I've been feeling a lot of existential dread lately because well I'm going through a changing part of my life because I'm going to Uni and turning 18 soon which is crazy to me because I didn't expect it to come this quickly then I've just been thinking about the future and when I die.

And like I get it enjoy your life and all but I can't help but just thinking about it and it doesn't help knowing that at the end the universe will just die and become an empty abyss before I'd think about getting reincarnated in another conscious being on another planet or in the same planet but knowing that the universe just ends means that at some point I wont be able to reincarnate anymore. Like I know how to deal with the sun dying we just move to another planet and so my consciousness will move to that other planet but when life dies and the universe ends where does it go?

I like the idea of Roger Penrose's theory of CCC meaning that the universe is infinite and basically is ever scaling and ever rebirthing itself but even still there isn't much evidence to support its legitimacy.

So why am I obsessed about being reincarnated? Well, its because I like the idea of life and living it again going through childhood learning things and just doing it over and over again and just re-experiencing life. Like you don't know anything about your past life but you experience life again and again and its not the same life again but just you experiencing life again (if you get what I mean) idk I just find it comforting.

However, knowing that after death there may be nothingness for all eternity idk I cant live with that and I cant live without having answers to what happens after death because we just don't know and I've all ways comforted myself by basically telling myself that this isn't real or that I can do this and that to change something I'm not happy about and usually I'll have facts to support it but when it comes to death I Just can't bear it because there is no answers and the answers are infinite and almost all of them contradict each other

Tbh now I just want to forget about it and move on and continue to be happy but I just can't help but think about it heck I could be just watching a cartoon and like someone comically dies in the cartoon even though in the next episode they'll be alive all I can think about is just death and the end of the universe honestly I'm sick of it and all I want to do is move on and get some help.

So I guess all I want right now is just someone to comfort me and heck maybe show their theories of what happens after death or something. I just want to feel better now.

I posted this in another reddit but I'll also post it here just in case there isn't much help from the first place I posted this.

So I'm basically a shut-in and browse reddit nearly all day and man is this site a dumpster fire of the most negative shit imaginable a lot of the time. I constantly see nihilists, misanthropes, pessimists, etc and their statements are just drilling into my brain like a parasite, and I can't seem to shake them off.

I started having derealization in August 2019 and everything started with nihilism, which I eventually solved by reading about existentialism. Still despise nihilists though. A bit after that the whole free will thing fucked me up for a good while, though compatibilism gave me peace. Everything stayed quiet for a while, but nowadays all the nondualism and "life is suffering" stuff is my struggle and they don't really seem to have any opponents I can read up on, and man especially the latter is everywhere and though I don't agree with nor understand them, their pessimism really just latches onto me and I can't shake it off. Especially with how assertively they constantly claim it's the truth.

I'm just so tired of all this garbage, wish I could go back to pre-August 2019 mentally.

This may sound like a new age bullshit but the meaining of life is to just live and enjoy the present moment, if u feel anxiety just take a deep breaths and realize you are here with your body in the present no matter how you feel and what thoughts you are thinking. You will be alright and realise that everything is infinite and is meaningfull.

PS : TRY SPIRITUALITY IF U REALLY NEED ANSWERS :) just my tip nothing more.

that is all.

I keep feeling angry to have been born just to contribute to the rat race. Trying to make money to survive. If we're sentenced to this life, I feel we should get a fair say in how we spend it. Many will say that we do control our destiny, which is true to an extent. But how can I drop everything to pursue a life I desire without working to pay bills? A persistent question lately.

Happy New Year everyone

I’m generally neurotic and very anxious, I’m wondering if any books helps you guys at all? Maybe Buddhist philosophy?

As a young woman I feel like aging is especially weird. I’ve been the baby of my family, baby of all my friend groups and I’ve always dated older guys it feels so weird to no longer be super young. All my friends are now in their very late 20s and I’m almost in my mid 20s. I’m still really immature, have no idea what I want to do with my life and honestly I still sleep with a stuffed animal every single night because it helps with my anxiety. I don’t feel prepared to be in my mid 20s. I need more time. When I was young everything felt SO slow and I was convinced I’d have my youth forever. Turning 23 was a wake up call, now I can’t stop thinking about aging and my body deteriorating and how I’m losing more and more of my “value” as a woman because I’m losing my youth. What a scary and awful thing. Months and years go by SO fast before I know it I’ll be in my 50s

Over aging though, I fear death so much more. It’s in the back of my mind at all times and distracts me from school work and hobbies. The idea of an eternal afterlife is equally as terrifying to me as complete ceasing to exist. Both of these outcomes make me want to puke. I didn’t exist millions of years until now but that thought doesn’t soothe me at all. I really hope reincarnation is real.

Last night I was reading about recounts from those who died for a few minutes and came back and each story sounded so horrifying, even the ones that described death as “comforting” like a warm blanket. I also found an article discussing consciousness after death and some anecdotal evidence shows that people still have consciousness for a bit after their brain and body dies, this made me breakdown and I had to spend the rest of the evening away from my computer doing breathing excerscies

I can’t stop thinking about how desire is the root of human suffering, I am materialistic, preoccupied with youth and wanting to live forever instead of appreciating the life I was blessed with.

Are there any books or movies or websites that helped ease your existential woes?

To me it almost seems like most people ignore reality and take the approach of “don’t think about it”. The problems is, some people like myself just can’t do that. It’s impossible for me. So I guess we’re cursed?

Human life is just absurd to me. Just being an animal. I started having these depersonalized sort of views after I questioned my religion and became atheist/agnostic a couple years ago. I also started smoking weed again for the first time since I was a teenager around that time. I’ve been sober for months now and those views are exactly going away. I don’t even know if it’s depersonalization but just reality. I think cannabis just kind of helped me realized the weirdness of existence. So did delving into philosophy beyond Christianity.

We’re just passengers in these weird bodies. Couldn’t you say we’re slaves to them in a way? I don’t necessarily believe we’re bereft of any agency, but there’s certainly many things out of our hands. We’re basically living dust on the scale of the cosmos. Smaller than dust lol. We don’t know anything about the universe really everything is a mystery so there’s no comfort there. I’ve also been depressed like many people are about being stuck at home. Really feeling alone in the universe. Which we are as individuals. Condemned to be alone on our island universes. Sad about not having sex which just adds to the depersonalization. I’m a weird alien that gets depressed when one of my alien organs doesn’t get touched by another alien. Like wtf. Everything is just weird.

Nothing is certain. Except death I guess. And everything is weird.

I should mention I don’t always focus on this stuff. I’ve been getting sort of better at finding ways to just lean into my subjectivity which I think might be the only antidote for what I experience when I get down and start thinking too much. But damn. When I do start thinking it can be really freaky and weird. Cuz I do believe those weird thought are true and not exactly wrong. I know a lot of people love Camus but “imagine Sisyphus happy” doesn’t do it for me. That’s sounds like ignoring reality to me. Maybe I’m wrong and don’t know enough about his work but idk.

Sometimes I wonder how it’s possible to be happy and simultaneously be aware of the burden of existence.

Edit: I should say these thoughts have been coming up a lot lately due to current events in my life like I said the virus and isolation, lack of intimacy, also I’m in California where fires are raging and it feels like everything could just be incinerated, the sun is an ominous red, also my dog is near death. Everything just sucks

Not sure if this is necessarily existentialism or not, but recently I've been struggling more and more each day with the fear that i will one day not exist, it is not so much a fear of death, although i am worried about that happening separately, it is more the inevitability of death, and no longer existing as a conscious entity that terrifies me.

I used to be ok with this thought, as i have had it at various points growing up but have always gotten past/over it and been able to get on with day to day life, but for some reason at the minute i can't get the thought and fear out of my head and it has made everything seem pointless in comparison.

I think i just want someone who has similar thoughts to talk to to get an outside perspective on this, as right now I am alone with these thoughts and just keep getting more and more wound up.

Edit:

Some of the things I've thought about in this regard include:

• not existing after death will be like what it felt like before i was born (so at least i know that if i don't exist it won't matter to me, but whilst that is some comfort it doesn't help with dealing with the here and now)

• maybe there is an afterlife, or reincarnation or something, and that there will be something more or other.

• I think the biggest thing that scares me is the inevitability of it, that as time ticks constantly forwards, I will eventually get to the point when i die, and there is nothing i can do to stop it, and that even if i could (say was functionally immortal, id still eventually come to the end of the universe and either end with it or spend eternity in nothingness - functionally the same thing i guess)

It started with a question. I asked myself, "are there any convictions I currently have that I could be wrong about?" So I went through my beliefs one by one and found that I could find reasons to doubt each of them. Of course it was easy to doubt the existence of god. But I also started to doubt that the external world existed, that I could trust my memories, that I existed through time. The question of free will was completely written off, as I didn't know what the word "I" even meant. Any notion of value seemed dubious. What was "right" and "wrong", "good" and "bad?" Within the space of 2 hours, I went from a well functioning teenager to someone who lost all hold of reality.

I fell into a deep depression. The thing that affected me the most was not being able to find any meaning or value in the world. I couldn't find any reason to do anything.

I barely got passing grades my senior year of high school. I couldn't work. Some days I felt fine, but some days I literally couldn't move. I had moments where people were talking to me, and I'd just stare at them without even the smallest feeling that I should respond. Or sometimes I'd find myself moving, but randomly. I have at least a couple journal entries where the writing started out normal, but by the end it was just random lines on the page.

I was fucked up for about 5 years. But eventually... I got better. I studied philosophy in college because I really couldn't think about anything else. What started as a desperate need to answer questions that were literally ruining my life, turned into more of an academic interest. Some of the questions that bothered me had good answers actually. But for the other questions... they just didn't bother me so much eventually. I made friends, spent more time with other people. I did sports. Slowly I learned to care about things.

David Hume (my favorite philosopher) has this lovely quote that summarizes my experience:

“Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? ... I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends. And when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”

It's really easy to feel like you will always be fucked up, that you're stuck. I don't know the statistics, but if I were to guess, I'd say more likely that you will not always feel the way you do now.

If any part of that story connected with you, and you want to have a chat I'd be happy to. I'd be happy to get into the weeds on any philosophical worries you have too. Feel free to send me a message.

Like, are you fucking kidding me? That’s the best you can do? Don’t take life too seriously? Rewritten, ‘don’t take life too seriously’ is ‘if you care, you’ll hurt.’

I really just can’t believe that. The central conceit of modern society is that we should care and act and try to make the world a better place, yet we shouldn’t care enough that it destroys us. Well I guess I went a little too far left on that balancing act.

This is a quiet sub, but here goes anyway. I hope someone somewhere understands what I'm trying to put to words.

Does anyone else feel sheer terror at the fact anything exists at all? Using logic and rational thinking, none of anything we know or feel makes sense. How is everyone ok with this? Is it just that they haven't truly realised how nonsensical all of this is yet?

I've had a couple of existential episodes in my life that have centered around the meaning of my own existence, but the most recent one is more about existence itself and was brought on by a severe panic attack. I'm not sure I'll ever be the same again after this. I feel like I've opened a door to something I shouldn't in my mind, as dramatic as that sounds.

I had been through severe stress for a few years and was living on my nerves. One night I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time and brought on this sense of doom that I haven't been able to shift since. It obviously wasn't the film that caused this, but it was the worst thing I could have watched in that state of mind. It made me feel that humanity is pointless, and in fact reality is pointless. It's without meaning or explanation or understanding.

The next 2 months were a series of attempts from my mind to try to grip on to something, but when you realise that nothing makes any sense it's difficult to believe in anything at all.

I ended up in the emergency ward and my doctors a few times but they say I'm just experiencing panic attacks. No shit!

I used to enjoy reading theories and science news and philosophy, I used to enjoy sci-fi and dystopian games, but now it all causes severe dread. Thinking about the vastness of space and the smallness of the quantum world makes me feel uneasy. The only thing that stops the dread is being out in nature.

I used to be an atheist, but since this episode I've realised that the only thing that can get me through without having a panic attack is the faith that something somewhere has a plan or a reason for creating the universe. It's not enough to "just get on with life" or "just forget about it". I can't. I totally understand why people are religious now. How can all of this come from nothing and have no purpose?

I'm in my 30's now and was hoping to go back to uni and have children, but now I fear bringing life in to the world because it seems like a sick game of some sort.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reality when I'm not having a panic attack every other day, but then I'll remember that none of this makes sense and bang! I'm shaking and feeling ill to my core.

I don't know how to end this. Thanks to anyone who gets this far :)

It's getting so bad I can barely handle it. I have developed a fear of coincidences. Whenever anything that can be perceived as a coincidence, my irrational thoughts make me believe it's a message to me. A sign I'm in a simulation and I am the only one that is real. Not only that, but seeing random triggering words like simulation, eternity, death, etc it makes me think the same thing. Among other things. I get terrified of the weirdest things. Recently, people's eyes scare me. They look so weird and fake all of a sudden. Whenever someone relates to me on an insane level (for example, someone of this sub speaking my EXACT thoughts and fears), I get super anxious and am once again considering it a sign. Like whatever is torturing me in this simulation, whatever put me here is fucking with me. And, I sometimes feel like I am waiting for something surreal, something insane to happen to break my illusion of reality. It scares the ever living shit out of me

This all started from severe death anxiety, which developed into this existential ocd. Both combined. I have had hints of these 'no one else is real' thoughts when the death anxiety started, though. I understand it is irrational but my anxiety believes it anyways.

Am I going fucking crazy?

I cant stop thinking about the people i love dying, and not only never being able to see them again, but also the idea that their minds will be gone.

Their memories will disappear. The times we spent together, the fun, the love we shared, they wont feel it anymore. Their dreams will die with them. Everything they hoped theyd be will never come true. They wont know it, they wont feel it, but I cant stop thinking about it. They won't be worried about the failure I may become, but they'll also never know if ive made something of myself.

I cant handle the idea right now and its giving me a constant feeling of panic. I dont know how to handle it

This is from the website. https://vincentwylai.wordpress.com/freedom/ This is an excellent site with fantastic articles I found incredibly insightful and an thoroughly enjoyable read, check him out guys:

There is a pervasive misconception which tends to obscure the theory of existentialism in the minds of those uninitiated. This missed impression soaks it through—weaving itself between its fibers, filling every pore—until the very act of reflecting on the nature of our existence appears itself something ghastly; hideous and sickening, toxic to the mind. People unfamiliar with the unadultered characteristics of existential philosophy tend to believe the discipline to be some kind of “philosophy of darkness”—where troubled minds go to be troubled minds. They think existentialism a cynical defeatism—a school of thought which would lead its students to lose sight of purpose in living and dying, and thus to surrender themselves to a host of grim sensibilities. They equate it with nihilism—with the rebellion of troubled teens, and with a spiraling plunge away from the light of all things good and sane.

It appears to me that, in general, these assumptions and beliefs are formed upon a set of shallow preconceptions—upon second-hand or second-rate information. Indeed, in his unfamiliarity, the common man is disposed to believe the existentialist to preach a hopeless, meaningless, fruitless existence; one in which nothing can truly be accomplished. That we—the human race—should just sit around and mope and die because none of it means anything anyway.

When framed in such a fashion, it’s only natural that one’s immediate reaction should be a kind of violent rejection—after all, what kind of person would willingly choose to invest in such a philosophy? People want to be happy, after all—and I, at least, have never seen how such a nihilistic attitude could ever lend itself toward achieving that goal.

Existentialism is not nihilism.

It is, in fact, a great injustice to conflate the two schools of thought, for they are—in truth—the most bitter of mortal enemies. Existential theory has never concerned itself with the contemplation of a meaningless existence. It has always, instead, only ever been concerned with the lack of inherent meaning in existence—and thus, with how as mortal men we might be able to move forward after coming to that understanding.

Existentialism is not the place where troubled minds go to be troubled minds. Existentialism is the place where troubled minds go in order to seek salvation.

The state of mind which is conducive to suicide is not necessarily one of mental illness. More fundamentally, before we even reach that point of discussion, it is first one in which the appeal of the acts of living and dying have been reversed.

Life is joyful. It represents possibility and opportunity. So long as you live, after all, there exists yet still infinite potential. Many things may still be experienced, and many things may yet be found to be pleasant. Thereafter, death represents the disappearance of these things: the final evaporation of possibility.

Whenever such a time comes, however, that the appeal of life begins to fade, the prospect of death shall become all-the-more alluring. Even when life has lost its joyful luster—even when it no longer offers the promise of pleasure and possibility—the meaning of death shall remain ever-constant. When life promises no more joy—only tears and struggle and strife and pain—death still offers what it always has: the evaporation of all things. Death stands forever fastened in place: the only permanent fixture by means of which one may seek to attain freedom from life. To one whom life denies new possibilities, death represents one final novelty. The potential to discover lasting peace—one final, eternal release.

To Camus, suicide represents the most fundamental of philosophical questions: one which must be asked and answered before any other may come to mind. What, after all, could be more fundamental to the nature of human existence than the simple question of whether or not we should continue to exist at all?

With respect to this question of suicide, Camus makes the assertion that there is no logical correlation between it and an affliction with a meaningless existence. Why, after all, should the simple fact that you have no reason to live mean that you should die? Does the simple fact that nothing motivates your existence mean, somehow, that you should stop existing? If you deign to answer that question with a yes, then I would ask you to answer the next, paying careful attention not to pose an argument of circular logic:

How? And why?

Once you’ve reached that point—the point at which you’re willing to cast away your life—is there really anything left in the world that you can’t do? If you were willing to commit yourself to death—to offer everything you are in exchange for a chance at eternal release—then what power on earth could be left to constrain you? What is it that remains which could prevent you now from rising up against that pale, bleak world—that could stop you from waging rebellion against it and seizing everything which you once believed could only ever belong in your wildest dreams?

 “If nothing matters, then it shouldn’t really matter so much to me that nothing matters. Right?”

Shouldn’t that discovery be exhilarating—the realization that nothing in the world can ever hold you back again?

What Camus offers us is a taste of the ultimate freedom: the understanding that existence is, in itself, nothing but a sheer absurdity. He offers us freedom from hope—from having to strive toward some distant, unreachable ideal, and from seeking the things for which we have always been told that we should be seeking.

Freedom from ourselves… and freedom from everything.

Don't force the thought away. Don't try and stop it. Acknowledge it. If you try and force them to stop, they will just come back full force. You know that. What you need to do is acknowledge the thought, the thought which you have thought thousands of times a day that terrifies you, and say to yourself:

"Okay, I have had this thought before. It does worry me, and I want answers, but I don't have one. No one has the answer. Thinking about it over and over will not create an answer. I have already thought about it before, I already let it scare me, and I have already concluded there isn't an answer. There is no point thinking about it any further then."

This is a bit long, you don't need to remember it word for word, make your own version. The key is reminding yourself that you've already had the thought before and that thinking about it further does NOTHING therefore causing further anxiety and panic and suffering for yourself on a thought you already suffered over makes no sense. You've suffered enough over it. You already got scared over it. What's the point of getting scared over the same thought repeatedly? It didn't get any scarier. You just keep scaring yourself.

I have OCD, so I understand it's hard to stop the obsessive thoughts. Trust me, I get it. You probably read this thinking, "If I could stop them that easily I wouldn't be in this fucking situation!" I thought that too. This helped me a bit. Try it out guys. Tell me how it goes. And good luck managing ❤️

Going to keep this short and sweet; I am constantly aware of time passing as fast as my consciousness can process it. Microsecond by microsecond. Constantly. It's so unnerving and sometimes panic-inducing. It's like being aware of breathing but with time passing. I've tried meditation, upped my antidepressants, and started taking NAC, but nothing seems to help. I'm starting to lose hope. It makes it so hard to focus on anything.

Lately I've been having this doomed feeling at least once a day. It's an extremely intense feeling that jolts me awake when I'm falling asleep, sends a bolt of energy through me when I'm awake. It's fear and anxiety. It's a panic attack. It's as if a first person video game character suddenly realizes they're a video game character. I become hyperaware of the fact that I'm conscious and sentient and alive, and that I don't know what's happened before me and I won't know what happens after me. It's a realization that I'm going to grow old, that I'm getting older every day. It's a catastrophic sensation that takes over for a split moment; sometimes it lingers and sometimes I'm just left with fatigue and sadness. It tends to come around when I think too much about death, have a really good time with family, or think about my grandfather's passing.

I'm so terrified of dying. Well, more like terrified of not being alive anymore. I'm terrified of this ending. Not knowing what's going to happen afterwards, not having my friends or family, not knowing who Im going to be again, if I ever am someone else, terrifies me. Reincarnation terrifies me. I'd almost rather an eternal black coma, like when we sleep. What if I come back as someone in a war torn state or city? What if I come back as someone who has been sold into sex trafficking? What if I come back as a murderer or a pedophile or a rapist? I wouldn't have my mom, or my boyfriend, or my friends, or my dog, or my job, or my car. Who would I be, if we do come back?

Im afraid of dying alone, and transitioning to wherever I might go, alone. I want to believe that I'll still be me after I die, that I'll live my life over again, maybe, or end up in my happiest state for eternity. Like a dream. But that seems too good to be true.

I'm so terrified and I don't know how to make the attacks stop. Some days I can talk about death and not get the sensation, but it's been almost every day now for a week. I don't know how to describe it but if you think you have felt similarly to my experience please let me know. I've never felt more alone in something, and would love to know more about how I've been feeling.

My boyfriend has been experiencing an existential crisis for a bit now but recently it’s gotten way worse. He says he lives in constant anxiety and dread. He explained to me that it’s the issue of “we’re nothing before birth and then nothing after death”. He gets really tripped up over the thought of what he sees and experiences in life and how it could be completely different or even nonexistent. He feels pressured to fill every ounce of his time doing something meaningful or productive because he’s so paranoid of wasting his life. He’s going to therapy now and is starting to open up about it to his therapist and his dad. We’re going to see how much that helps and if he needs a bit more specialized help we’ll get it for him. Anyways, I try my best to understand him and comfort him but sometimes I just have no idea what to say. Often times touching him and rubbing his back helps him with the disassociation he experiences. I was just wondering if there were other things I can try doing that helped one of you guys. I just want to do my best in comforting him, thanks.