How often do you get existential dread?

Used to get it every time I read an article on the current state of climate change. The dread has kinda just shifted to acceptance. Short of some miracle-tier scientific breakthrough or like literal divine/extraterrestrial intervention, we're just hard fucked and there isn't jack we can do about it.

Kinda adopted the personality of this dude:

It comes in waves for me. I'll feel fine for a few weeks, maybe a month or two, then I'll be deep in the depths for days, weeks straight. Mostly at night, staring out my bedroom window, contemplating the horror of the abyss.

At least once a week. Sometimes almost daily.

Existential?

More like Exponential Dread.

Almost never.

I used to have it a fair amount, and medicate myself to avoid it a fair amount as well, and then just about exactly 20 years ago, in the span of about three days, I started feeling sick, got more and more sick, went to the doctor and discovered I had cancer, and had emergency surgery. Then I went through about six months of really awful chemotherapy.

I definitely wouldn't recommend having cancer as a cure for existential dread, but it worked for me.

As I have gotten older, the frequency of episodes have decreased. In my early 40's now. I would say it occurs at least once every 3-4 months as opposed to weekly in my teens.

Wait, you guys stop having it?

At 50+, I get it almost daily. I never had it before. Not sure if its the state of the world we live in now, aging, or a combination of both. All I know is I’m glad I’m old and won’t be around to see some of the stuff I’m scared of.

Every day since I was in junior high about. Knowing that I have nothing to really look forward to except working a job I don't really want to afford to barely keep myself alive right up until the day I die, alone and forgotten.

I accept it as a part of living.

Hey, it could be worse, you could be a kid whose whole world is in the midst of melting down before they've even had a chance to realize what life could've been like if not for the shitty decisions of the preceeding generations.

I used to feel abject terror constantly. But you can only feel that way so long before something breaks in you.

Between COVID, climate change, and my own worsening health, pretty much constantly.

Whenever I think of the future I get it bad. Disabled, poor, parents are my carers, couldn’t afford to live on my own even if I could. And every year the bushfires get bigger and closer to home. If I let it it constant dread would become my default state, but I am aware of this and try to focus on the now.

Not to say I don’t do my best to safe guard the future, have plans in place for if I ever need to navigate the things that scare me most. But I try not to dwell on it. Someday my parents will die, failing some sort of miracle I will end up in a care home without my pets. But I might also drop dead tomorrow in which case all my worrying will have been for nothing.

Right now at this very moment things are going ok and the number one thing that makes it not ok is worrying about a time in the future when its entirely not ok. But why meet it in the middle? I can’t change the rivers current, best I can do is try to steer on the odd occasion where the path splits.

Not worried about being dead, really. I didn’t exist for millennia, I got my time in the sun, I won’t exist for the rest of time. It hasn’t bothered me.

Dying on the other hand sounds like a painful, grief-ridden, stress filled misery. I really don’t want to have anything to do with a drawn-out death. That’s what bothers me.

I may be relatively young compared to other guys on this thread, but I'm also a victim of something like this. Recently I'm fighting with the company I've worked for over so tiny shit that it astonishes me, and terrifies because of consequences of incorrect actions from my side. I've understood years ago that I'm no one and will achieve nothing, so it hits less. This dread also comes in waves, as I was good for whole 3 months, and now to the same old shit. Sigh.

Always. I stopped caring. The world will burn, whatever. Who cares.

Weekly. I'm pushing 50yo too. My industry is dying a slow death.

Not enough of these say “hourly” for me to be comfortable answering.

Are y’all not freaking out every second or-…?

Often, although I suspect that I just feel bad, and need to make up stories to justify the bad feelings. So, it doesn't have to be existential.

For me it's probably a once or twice occurrence every month. I usually have an episode as I'm going to sleep, but I have had my moments during the day while I'm meant to be relaxed. I worry about my future, I think about any number of my mistakes. I'll fixate on how I'll never get to enjoy enough as there is simply too many possibilities and so little time and ability to enjoy. There are things I could've experienced today that I'll never be able to experience in the future. In my worst episodes, my heart is pounding so hard in my chest and head that I worry of having a heart attack. The only real solution I've found to calm down is to distract myself with mental stimulation, something enjoyable or contemplative. There have been episodes so powerful I wasn't able to get sleep even after spending hours distracting myself.

Errr... daily? To one degree or another, probably not healthy.

In my early twenties it was nearly constant. It's subsided greatly since then. At a certain point I think I just accepted that "there is no meaning, so it's ok".

So once you get there, and you start understanding capitalism, then that takes over as the most all consuming topic.

Once or twice a month, maybe. I was fine with not existing for several trillion years before I was born, I'm sure I won't mind it when I return to the Truth that is the infinite void.

Very rarely. Cosmic insignificance, radical freedom, the impossibility to establish or confirm ultimate Truth, and the socially constructed nature of most of our subjective realities did feel overwhelming to me when I was younger. As I've sat with these inescapable realities over the years they're as much facts of life to me as my inevitable death. These are things which are completely outside of my control, so I just accept them as aspects of my reality and worry about what my limited self can affect for myself and those around me. By chance, my being is a somewhat self-aware mind in a human body so I'd like to experience being that for as long as I can. I try to help others out when I can as well. I would like to see us move toward a fair and just global society for mankind, but that's not something any individual knows how to execute or probably is capable of executing. I'm not responsible for the success of that project and really no one can be, but I want that to happen so I try to contribute because that's literally the most I'm capable of. For my physical self, either I can survive using the resources and skills I've accumulated over my lifetime in whatever context my world goes or I can't. If I can't survive, then I'm not going to be worried about anything after I'm dead so the prospect of my death doesn't really bother me and never has.

It depends on where it comes from. There is a defeatism that comes from my cynicism, but there is also the existential dread lying awake at night that I deal with as well.

I’m curious about what specifically it is stemming from? In your post you mention feeling aged out in an industry you have become extremely accustomed to. Do you feel like your value is very much driven by what you do? If you were to be aged out and eventually replaced do you feel like a large part of yourself would be missing?

In regards to how often I experience dread, it can be an every day thing. But it depends on what it comes from. There is the dread from feeling powerless to change my environment or culture I am in, but I have found personally that living to bring joy in the small things helps with that. If the dread is from questioning my purpose if there even is one, it’s the same line of thinking for me as before.

I have no clue if that provides any value but I hope you find peace amidst what you’re going through.

Depends on what "existential dread" means.

Everytime i listen minecraft music for a while, i have terrible trougts about the future, all the persons i know dying one by one, and everything i know and use today being forgotten somehow.

Almost Daily. It's a manifestation of my persistent melancholic depression. At some point, at least once almost every day, I'll spend some time more or less paralyzed thinking about strangelets or meteor strikes or other shit that can wipe out the world and there's nothing we can do about it. I'll then go looking for more reasons to just not bother living if I can get off the couch.

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Maybe once a week? I don't worry about myself so much, but others down the line. Things look grim.

Last week

I suspect I've undiagnosed manic-depressive disorder, but either way I get heavy existential dread for 1-4 weeks straight, then reoccurring again in 1-3 months. I also get similar pressure from my industry. So I do feel you :(

Like 3-7 times a month

What industry?

I'm glad I'm not alone. Thank you.

Its been years since I've experienced this, thankfully. It used to be pretty much a daily thing when I was in a relationship with an alcoholic though, but I ended that over ten years ago

Yes

Depends on how we define it. I've dreaded my existence most of my life.

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Since I had read Heidegger, every day.

mmmm every single day, but i became aware of death really young and have never been able to fully settle in with the thought of oblivion

it's usually not too bad but sometimes it spins up into a panicked frenzy and i won't get to sleep that day

Haven't had it so far

Never. Life's continually shaping and changing; was always going to. It's easy to roll with it and just do whatever. It doesn't matter if things don't work out because I can do other things I want.

Maybe become a travelling food critic. Seems fun, cheap, and relaxing.

I used to experience it 24/7 a few years ago, before I was medicated for the countless mental disorders I have. Nowadays, I don't think I've experienced it in at least a couple years.

I've just decided at this point that I don't care if my life has any sort of meaning. I still do fun things and have passions, but I don't do those to give my life meaning, I do it to just feel good for now.

And days, sometimes weeks and months where I wake up and think "I don't want to do anything. I just want to sit and rot." I just do that. Makes those days easier to get through. Doesn't matter if my existence has no meaning for a while. Doesn't matter if it never does again. I'm just ok with whatever happens.

And one day when I die, I'll be ok with it. To me, no matter what I do it'll all eventually fade away with time. Eventually, nobody will remember me. But the particles and energy that made me up will always exist, and the things I did will help determine their final resting place at the heat death of the universe. All I have to do to make a permanent mark on the world is simply exist.

But I dunno. I've been off my meds for a bit for various reasons, so maybe I'm just going crazy.

I think about how the fuck are we here when there should be nothing... and even nothing needs to exist somewhere.. like beyond cosmic insignificance. Then I vape some weed and play games online.

Many people get it, it is quite normal, I think. The trick to avoid is to practice mental hygiene - don't let the shit come in. Ponder over things that you can influence, be a kind person and help others. That way you see the world in a better light and it's good for your sleep. You won't solve the problems of humankind anyway. And get out of industries that aren't kind to the elder.

I think it’s a natural part of growing/waking up to the fact that, despite what we are all told from birth, there actually is no “point” to any of it. At all.

The challenge is to flip our perception to appreciate how wonderfully liberating this is.