
Our gut feeling is really there as a means of survival. Sense of danger is one of our few evolutionary holdovers from when we were just surviving as animals in the wild, and it serves us well to this day.
If we heed its advice it will generally keep us safe. That's the whole point of a gut feeling, and sometimes, the accuracy with which gut feelings come to us is insane.
When u/No-Hovercraft-1788 asked:
When was your "gut feeling" actually right?
Plenty of people had stories to share.
Just A Psychic Stroke Of Good Luck
"It was 1995, I was 18, still living with my parents, and I was walking home from a friends house at about 2:00 am in the middle of the summer. He only lived 5 or 6 blocks away, and we often hung out watching movies after I got off work."
"Usually I would drive to his house because we'd been out with other friends, but this night I had parked at home and we walked to his place."
"There's not usually a lot of traffic between our houses, but this night I was about halfway home when a pickup truck drives by with 2 guys in the cab and 2 in the bed."
"I immediately felt like I was in danger. I saw the truck turn the corner, and I dove over some hedges in the closest yard I could find. I hid under them."
"I saw the truck come back around the corner and slowly drive down the street. When it got to where I was hiding, I heard one of the guys say, 'Where did he go?'"
"And another respond that he didn't know. They kept driving, and I didn't see them again. I stayed hidden for a good 15 minutes before getting up and running the rest of the way home."
"I'm certain they would have jumped me if they found me."-rhyza99
Final Destination 2 Eat Your Heart Out
"Driving in Pittsburgh. I stop at a red light. Hill goes up on my left, downhill on my right. Poor visibility to the left. The light turns green, but my brain tells me 'Hey bud wait a sec.'"
"I think this is a little weird, but I don't go yet. A millisecond later, a massive navy blue F-350 comes barreling downhill through the intersection from my left, blowing past the red light at about 45, then trundles down the hill."
"If I'd have gone, I would have been destroyed by 3 tons of Ford truck, for sure. Instead I trusted the spider-sense."-Cutter9792
It's best to listen to our gut feeling because it very well may keep us alive.
Why We Don't Envy Women
"I stopped at Home Depot to pick up an item so I knew it was going to be a quick trip. I'm in the store and notice I'm pretty much the only girl in there besides employees."
"I couldn't find what I was looking for and had to ask multiple employees before I found it."
"I check out and as I'm heading out to my car I notice a shady dude standing against a tree on one side of my car. On the other side of my car is another shady guy sticking his arm outside of his car window."
"When I walked out they both turned and stared at me. My heart dropped, I started to feel queasy, and my mind instantly knew to turn around and go inside."
"I stood there shaking at the front of the store until I could get the courage to ask an employee to walk me to my car."
"As soon as they saw me walking out with an employee, the guy standing by the tree walked around my car and into the drivers side of the car parked next to me. To this day I swear I was a short walk away from being kidnapped."-gracious-bodacious
The Worst Kind Of Gut Feeling
"Used to work in the ER. Had a man come in with ripping chest pain that started not but 30 minutes prior after he moved something heavy at his office."
"I knew he was going to die just by looking at him. Massive overwhelming dread just seemed to engulf me."
"I did his EKG and I hoped something would be wrong with it so we could get him a bed. His EKG was perfect. Not 5 minutes later he went into cardiac arrest on our waiting room floor."
"After running the code for 45 minutes, he didn't make it. He had a massive aortic dissection. There wasn't much hope."
"This was almost 3 years ago and I've seen more sh*t since then, but the memory is still burned in my mind, and it hurts knowing I was the last person to speak to him."-hannahatl
Made All The Difference
"Back when I was about 10 or 11 I asked my mother if we could take my grandmother out to lunch. She was kind of against it, but I kept insisting that I really wanted to see my grandmother and that she would want to go to lunch that day."
"While we were out at the mall after getting lunch with my grandmother, she started slurring her speech and became extremely confused. She was having a stroke."
"Luckily, my mom noticed what was going on and got her to the hospital within 20 or 30 minutes. Doctors said they were able to stop the stroke and she came out of it basically the same as she was before."
"Couple days after the fact, my mom told me I had basically saved my grandmother's life by making sure we went out to lunch with her that day."-DargoSun92
Creepfest Alert
"I had been living and working in Korea, and one day I was coming up out of a subway station and saw a man talking to another foreign woman."
"She had that polite, frozen smile on her face - the why-is-this-guy-talking-to-me smile. I walked up to her, linked my arm with hers, and said 'Hey, Sarah! There you are! Are you ready to go?' And just started walking."
"The guy followed us, but I sped up, and made an abrupt turn into a coffee shop. We hid, and I saw him walk past, still looking for her."
"We ended up getting coffee and chatting for a bit, and I found out that he had followed her off the train, and had been getting increasingly aggressive for the last ten minutes. I don't know what might have happened, but I'm really glad I interfered!!"-Alma_knack
Reddit Users Share Their Best 'It's A Small World After All' Experience
Saving The Day Again, Medical Heroes
"Helped a victim of human trafficking get to a shelter."
"Context: I was a medical student at the time (now a resident) and the city my school was in is a hub for human trafficking. I noticed a patient in the ER who had a pretty bad injury to her face was with a sketchy looking guy who was not related to her."
"She wasn't my patient, but I brought my gut feeling up to her doctor who then made up some excuse to talk to the patient alone and got her to help. I never talked to her myself, but I couldn't shake the vibe I got from looking at her and the man she was with."-PMME_ur_lovely_boobs
A Beautiful Coincidence
"When I was a kid, I was doing my first ever deep clean of my bedroom getting rid of old clothes and toys and such. While cleaning out my closet, I found an old picture cut out from the local newspaper of Lyndon Johnson visiting my parent's home town."
"The picture was taken outside with some locals in the background. I was going to throw the picture away, but suddenly got the strongest feeling not to do it, so I set it aside."
"Later I showed it to my mom and asked her about it. She freaked out and showed my grandma, who also freaked out."
"Turns out one of the locals in the background of the picture was my grandpa. He died when my mom was 12. That picture was one of only a handful we had of him."
"I had never seen a picture of him before this. I was so glad I didn't throw that clipping away."-Affectionate-Rush893
Bear In Mind
"Was with my mom in the woods in eastern Quebec. I heard something break a rather large branch just over the hill maybe 50m away."
"I told her we have to leave right away because I think it's a bear. She tells me how no bears been in area for 20 years."
"She listens to me anyways and we go back down the mountain and home. Next day a bear was hit by a car just on other side of mountain."-throwmeinthecanal
A Crash Course
"There was one day I panicked really hard about going to university. Not sure for what reason, nothing special happened. But it was correct, the bus did crash into another car, right before the station."
"Unfortunately I had been forced to go anyway by Mother. Hit my head in the bus' windshield, went to my Statistics Course with blood everywhere in my hair (and some poorly cleaned glass shards) because no one told me, until the Statistics teacher herself called the University's medical team on me (was sitting first rank because I don't see well from far away)."-Isotheis
Beware Of Men
"Two times with older guys when I was a teenager. Friend and I were with my family camping. There was this really cute older guy camping by himself."
"He invited us over to his campfire and we talked for a bit. Then he invited my friend and I into his camper. We were probably about 12 or 13 at the time. She wanted to go in but I started shaking uncontrollably and refused."
"I wouldn't leave until she came with me. I have no confirmation that he had bad intentions but looking back I can't imagine they were good."
"Then when I was 15 this cute older waiter asked me for my number. First time it ever happened to me so I was super geeked."
"He called and we talked a few times but he only wanted to see me again if he could come to my house with no one else home."
"I ended up going back up to the restaurant to see him again and I had another one of those uncontrollable shaking moments. Got so bad I just left."
"Turned out he was in my state working as a waiter because he fled his state due to legal troubles. Not to mention he clearly only wanted one thing and I was 15."-craponapoopstick
Working Conditions Matter
"Last time I was hired for a job. Had it during the final interview with my soon-to-be boss. My gut told me to gtfo even though everything about that job seemed great."
"To be fair, in the first few days is was, but then the reality of how poorly organized everything is came crashing down on me and my enthusiasm for working in a toxic environment that was being fueled by boss's incompetence was gone. Ended up quitting after two months."-papajohnny13
"Just A Friend"
"A few years back I was dating a girl who went camping with 'a friend' for a couple weeks, I didn't mind cause I trusted her. But I started to get a gut feeling she was cheating on me while she was gone."
"Shortly before she was supposed to come back into town she called and dumped me over the phone. (Bonus points since I had literally just had brain surgery that she didn't bother to come back into town for.) Edit: Should say dumped me for him."-scipio0421
The Worst Gut Feeling TO Be Right
"I was 11 and was in my primary school's after school care (it's a program kids would do after school when their parents couldn't pick them up straight after school finished)."
"We had been playing and I had suddenly gotten a sick feeling in my stomach that I had never experienced before in that way. Asked the workers to call my mum to pick me up earlier than usual."
"As she arrived at the door i remember looking at her as she received a phone call. It was a phone call to say my father had died."-kcalexx
So now you know-your gut always has good ideas. If you follow it, you will figure out what you need to do.
You may very well change the course of your live or someone else's life, as well.
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.