Let's talk about dying - Peter Saul 

I’ve been having panic attacks around dying lately I’m only 24

I just turned 19 and I have been experiencing panic attacks lately. I am scared of the inevitability of death.

I don't think its so much that death pisses me off, its more like it pisses me off that the world will keep going without me. Selfish I know.

People should talk/ponder about Death more often...

Terrified of death.. Just thinking about it makes me sad, because I can't imagine nothing. There is always tought, feeling, desire for something while alive..

very very important to face and figure out this while you still can. believe me, I have been sick for 17 years.

Many years ago I was depressed because I feared death, I was trying to imagine what's nothingness, and that scared me in an unimaginable way, and made me severely depressed, after days and days, maybe weeks (I don't know how much that lasted, I lost the notion of time), of thinking about this from waking up to falling asleep, basically constantly only thinking about this for days and days. A thought comforted me and made me feel at peace and be able to live my life as before, happily, and that thought was that, I'm alive now, I'm conscious now, I don't know what consciousness is, i don't know why my consciousness is in this particular body, this particular brain, or basically not knowing anything, but I know that I exist, that I think, and before I was alive, conscious, I didn't existed, or maybe I was, but eventually i died and re-emerged, but after I will die in this life, I will not exist again, so there will be the same conditions before I was born, and since the universe also came out of nothing seemingly, and time as well, even after the universe might die, there could be many universes, and many that might just come to exist, so basically if the same conditions will be met before I was born, and I don't think there's something that keeps track of what consciousness emerged and died (you see what I'm getting at), what would prevent my consciousness from re-emerging eventually ? However recently probably because of this pandemic and isolation, I guess I forgot that chain of thought and started to be depressed again, I had a fear of death, it wasn't not even 2% as crippling or bad as before, but still the thought is there again, I was trying to imagine that, anything I do in this life won't matter and maybe I won't re-emerge, and that not existing again that thought is terrifying. Now I feel in sort of limbo, not super depressed but not my normal mood where I can just be happy and not think about it, I'd say 95% of the day I think about day to day and am able to be happy, and 5% or less are thoughts of my mortality. The problem is that all of it makes sense to me, that the conditions will be the same before my consciousness emerged so there's nothing that holds my consciousness back to re-emerge, basically live again in another form, and not to mention that everything that exists will always exist, in other forms, there's also the idea that energy cannot be created or destroyed, matter can, there's matter and antimatter, when they collide, they stop being matter, but it doesn't disappear, it becomes energy, so in a sense, the universe is just this energy that will always exist in one way or the other and there might be other universes, basically this energy is some sort of "god", even that name means nothing to me, I can only convince myself to believe something if I see it, experience it. So for now it's a terrifying thought, it makes sense that I will live again in some form or way, from but since I never experienced it, it's still an unknown to me and it is scary, and I can only assume it will become more scary as I grow older. I hope that my mind will become less sharp and I will forget these thoughts. One thing is certain, there is nothing I can do about it, if I fear it, it will not change anything, so the choice is between, live in fear, unhappy, or live happily and not think about it, but lately I did start to think about it again. This is the reason I didn't want to have kids but now maybe I wanna, I was thinking they will be doomed to death, but maybe it's a conscious that existed before and I will re-emerge them, or maybe there's just one consciousness (you/me), and "we' live parallel to each other, everyone's lives, which is basically just one consciousness interacting with itself, but without knowing, in parallel. So I would give life to myself, I'd re-emerge another life for myself. I don't have strong conclusions tbh, I have an intuition that we will live over and over but I never experienced it, or maybe i have and I don't know. Everything about existence is hard for me to understand, I should say, it's impossible for me to understand, there are some concepts that are just out of reach to my mind and I know I will and we will never be able to understand them.

This is such an important message! I definitely don't want to die in a hospital of old age but at home surrounded by family anf familiar comforts

I have learned that I have lung cancer but I don't want to go through the treatments since I am old sixty five years old and, I have no friends or family members and I am homless now so I am going to let God take me home 🏠 and then be there with my mom and dad ☮️🙏🌎

i like how he's chuckling as well as the audience its nice to see people bond like this over the idea of death

I am struggling with obsessive toughts about death and started to watch tv show about hospitals where death is always one of the principal caracters. Like the last sentences of this video, it brings acceptance of the fact that the death exists but it also gives me the feeling that every life matters and our death doesn`t men that all is in vain

Man... This life truly trippes me out!

it’s amazing how the audience laughs when they realize how dreadful the conversations is getting which shows how we can still enjoy mortality

"Longevity means more old age, not more youth."

“People wanna go to heaven.” But people don’t wanna die”

I love life more after watching this

2 words that scare me the most, Nothing, and Forever. Combine them both and it's my biggest fear.

I hope I die peacefully in sleep and soon. I am fear of my family dying around me. I am not sure why I fear death, maybe is the existence that I will miss

im deathly scared of death.

I’m just 16 and I can’t sleep at night because the thought of death terrifies me. I hate fearing it and I hate knowing that it’s gonna happen.

I've got Queen stuck in my head: "...Who wants to live forever?..." I don't. I want to live as long as I can while I have a reasonably good quality of life. I have talked about this with my fiance' and dad and it's a hard talk, but something that everything should do.

I cannot imagine working in intensive care. Thank you for what you do.

Forbid someone who's in utter pain and can barely function wants to have euthanasia rather to slowly suffering and withering away into nothing, or possibly even having a living body but not a living mind.

I'm scared of not existing anymore... but i have been non existent longer than I will have existed... which is crazy to think about, really. Man, I really just don't want to die. And thats crazy to think about, too, cause I used to be suicidal. Now, id do anything to live forever...

Hard to believe a few hundred years ago I'd be at the end of my life

I see what you mean, and it's comforting words. I would like to always think like that. but since the single outcome of it all is death, you start to questioning the value of it all. This is as I said earlier a very sensitive subject, and I guess everyone have to find their own peace with it, and accept it. I have a hard time accepting it though.

what an important video and discussion! i cannot believe the comments here. im caring for my father on hospice for two years. he is about to die. believe me, i would not allow him to die in the hell of intensive care..ever!!

I was absolutely with him on everything until he spoke about Euthanasia. How can he be opposed to it when he immediately says "I do think most people want to have some control over how their dying process procedes" right after disapproving of it? This is precisely what Euthanasia is for. Giving dying patients the option to end their own lives in a controlled, safe manner.

I have accepted death, and then rejected it. Death is not for me, will find a way around it.

This is so helpful my husband is dying of weak heart and failing kidneys and he was given a choice to make the decision and was respected I live in BC and I am grateful we are doing what you suggested was helpful to me

So true. I want to know what happens after I'm gone! Like what humanity's fate will be in the future. It's so sad that I'll never know.

I think people who are against euthanasia should mind their business. If a person has made a mess of their lives and it becomes something you are ashamed of, then it should be that persons right to choose death if they want it.

Just make your mark in the best way you can and it does get a little easier when it comes to thinking about your own death. Be part of something and be somebody, even if you do fear death a lot, you can at least get some peace from what you have done while you were here, and how many people you have touched, doing one thing for someone can change their life forever. Also contemplate your existence, work out the odds of you existing in the first place and how lucky you are to exist at all. :)

Personally I really don't want to die. For me personally, there seems to be nothing worse than being nothing.

Death doesn't scare me. It's what's after death that does

This talk is quite amazing. I did a random search and this talk popped up. Here I am just having come back from visiting my 97 yr old Mum who has had yet another fall and undergone treatment. It breaks my heart to see her condition deteriorate. It's as though we are watching her die in slow motion and are helpless in so many respects. I pray that our merciful God will take her peacefully. I was really hoping that this talk could go on much longer as the subject is so relevant to us and stopped just short of giving us some coping skills. I have often pondered that the precise day that a child is born can be predicted fairly accurately but the how and when death comes knocking is such a mysterious and traumatic event. It's almost a flaw by design?

I don't think we should be worrying about death in itself as its a natural thing to go through. I think we should be more worried about the process leading up to death, and this all varies depending on which way you die. If its a slow and painful death, sure it's gonna be terrifying. But if its a quick or peaceful slow death, definitely not. If we look at death as being this void of emptiness, our mind is going to make it look worse than it actually is, as its incomprehensible to the human brain. It's quite frankly the polar opposite of what life represents, so of course it's going to be very tough to think about. Also, if it's a natural death, I believe there are chemicals in the brain that can render the way you feel about it. Really nothing to worry about.

I'm constantly terrified by it, not of death itself but of the choices I've made and the ones I'll never be able to make. We are frail beings in a very hostile universe.

The most interesting thing to me, about death, we STILL don't know where our energy goes....

I can't stand people who think that just because they don't want certain choices, e.g. euthanasia, they shouldn't be available to those who do want them.

i am going to turn 18 soon and this has been haunting me, for a long while now. death scares me the most. like what? you keep existing and one day you suddenly wont? no thanks- my heart just becomes heavy and i start shivering and i get the feeling that all my organs are fragile when i think about this. let's not even get started about the nightmares.

Its scary that this is the only life u have and the only chance u get unless u believe in reincarnation then good for u, ur 50x happier than me and Theres also this one phenomenon don't know if its true but when u die ur brain releases the chemicals Or something that u get when ur dreaming and ur basically in a dream world of ur own for eternity lets say that 1 second in real life feels like 1 quintilion Google plix eons I mean I think that the brain is active for around a minute or more so your in Ur dream world for all this time and its basically paradise for ever

I'm very scared. I don't want to die. I don't want to be nothing. I'm so scared right now and crying. I don't want to die!!!!

Thank you so much!! Wished I knew how to ask the right questions before my dad left this world!!! Like you said it’s a cultural thing that we don’t know how to ask

Peter Saul simply wants us to help make ethical and moral dilemmas for providers, families, and patients easier to work through. Very often their are situations where the dilemma can not truly be taxing on family or the providers moral and ethical values, depending on the situation of the patient. Having a thought out plan of what kind of treatment and whether or not you want certain treatments could actually be a very simple way to ensure everyone doesn't come to a dilemma at all. In a situation the core idea is to not undermine the patients autonomy and make sure they get what they want out the last parts of their life. If a situation arouse such as a sudden illness that put a patient in a comma and they don't have the ability to decide, then all the stress and power relies on the family, many problems could obviously stem from determining who makes the final decisions. What you would do in that situation may be different than what the patient may actually want, based on our individual beliefs. So considering have a set established plan could really benefit everyone by putting the patients values first.

I'm so late to this but this is what I needed so many people I can relate to. I too fear death I mean it just sucks how we get to live only a couple years and then for all of the rest of eternity it's just nothing. I really like living and it's sad one day I won't be able to hangout with friends or family, to play video games, waiting for a season 2 of my favourite anime. These are all the reasons I don't ever want to die and the fear of death just won't leave me alone it practically plagues my everyday life. I hope I am able to find peace in death eventually.

This is so important to hear. And he's also humourous (where appropriate).

I was with him on everything right up until he said he disagreed with Euthanasia. You cant talk for 20 minutes about giving people a choice to then go back on it at the very end, you also cant determine what a person really wants based on statistics.

I work in an ER. I told my coworkers I only want 15 minutes of CPR if I have a witnessed arrest and immediate resuscitation. Otherwise, let me go. My wife knows my wishes as well. My mother had a large stroke in 2007, and I knew her wishes. Same with grandpa. They all died peacefully with family around them. They had great deaths. I would like mine to be one as well. I don’t know when I’ll die, but I know how I don’t want to die.

As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die.

very well said, sir.

I may have cirrhosis and Have no plans about treating it but these talks have been really helping me with my eventual death

We just had a large discussion about death in our ethics course. I think a it's really interesting topic when you dive in to it, like Peter Saul has done here. We talked about the case of Jahi McMath. It's a heart wrenching story about a young girl who had some serious complications during an elective surgery. She was declared brain dead by her doctors on December 12, 2013. Her family disagreed however, and insisted that she be kept on life support. This all happened in California, and when the courts finally decided that she should be taken off of life support because she was brain dead, her family had her moved to New Jersey, where the differing laws would allow them to keep her on life support indefinitely. She finally passed away from liver failure in 2018. So, who's job is it to decide when a person has officiallly died? What if someone disagrees? As Peter Saul already pointed out, we have the technology to keep the bodies of people who's brains have died "alive." But at what cost? When does keeping a person alive in that that state start to deviate from "do no harm?" This video is something I believe everyone should see. There are much, much better ways to die than in the hospital. Somewhat ironically, I think as we've gotten better and better and fighting off death, we've grown to fear it more and more. I'm young, so this is still a far away concept for me personally, but I wonder if there isn't room in our society for more embracing of death's place in our lives? It is a part of life, just like any other hardship we might face. We've improved so many stigmas around mental health, LGBTQ+ issues, race, and so much more in our modern society. Maybe it's time we take on some of the stigmas around death as well.

You're dying? Better call Saul

A person who suffers before it's necessary, suffers more than necessary. Live your life to the fullest till you are here. When it's time, it's time.

I really want to give a Ted talk about death, why we view it the way we do, why we care so much about death and why we fear it, how it came to be that way. I think it’d be a really fun experience

"You matter because you are, and you matter to the last moment of your life" And, do you still matter once you're dead?

My friend Charles recently passed about 2 days ago, he was very popular in the school. Almost every 6th Fraser was crying and there were a lot of 7th and 8th graders crying. We decorated his locker and put up posters which we could write quotes and put pictures of him. With the paper for his death it said “sudden death” but I’m pretty sure he killed him self because in the beginning of the school year he told me he was depressed but I didn’t do anything and I don’t know how to deal with myself

That's one of the best casual talk about Death... really😁

Bloody Brilliant.

I'm just terrified of what comes after I never wake up again. What if it's nothing? As someone who believes in science it's terrifying to lean towards the stance of there being nothing at the end of death. By nothing I don't mean darkness, or a void, but nothing. The same nothing that was there before you were born. What's the point of living a long healthy life, or being good to others, or having any moral standard if the end of your life will lead to the same terrifying place. You won't even remember that good life you have, because you don't have a brain to remember. You won't be you, you'll be nothing. Even if things like reincarnation exist you still will die because you don't have those memories that make you who you are, and eventually the universe will end too because it can't go on forever. I can't stand the thought of not existing and to never exist again. The best thing I can hope for is an afterlife, but I have no way to be certain that it exist. At the same time, if I was conceived but not born would I exist? Would I skip that life and move to another? Would I just continue to be nothing? It's terrifying. I don't want to leave the universe never to return, never to exist. Immortality won't save anyone because this planet will cease to exist at some point. Similar to death, amnesia is just as scary, because it's another form of death. You cease to exist as someone else takes your life just to live in the same terror of death. I want to be able to cope with my mortality, but I just can't. I want to die being happy that I'm dying, that there's more light at the end of my tunnel, that I will either be reborn if the universe restarts, or if I can select the life I want to live next, or if I can go back and relive my life with my current memories. I want to keep existing in a universe that will eventually cease to exist. If I die and make the world a better place, what's the point if I don't know that the world is a better place while I'm dead? I can do my best to make my family happy but if I'm dead I won't know they're happy because I'm no more. I'm gone, unable to know what the world will look like because of me. Sometimes I wish I didn't exist so I couldn't think of this stuff, or I was born an animal without the knowledge of mortality. Just because humans can understand mortality doesn't mean we go to a different place from where the other organisms go when they die. I'm just scared, because nothing I do will make me feel any better about dying, whether I win a Nobel Peace Prize or if I live a criminal life, because we're all equal in death. We're all nothing.

“There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does." John Green, TFIOS

I’m going to die in my seventies, I think. My father and two of his brothers did so. I know to be realistic about treatments when my health falters.

I'm more afraid of the pain and misery before death...idc about actually not waking up

Great talk Mr Saul :)

"The death rate for males in Australia has halved" - umm the death rate is 100% for everyone

That lyric by the WHO: *Hope I die before I get old* very profound indeed. I would agree.

You are very wise, thanks! :)

I’ve been freaking out over it, especially after certain physical symptoms healthwise now I’m in full panic mode not to mention the fact that I have white coats syndrome off the chart

It's not the dying I fear as much as the pain and discomfort associated with it.

I'm 14 years old and I've only been having panic attacks about death since I was 5 I'm trying my hardest to accept it but right now I'm in the middle of my longest one I watched this to help me

I may have lung cancer but 🤔 I'm grateful to have had a wonderful life and, good friends ❤️

Recently there has been a reason to believe a tumor in my head came back. Ive been having insane nerve pain, and if th MRI shows up with a tumor, I could die. Im 16. Im a straight A student and i want to do my part for this world. I want to adopt a kids and make their life a bit better, feed people on the streets, save people pursecuted by injustice. But if I die, all of it goes to waste. If my tumor kills me, what life do i leave behind

My wife died via bee colony attack so this video makes me feel better

According to the law of conservation of energy, energy neither be created nor be destroyed but just transformed from one form to another. I lost my father today but i know that not a bit of him is lost. He is just less orderly. His consciousness cease to exist. This scientific perspective on death made me accept that death isn't something to be feared but just an inevitable part of life.

I’ve been thinking and like crying over death for the past couple of weeks actually and I know for a fact I’m not afraid of how I die or when more so what happens after death? Of course you can say nothing but what is nothing? What exactly is nothing? Like how it was before we where born? But what was that? It was really just like we where unconscious but I don’t...ughhh I can’t wrap my head around it it doesn’t make sense

This talk is depressing but insightful

great talk - well done peter Saul. You are quite right - Dying at home (rather than as a sort of pincushion however kindly looked after), with or near people that mean something to you has to be the way to go - pun intended!

People keep living in others memories and its important to remember what they did and how they influenced others.

It's exciting but only because it's a part of life, it's another thing that makes life living in the first place. It means you don't know when, you don't know where or how you'll die but you know that you will, which means you've got to do your best to enjoy every second until then.

Does anyone put himself in the moment of dying and how it will feel? Like testing. Giving me much anxiety and dont know why i do it.

I don't understand life or the value of life. It's something I've been trying to understand but maybe...

its all about how we train the mind. there's immense power in the mind

one way which might be helpful in getting rid of a fear of death could maybe be to log off your computer for a while. or your phone. when you have unlimited resources to answer your questions about death and mortality, it really makes you think a lot about your life and how meaningless it is. but if you just enjoy being yourself, and be comfortable in your own body, in your own time, you might find some acceptance within yourself without the need to constantly google questions like "im scared of dying" etc.

Take control of your death & dying process. Your body is yours. Society is so terrified, they are just fine watching their so-called 'loved ones' severely suffer for months & years. Do not allow them. They're busy being unaware of how you feel (& probably how they feel also).

That was very interesting.

I think that whenever someone ask what I am going to do for my career.

I can understand your point of view also but think about humanity as it stands now and how far we have come from say... 1000 years ago, progression happens when people that are willing to share their views and ideas. We all live in our own personal worlds, trapped within our nervous systems but when we reach out and help each other that stuff stays with people, think of all people as a collective, what you put in that benefits others does come back to you. U live on through people that remain...

This is some real stuff.

It was kinda heartbreaking to see those death graphs. I totally recognised the organ failure one as where my dad is.

Thakn you.

A balanced and decent talking about dying, although to die in dignity is unfortunately linked to funding and money, as so many other important thing in peoples' life. And we avoid discussing it, not only that but the single fact of death, tremendously preoccupied with consumption and keeping ourselves in a self-inducing continuous cycle of excitement by technological stimulus , in which we try to frame life itself as such

On prime time tv!

I’m here to say I’m gonna live until XXII. Hope RU-vid keep standing till there and also you live till there 😊

I think the antidote to death is to make oneself eternal, and that can be done by making stuff that will outlive you like writing some interesting piece or winning a medal, etc. Your kids and grandkids will remember you for some hundred years or less, but your productions and achievements will eternalize you forever especially if they benefit humanity.

like a sir!

Man it would piss me of if I would be the last generation who must die.

The answer is confidence with regard to being conscious

;-; we all goin die!

I love to find fellow SAO fan's on this kind of videos XD