Death, Grief & Bereavement
The Fear Of Death
By J. Bailey Molineux
Aug 5, 2003, 21:20

Everybody is afraid of death. Because our own consciousness is the only consciousness we really know, we all have trouble conceiving of our own death. It is difficult for each of us to imagine the universe going on without us because it is our consciousness that makes the cosmos exist for us, Death is something that happens to other people, we like to tell ourselves.

The modern American attitude towards death has not been a healthy one. With our glorification of bodily pleasure and youth, we seem to fear and shun old age and death.-. In contrast to our ancestors, death is a stranger, a rarely seen event. In the past, most people had more of a first hand acquaintance with death than we do today. People died in their homes, surrounded by their families, not shunted away in an impersonal hospital. One fourth of all children died in infancy, while another fourth died by adolescence, so parents had only a fifty percent chance of seeing a child grow to adulthood. Our attitude towards death is changing, however. Death and dying are becoming respectable academic subjects, while hospice care is becoming more accepted by the medical and lay communities.

There are three different and separate death fears, each calling for a different response if the fear of death is to be reduced. The first is the fear of the actual process or event of dying. For some, the manner in which one dies is a measure of the way in which he has lived. All living is a preparation for death, so a good death is indicative of a good life.

Consequently, we are afraid that we will die in great pain, or we will be frightened, terrified and resist death, or we will "crack" during the process of dying and not die with peace and dignity. ­But recent psychological evidence suggests that this does not have to be the case. In studies of near death experiences in which people have had a close brush with death, or of cases in which people have been clinically dead but brought back to life, we are beginning to gather evidence that death, once accepted, may be a pleasant experience. Although not universal, many people in near death situations describe a sense of joy and peace they have never known before. Some also describe the perception of a light that loves and welcomes them. Whether these experiences are "proof" of an afterlife or simply explained in biochemical terms, science cannot tell. But we do know that the experiences are so beautiful that the subjects have not wanted to return to life, or have done so only reluctantly.. And they learned some things as a result of their experiences: to be more loving, to learn more about life and, above all, not to be afraid of death again.

The second fear of death concerns what happens after we die. Most people believe in an afterlife, and as long as they believe that afterlife will be pleasant or happy, they have nothing to fear. But if a person believes his or her afterlife is going to be painful or unpleasant, that he will be punished in some kind of hell, then obviously he will fear death.

The third death fear, the one that is most basic, is the fear of extinction. Death as an end of all consciousness, as a blank or nothingness, is something to fear, although if it is true, we will fear it before death but not afterwards. Studies of people who are actually near death, however - the elderly and the terminally ill - indicate that fear is not a universal or strong reaction to impending death. The famed psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, for example, has found that the terminally ill go through a series of stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – which can result in the eventual acceptance of death and a peaceful expiration. ­Studies of the elderly reveal that impending death brings more depression than fear, although some elderly actually welcome death Younger, healthier people further from death have a greater fear of death than people who are old or ill and closer to it.

From a murky distance, especially when you are young and healthy, death can be seen as a frightening event to be avoided at all costs. Up close, it may lose some of its terror. Besides, who among us would really want to live forever?

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