Imagine Before you were Born

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

This one is always weird when I think about it.

Sometimes I think about being alive, how I'd prefer not being dead, and what would happen if I did.

I am an Atheist (no religious opinions here please, this is to explain the topic), and so I do not believe in an afterlife, which makes me terrified of death, and what would happen next. I imagined it would be like not being born. When I tried to imagine myself not being born it felt decidedly creepy.

It really does feel weird to think about it. Once you didn't exist, and yet thinking about yourself not existing is incredibly hard to do, due to the mind-fuckery it can bestow upon you. I find this hard to explain, but I hope you guys get the gist of it.

Just imagine having no memories, not even a fertilised egg. Can you remember the moment you started having memories that were permanent? Imagine being part of that void again. Pre-life, not even death. Perhaps death is the same, though of course it could never bother us at that point, as indeed it never bothered us before we were born.

My point is (before I become too rambly), the only time you'll ever remember is when you are alive, and yet there was a time when you weren't.

If you understood my gist, and if you can relate it better, please discuss.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I think of the afterlife like this: Pick up a ruler and count out 1 inch. That is the span of mortal life. The rest of the ruler represents everything that comes after. To fill in that blank, I imagine the blackness that comes after the credits roll on a video cassette ... only it never ends

...

then I get scared and try thinking of any and everything else I can possibly think of xD

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

Before I existed, it was the early nineties.

*Shudder*

 

[Lt. Dragunov]

I kindda understands what your saying, i guess if you think about it it is kindda scary to think about it in that way. One moment enjoying your life, the next your gone with nothing to remember. I guess it's like having something, and then having nothing. I'm not sure if that answers anything or not.

 

[El Poncho]

I remember well, when half of me was fighting of my mums defenses to get to the other half of me , soon I was the victor and for winning the grand tournament I recieved life!

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

You mean, way back before I was even a glint in my Father's eye?

Then it'd be the 80s...

Spoiler: *shudder*

 

[Arkhangelsk]

I find it peaceful. I know someone who was dead for about two seconds (self-induced, I think), which is a pretty big experience. And she told me that it was pure bliss. A place of calm and no thinking.

 

[Azraellod]

well ok, imagine before i was born...

done. that was simple enough.

...i'm not telling you what i imagined. did you expect me to?

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

It was dark.
You were likely to be eaten by a grue.

There would be text adventures. 'Nuff said I guess

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

It was dark.
You were likely to be eaten by a grue.

Hehhehe

Fear of the Void (thanatophobia, nichtophobia) is quite common. Why fear the start of your memories?

You mean, way back before I was even a glint in my Father's eye?

Then it'd be the 80s...

Spoiler: *shudder*

That would be outrageous! And so cool. I miss the 80's.

 

[Graves]

I think it's cool how the human mind cannot comprehend complete nothingness. Just imagine that there would be nothing. No earth, no galaxy, no light, no dark, no nothing. My imagination just 'shuts off' . I guess that's pretty much like what you are talking about.

I think humans are not supposed to understand the meaning of it all, because that would endanger us as a species. Maybe we would re-assess our priorities and that make survival or reproduction not our number one priority.

Just a guess.

 

[Jim Grim]

It's best just to ignore this, along with most things in general. Ignorance is bliss.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

It was dark.
You were likely to be eaten by a grue.

Hehhehe

Fear of the Void (thanatophobia, nichtophobia) is quite common. Why fear the start of your memories?

Yeah, I find this hard to explain. Not fearing the start of your memories, I mean even before the start of your memories. The void before the void.

 

[Skeleon]

Without a consciousness, there's nothing there to experience nothingness.
Yeah, language is inadequate. What I mean is that when the consciousness is dead, there is no sorrow or regret, no happiness or fun. Nothing. I guess if I were religious, that'd translate sort of into Limbo. On the other hand, people in Limbo still have a consciousness to experience nothingness, so the comparison would be extremely wrong. There is no emptiness. There is no darkness. No boredom. Because you'd need a consciousness to experience any of those things.
I don't think it's that scary, really. It's just... nothing.
Why would I fear what I can't experience? But I understand what you mean, it could be seen as scary.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

I don't think it's that scary, really. It's just... nothing.
Why would I fear what I can't experience? But I understand what you mean, it could be seen as scary.

I suppose once you reach that point there shall be no fear, but I rather enjoy being conscious and interprative of my surroundings at the present moment.

 

[Jedamethis]

I imaginbe it would be like sleeping, as in you don't remember it. But longer, so you'd never notice

and when I didn't exist, the Earth was like this...

S---I-------------------A!
WARNING! WARNING! AWESOMNESS LEVEL LOW!

 

[Proteus214]

I honestly don't have any distinct memories before age 2 (I think the fact that I fell down a flight of stairs before my 2nd birthday might have something to do with that) but it only feels (in my mind) like I was asleep until then.

...Could most of my life be some sort of hallucination from the hit to the hea-OH SHIT MIND FU-

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

 

[Mymla]

Mainly for this reason, I feel fairly confident that there is some form of afterlife, wheter it be reincarnation, limbo, turning into a ghost, or going to heaven and drinking from the beer volcano there.

I just can't imagine being unconcious forever.

 

[E-mantheseeker]

I've thought about what it would be like when I died, and I figured it's probably the same as sleeping and having no dreams. That's the only way I can imagine it, and it makes death seem simple to me.

Asleep with no dreams, forever = death.

Edit: And before you were born you were just a sperm cell, incapable of thought just swimming around, with a primal(?) urge to get inside an egg. But... what happens to the sperm when someone masturbates? Does it die? That question always got to me, what if our fathers had masturbated that one night instead of having sex with our (almost) mothers?