Waking Up With Dread

So, last night I woke up with a feeling of complete dread. That deep dark fear in the back of the mind, destroying any safe sanctuary you rely on for your sanity.

I had a dream. I don’t remember what happened in that dream. I recall an old wooden beamed, type home with white walls. Maybe a forest garden next to it outside. But nothing else. I know what that dread feeling was, and I know there is nothing I can do about it. I experienced this feeling before. Whilst I was at the cinema with my wife and father-in-law. We were watching Iron Man 3 back in 2013.

It was while I was watching the final big bad fight scene. I don’t know where it came from initially. I can’t remember what was going on at the time. Although, I suppose I was thinking about death a lot for some reason. But that feeling of complete and total dread come over me. It was terrible. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t concentrate on the film. Or think properly, at all. I was stuck in my own head, not able to do anything but wait and hope it would end quickly. After a while, it passed, and I wasn’t sure whether I could watch the film again. I proved myself wrong later.

That wasn’t entirely true. I probably could have screamed and cried. But the nice guy I am didn’t want to create a scene. So, I dealt with it the only way I knew how. Ride it out. I knew it wouldn’t last forever.

It was the realisation that one day I was going to die. That, I wasn’t going to be around forever. I know everyone knows that they will die one day. But, actually knowing is a different matter. Acknowledge that information in its truest sense. The terrible notion about your life and if it’s all worth it in the end. Knowing to the full extent that you will be gone and there’s nothing you can do about it. You will be no more. I will not exist.

I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone.

The thing is, I am not afraid of death. Never have been. I have been afraid of not existing anymore. When I first started this blog. It was one of the fundamental issues I wrote about and the basis I am writing these blogs. So one day, I have something that may live on without me.

I think I know why it happened. I spoke about my late father-in-law as if he was still alive. I realised that after the fact. The wife had thanked me for doing that. But I wasn’t altogether happy about it. It wasn’t a bad thing or anything, just one of those things.

So what did I do about it? I tried to go back to sleep again. I did succeed. But, I ended up back in the same dream again. I had to change my mindset. So I got up, went into the front room and watched something on YouTube. I was still exhausted. And I ended up in and out of consciousness for the next three hours on the sofa until the wife came in and asked what was going on. I told her, and she persuaded me back to bed, and I slept soundly again.

I decided to look this up online and see if it was a thing, as it turns out. It is. I had a form of death anxiety.

Thanatophobia is the term used for people who have a fear of death. The fear of non-existence is shrouded in the same phobia though there is no authentic term for it. There are other names though the meanings of the terms have expanded or altered over the years and centuries and millenniums. These are Oudenophobia and Nihiliphobia.

Oudenophobia (from Greek ouden, meaning “nothing”) or nilophobia (from Latin nihil, meaning “nothing”) is the fear of nothing or the number 0. Oudenophobes may obsess over what happens to a person after death, since they may believe that the dead experience an eternity of nothingness. This phobia may be triggered by objects that are empty. Expecting a container to contain something only to discover that it is empty would trigger a panic attack in most people with the phobia. Oudenophobes are typically also scared of the number zero, which represents nothingness. They often get scared by instances of the number zero. When the countdown on a timer reaches zero, they panic. They may believe that their lifespan is a countdown and zero is their death, resulting in death anxiety. Oudenophobia can be treated with behavior therapy and medication.

https://phobia.fandom.com/wiki/Oudenophobia

The only things I have read that suggest any help. That I have to learn to accept it. Make my peace, medication and or therapy. Make preparations for my demise.

I have already started my preparations for it. As this is the second incident in 9 years, I think I can forgo the medication and therapy. I am not sure if I will truly accept it. But I can learn to live with it.