God Almighty on the fifth Sunday after your twelfth birthday. To the pit with you!!!"
– phormix
There is an poignant episode from the Twilight Zone that brought me a sense of peace surrounding the concept of death.
Death was embodied by a handsome police officer who had been shot–played by a young Robert Redford–and begs to be let into the home of an elderly woman who had been living in perpetual fear of meeting "Mr. Death."
As the episode continues, she discovers much to her dismay that she welcomed Death into her home, but he warmly reassures her there is nothing to fear.
The episode ends with her finally offering her hand to Death after much protest, and they peacefully walk out together, arm in arm, into the light.
It was sweet and beautifully done. The 1962 episode was titled, "Nothing in the Dark."
That's how I imagine it to be.
A dashing Prince of Darkness telling me it's time to join him in guiding me to the other side.