Do you believe that any fear we have is founded in the fear of death?

I think it has to do more with the fear of uncertainty

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”- Lovecraft

I don’t think so. I fear dying poorly, if that makes any sense. My fear is more related to dying and not getting to say goodbye to loved ones. If they don’t know what happened to me I’d be really bummed.

I’m not afraid of death, at all. When I die, I’ll just go to a better place.

I am afraid of being trapped in a medical institution or unable to care for myself or having people who don’t love me taking care of me. I think all of us are afraid of dying in great pain. That nearly happened to me, and I know what it’s like.

No, it’s more the fear of the unknown, fear of the self…fear of the damn union.

It doesn’t ring true for me. There are things much scarrier than death to me. I think I worry more about feeling badly about myself, making a mistake, than I do death. What I mean is death doesn’t loom over me.

No. Death is less of a worry to me than unpredictability.

Yes..

Fear, any fear is actually the way of death working in you.

Not really. Fear is an ancient brain function that predates humans by a long shot. Animals that have no sense at all of their mortality still experience fear. Human babies fear even though they have no awareness of death.

That’s not to say that our knowledge of mortality doesn’t breed its own cluster of fears, but it’s not at the root of all fear.

I have two fears that relate to incidences that occurred before I was 2 years old, according to my mother. My fear of electricity cam from my sticking a hair pin in an outlet. My fear of water came from getting knocked down by wave in the ocean. I still hesitate before getting into a shower and I could not give myself a very gentle shock in Anatomy class in college. It wasn’t a fear of death at 2. Maybe it is now.

No I am very afraid of spiders, but I do not fear tht they will kill me.

Maybe you guys have misunderstood my question. I am not asking whether or not you fear death at a conscious level. I don’t, either. But I still think that we might fear death on a subconscious level. Maybe it is in our nature. Animals or children might not know about mortality, but it can still be in their nature to fear death.

@tups I understood, and I don’t think fearing death is at the bottom of all fears subconscious or concious. Maybe you want to further explain how it ties together? A few examples.

@tups It isn’t fear on that level. It’s more of a super intense rush of adrenaline that makes the brain fly at the speed of light. Time slows down and all of your senses get super intense as well. Your body is in overdrive. But fear doesn’t come into play at the time.

I didn’t misunderstand, although I did borrow a line from Cape Fear just for the lulz.

@tups I don’t think there’s a subconscious intuition of death. Death is learned by observation, and is fraught with socially acquired meanings. I can believe that there are built-in aversions: separation (for social animals), pain, loud noises, etc. I’d sooner say that our native fear is based in these aversions. When it comes to death in the absence of these aversive triggers, animals seem quite at ease from what I’ve seen.

more like fear of pain and consequences.

Based on evolutionary psychology I would say it mostly comes down to “fear of not reproducing.” Which fear of death is a facet of, because people fear dying before reproducing/reproducing as much as they would like to.

(I know this doesn’t appeal to common sense, it’s just that one particular branch of science that says so.)

It’s a good question. It probably comes down to a matter of opinion. I am not afraid of death coming for me. I am afraid of death not coming for me. I am also afraid of what death has done to me and I am angry what death hasn’t done to me. And I am afraid to move on because of death. I am also afraid of how death affects me mentally more than the release that I have felt death give me from all of the above feelings. Death is very emotional. I don’t deal with emotions well, so I don’t think I am afraid of death itself but of all the feelings that death buries or may uncover. pun intended

The fear of pain and death. I would have to say that almost all animals have this instinct. In fact it has been demonstrated that the avoidance of great pain usually wins out over the preference for even the greatest of pleasures. Life hates pain.

There’s also fear of misery.

Chronohypochondia: the fear of traveling back in time only to contract a now-curable illness which you die of because your time machine breaks down. One sufferer explains: “I have a fear that somehow I’ll go back in time and get stuck there, then get some illness that we have cured now (like polio or the plague), and die from it all the time knowing that if I was here in time I would be saved. So, I’ve always wanted to learn how to make penicillin just in case.” (We suggest you stay away from cheaply-made time machines from now on.)

What about this one? It does fall into the fear of dying category.