
The end is near! End of Days are upon us! Prepare for Armageddon! How many times have we heard all those over the years? Prediction after prediction foretold us that doom is within reach. So many gullible people have sadly given into the rhetoric. Many children had to grow up preparing for the end of humanity. Now preparation and survival skills are important but one can also go a smidge overboard. For instance....
Redditor u/taxidermied_unicorn wanted to hear how some childhoods went when the plan was always about plotting for the end of times by asking.... People who grew up with "Doomsday Prepper" parents, what was it like?
"coming wars and end times"
My mom hoards a ton of canned food everywhere in the house, along with random tools she's been told will be helpful and so many paper towels and rolls of toilet paper. The guns are another thing. Everyone in my family is content to let her do her thing and spend thousands of dollars prepping. There are so many useless things that take up a ridiculous amount of space there, all while she complained that we had too much stuff and needed to get rid of our actual belongings to make more room.
Everyone she knows gets printouts of the newsletters she's signed up for with prophecies about the end times. When I was still living at home, she'd walk into the room at random times to give me hour-long lectures about the "coming wars and end times" and how sinners are responsible for it. It was really stressful, especially because I have anxiety (which I'm sure isn't because of growing up in a paranoid atmosphere at all /s), and I still have nightmares about apocalyptic scenarios.
I've forced myself to develop a more accepting view for my own sanity, which is essentially, "There are too many options to prepare for all of them, and I don't know how much I want to survive in a post-apocalyptic world anyway, so I'm going to enjoy the time I have without stressing too much about what-ifs." Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been really helpful for dealing with the paranoia that still pops up sometimes, and I really recommend it for anybody who grew up in that atmosphere and has anxiety stemming from it. starlet25
Regular Days....
it was pretty much the same as any other normal family I assume, we just went bulk shopping every few months, the only strange-ish thing is that we'd have a week out of every month that we'd have to kind of fast, we could have a pack of raisins and a bottle of water every day and that's all. Beaudet90
The JW's....
Not quite that extreme, but I was raised JW (Jehovahs witness) they didn't have a specific date but it was always 'within the next decade, for sure', so I grew up thinking that all my non-JW friends would be dead within 10 years, which was not a pleasant thought for a 6 year old. In class I used to worry that armageddon would strike and I'd be stuck in a classroom of dead people till my parents found me. Religion. Smh. yehlas
Self-Sufficient.
I was raised Mormon. So I personally have learned how to take care of myself and trust neighbors I'd crap hits the fan. I have some food saved but the best system is to set up farms and try to have things like chickens to make more food. If the world goes under, your neighbors are very important. But I grew up with a stash of seeds in our food storage if help didn't come within the time it was out. ShadowOfEnder-YT
"Watchmen of America"
My parents didn't get into it until later in my life but in three years they have
-Built a Farm. Chickens, Turkeys, Rabbits, a goat at one point, a pig.
-stocked up on ammo, like thousands upon thousands of bullets.
-subscribed to all right wing groups possible, whether it be facebook, or the "Watchmen of America" which regularly do doomsday drills.
-tried to get me in on everything.
-are convinced Obama is the antichrist.
-listen to Glenn Beck everyday
I try to avoid all conversations about anything like that with them. It usually ends in a fight, and I do not want to hate my parents. alwert
Mostly normal.
Mostly normal. My dad just showed me what to do just in case doomsday ever came. Taught me how to camp/survive, use camo, ration food, shoot guns, and other basic survival skills. He taught me it's always better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. sevven07
Use the Bushcraft!
My uncle was a prepper. He taught me bushcraft as a fun hobby. Never really imprinting the idea of prepping. My parents were fine with that. Now, almost 12 years later, I rediscovered that hobby. He taught me a lot about navigation, improvised first aid, the ethics of survival and firelighting.
I'm not a prepper in anyway whatsoever. I don't believe it is a sustainable way of emergency survival on the scale of populations. However, if I ever find myself without a working vehicle in the middle of nowhere, I have no reason to panic, with my skillset. whatsamawhatsit
Taking Cyprus....
My folks have enough food for 3 months.
Their motivation is not to prepare for a doomsday, but for a financial collapse.
They took Cyprus as an example. There was money, but people couldn't withdrawal and buy food.
I'm planning to stock food for like 2 weeks. Who knows what can happen. I think we sometimes forget we're screwed if the supermarket doesn't have any stock.
Or a more realistic situation: when I make stupid financial decisions. Rockima
it seems so crazy to me....
My mom was/is convinced that in the apocalypse toilet paper would be as good as currency... she has an entire room in her house that is filled from wall to wall, floor to ceiling with toilet paper.... it's like a damn Costco isle.... we were/are forbidden to talk about it (because she doesn't want to be killed over it... keeps it in the down low) growing up it didn't seem weird because it was "normal" but now that I'm an adult and a mother myself.... it seems so crazy to me. txjr5
Hey Jesus...
Mormon parents. We're instructed to have seven years worth of food for when Jesus comes. The entire basement of our house was just food and water supplies. Literally stacks and piles of food and water bottles. All kinds of non-perishable goods, like freeze dried foods. My dad also always used to say "our neighbors have received the same warnings we have. If they come here looking for handouts, we're going to tell them to look elsewhere."
Edit: I'm no longer Mormon. pterodactylbros
Quakes.
I'm a bit of a prepper myself, but just to the extent of having a 2-month food and a 1-month water supply. I live in Manila, and the idea of an 8+ earthquake that wrecks the infrastructure of a metropolitan area with 13 million people is the stuff of nightmares. Advo96
Soothing Trauma....
This makes me think of the mother of a friend of mine. She had a small room off the side of the kitchen, shelves filled floor to ceiling with tins. it wasn't about 'doomsday'. She had starved as a child in Holland during WWII, aged around 5. She didn't do any other prepping, I don't believe she thought it would happen again. She was a smart, capable woman living a continent away from Holland by the time I met her. I suspect the tins were a psychological safety net, a way of soothing childhood trauma. blackcloudcat
"just in case"
Dad wasn't a full on doomsday prepper, but he was a paranoid schizophrenic. He had a stock of MREs that I had now and then. They weren't bad. Also canned ensure back when it came in cans. Also learned a lot about stuff like maintaining salt after sweating, dad used to have me lick a teaspoon of salt after our walks.
Tons of flashlights and batteries in the house. I remember him teaching me how to use a gas mask "just in case." We live in upstate NY, so yeah not exactly a war zone. He had a generator just in case the power went out (honestly not a bad idea because he lived in a place where winter could get pretty hairy). I will say Y2K had him totally spooked.
We used to joke that he was Burt from Tremors minus the guns. Chazkuangshi
For its milk.....
Bottles and bottles and bottles of water in the garage. My mom bought the bulk packages from Costco and stuffed them there; I wouldn't be surprised if there were over a hundred plastic containers in there.
The "the world's gonna end" panic-mentality mostly comes from my mom's side, and it usually happens in waves. Things will be chill for a while, and the all of the sudden packages with no-electricity hand-crank radios and portable generators will show up at our door.
She claims that she makes "ambient purchases" while half-asleep, but I think she really just that paranoid.
A few times, she's mentioned buying a cow. For its milk. Incase we're forced to live off the land or whatever, so we can still have milk. And after explaining to her that no, we absolutely do not have the room or faculties to take care of a whole-ass cow, she starts up with the same line of questioning, but asking if we can get a goat instead. We don't even have a front or backyard. InvisibleMurderChild
Find the Surplus.
My dad stocked textiles, toiletries, non-perishables, and water to an extreme amount. Our entire basement was basically a bunker. It could be locked from the inside at both the top and the bottom of the stairs, and we had huge drums of potable water that probably stood to about stomach-high on me now as an adult. We also kept old 2-litr bottles (old pepsi bottles) for non-potable that we stacked like wine on heavy shelves, as well as rice and dried beans in vacuumed sealed containers. He was constantly buying things at old surplus outlets.
Gas masks, iodide tablets, rucksacks, etc, and taught us how to make bullets using a shell-cleaner and powder packer. Like that one poster above mentioned, we also typically had about every few weeks a few days where we ate next to nothing, and were taught a lot of both local and non-local plants that could be edible (clover, acorns, dandelion, etc) and how to prepare them, as well as things that could be health-beneficial (clover, cherry bark, mullein, etc) and how to prepare them.
We rarely got to go hunting, because of where we lived at the time, but he did teach us how to set various snares and traps, like figure fours and pitfalls, and any time one of our traps succeeded, he would use it as an opportunity to teach us how to clean and prepare meat not just for that day, but how to cut and dry it for future use. I have to say, knowing how to brain-tan a rabbit skin is not something I ever expected to come up in conversation as an adult as much as it actually does! nxtstagee
To the Bones....
I learned how to hunt when I was six. For my eleventh birthday, I learned how to make a bow and arrow with the contents of my hiking kit and caught a rabbit for lunch. I was then shown how to use said rabbit's bones and internal organs to fish, and we had trout and perch for dinner.
My dad is of the mind that doomsday preppers who just stockpile food are idiots, because even if they survive the apocalypse all they're doing is turning themselves into particular fat swines for the inevitable bandits to look for. Better to be able to hunt and gather food.
My doomsday "kit" is just a bugout bag in my walk-in pantry. TemptCiderFan
7 Years.
We were always too poor to fully prepare for the end times although my mom still believes they are coming. Fun fact, if you don't have food storage of your own create a map of all the mormons in your town so when crap goes down you can take theirs! This was actual advise from my mother.
She grew up in Utah and it's a well known fact that mormons are supposed to hold onto 7 years of food storage at all times in case of jesus. It was also a plot point in an S.M. Stirling post apocalyptic novel that a group of people stumbled across an abandoned mormon house which set them up nicely for food for a bit. So yeah, make a mormon friend for the end times. coffeetish
No Christmas.
I grew up southern Baptist. We were taught that the rapture was going to happen any day. Every night I was afraid to go to sleep because I might be raptured before I woke up. I wasn't going to get to grow up, get married or have children. As I went through my teenage years, I didn't plan for my future as I should have because we weren't going to be here next year. My mother never bought Christmas wrapping paper on sale because next Christmas wasn't going to come.
If I knew then what I know now, I would have done many things differently. notableea
Canned Plans.
My parents aren't doomsday preppers by any stretch of the imagination, but we did live in an area where getting to the grocery store would be difficult if it snowed in. As such, we always had a pantry full of home-canned stuff that we made together, and a huge vat of sauerkraut we make once a year when I go home for Christmas. notadoctor123
Bunker Down.
My father had crates full of non perishable food, camping gear, gas cookers. you name it, he had it.
he stored that in a "bunker" he built, which was really just a big anderson shelter. TheSoviet-Union
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.