Cant get thoughts outta my head

Does anyone else just constantly think about death? I cant get it out of my head. Sometimes it keeps my from being able to get to sleep, eat, I just dunno. Im planning on cryonics and I keep telling myself that I dont have to worry because of that but I still just always think about it :/
Does anyone else? And maybe can share some tips

Death?

I'll assume you have no idea about the advances in SENS and the Singularity.

Well, there is no need to worry about death. Current research projects that by 2020 we should have radical life extension technologies so we can live for hundreds of years. And by 2030-2040 we should have the technology (thanks to the Singularity) to live indefinitely. Cryogenics is a last resort in the event of our death before a cure is a found.

Dude, we all had thoughts about death, which is why imminst is here. Just browse the Forums and FAQ to see the advancements made.

For me it goes in fits and streaks. Sometimes a troubling news story about cancer, sickness, or accidental death, might make me focus on death for awhile, but then I snap out of it and realize that thinking too much about death is just wasting my life of the moment.

Also, your mood on death depends on how old you are and if you have had lost loved ones.

Hi Ken. I'm in the same boat with you.
I think I have high anxiety disorder..

Recently it gone worse somehow just as I woke up and my head is starting to explode too @@..
But still.. if you feel like you need to talk, feel free to add me to MSN: AdaNis@Shoval.org.il

Does anyone else just constantly think about death? I cant get it out of my head. Sometimes it keeps my from being able to get to sleep, eat, I just dunno. Im planning on cryonics and I keep telling myself that I dont have to worry because of that but I still just always think about it :/
Does anyone else? And maybe can share some tips

This last semester I took a full load with cal 2, french 2, lit 2 and, design 2. Around the end of the semester I started having trouble getting up and walking. When I would get up it would feel like someone was pushing down on my head and when I would walk it would only get worse. My neck felt like i was pumping mercury up to my head. It made me feel as though my head was about to explode. With every pump of my heart I would feel a massive pulse up my neck. If i ate the tiniest bit of salt it would knock me out for the day. The pressure would get so bad I wouldn't even be able to get myself out of bed. Finally, I went to a doctor. He told me that if i didn't have heart surgery to replace my aortic valve within the year my heart would grow too large and I wouldn't be able to have it. Since the valve was defective it wasn't closing and I was getting twice the blood pressure being sent to my body. I could have had a brain aneurysm or a heart attack at any time. I'm a month out of surgery and I'm feeling great. No worries.

Despite what you may think. I was relieved when I got diagnosed. It wasn't just an unknown problem anymore. I felt like I had control again. By our nature human beings hate loosing control. We tend to worry most about things for which we have no control over. if you want to get some peace of mind, go get a physical. Get it straight from your doctor that your as healthy as a horse. Do yourself that favor and don't fret your life away.

If you want to IM me you can catch me at phorescite@hotmail.com. Believe me, I know what worry is all about.

I use to be plagued with those thoughts, it turned into anxiety and then eventually paranoia. I decided that life is not worth living if you can't sit down and enjoy it at any moment. This was before I learned of life-extension.

In my first year of university, I was doing 4-5 courses per semester for 2 semesters. The work load was big, the classes were huge, and it was just a huge stress. I decided to see if there were other avenues I could take to ease my course load a little. Firstly, I decided to try correspondence courses, which proved to be the easier way to get credits for all my rel event courses. Secondly, I split up my course load, I now do 2 courses in the summer, 3 in the fall, and 3 in the spring. This way, I have the workload of a part-time student, but because of the extra summer semester that most people take off, I'm still getting full-time credits.

Ever since, I've not taking 1 full week off (about 65 weeks now), but in exchange, I rarely have homework that can't be covered a few days before the final, and thanks to a decent paying job, I only have to work 2-3 days a week to live comfortably with money in the bank.

Of course I do plan on going through school (even getting to graduate school) and getting a career, but in the meantime, I see absolutely no point of placing myself in high-stress situations when there are blatant alternatives that make life easier. It's not how hard you work, it's how smart you work.

After I developed this lifestyle, I then learned of life-extension and the realistic possibility that I can be a major benefactor. The sheer magnitude of that possibility has made me a humble person who now enjoys life for what makes life enjoyable, I don't expect to live forever, but just knowing there's a chance it's possible, makes life so much more worth living.

My number 1 life rule no matter what is: always stay positive, and always avoid negativity. It's very hard to get negative thoughts in your head if you're constantly being positive. I used to think that mentality was stupid, but I adapted myself and I haven't been more content since.

Wow bobscrachy, what a powerful story. I'm glad you are ok.

I complain about having to die at least every day--I live with chronic pain from my 27 abdominal surgeries, the place that my small intestine was re-attached to my large intestine at age 4 1/2 , always is at a pain level of 7-9. I've had all sorts of tests/scans and such--no one knows what would end it, possibly a surgery to re-attach, but that would be experimental. If I ever get very wealthy I will try to do something about it--but the pain does make it hard to stay positive. I have three children though, and so much I want to do with my own feelings of responsibility to humanity.

It is great to have you here. Staying positive, having fun, accomplishing goals are what keep me motivated--every day I'm alive I'm happy to be alive when I consider the alternative

Jesus, did the doctors prescribe any sort of pain medication for you? See this is my second heart surgery. The first i had two years ago to prevent another serious problem. They didn't care at that hospital if i was in pain or not. At the one i went to this time they didn't give me much choice. At the second hospital I think the nurses didn't feel like they were doing their jobs if you weren't stoned on something. See most people would think i was in horrible pain, but that wasn't the case for me. When they cut on my chest and legs they cut just about all of the nerves. What they didn't cut in the first surgery, they cut in the second. So here i am with these nurses trying to get me to swallow vicodin and take shots of morphine. Around the end of the two weeks i think they were getting ticked off about me repeatedly refusing my medications. They even hooked me up to one of those morphine clickers for a couple of days. For seven days i used it seven times. I have insomnia and there isn't anything better than morphine to knock you out.

They even sent me home with a bottle of 60 pills of spine numbers. Kicks the crap out of Excedrin for headaches. My point is if they're offering that much junk to someone that didn't even want it, you should have no problems getting some sort of relief.

Oh yes no problem--I've been through the string of Western medicine (president of the Gastrointestinal board here in Austin, amongst other specialists) a few times and always end up being referred to pain meds--I don't like how any of them affect my brain. (also my liver in the long term) I take Neurontin 300mg, once a day about 5 days of the week. I use over the counter sleeping pills to help with sleep--but the pain is maddening, it is hard to deal with day and night--my diaphragm is adhered by scar tissue to the area, so breathing even hurts.

Yeah I would love to use vicodin and some other things I've been prescribed, including heavy duty prescription sleeping pills, but I just won't do that to my body (I don't like my brain being 'foggy' or my body fatigued from drugs)--I've had this pain for two decades now, spent a lot of money trying to figure out how to solve it and know what ever I do has to be for the long term unless I have money for experimental surgery. (so I don't ruin my liver, or shorten my life in anyway) (and I've also done everything Eastern medicine has to offer from acupuncture by experts with decades of experience in China that have come to the U.S. to teach, to deep tissue massage etc.)

Really, my pain psychologically is a downer at times, but it has always driven me to do more, accomplish more. I hope someday I can sit and type, walk, drive, lie in bed without the burning pain in my upper left quadrant-- but I may have to upload into a different body for that

Trust me I share, not for pity (I wouldn't even mention my pain for years for that reason) I've just gotten to the point when I do, to show that people with disabilities (off all sorts, mine is one that others don't see when they look at my body) can accomplish much (Oh and someday I might find someone who knows a new expert to refer me to )

Death?

I'll assume you have no idea about the advances in SENS and the Singularity.

Well, there is no  need to worry about death. Current research projects that by 2020 we should have radical life extension technologies so we can live for hundreds of years.

I cannot let this pass. Even if an omniscient machine intelligence emerged tomorrow, the human obstacles alone place radical aging intervention decades in the future. Look at how the FDA is handling immunotherapy and gene therapy. Look at how courts are handling the rights of cancer patients to try experimental therapies. As long as medicine, unlike information technology, remains a field were the status quo is politically preferable to any missteps, the pace of medical progress with be glacial. For this reason medical progress is measured by generations, not years. Thirteeen years from now even cancer will still be a big and expensive medical problem. Aging? Aging isn't even recognized as a medical problem. Recognition as a problem-- a prerequisite to serious action --may not happen for another generation.

I'm not a fatalist. I just think that a belief that a solution to all problems lies just around the corner is not very helpful.

Trust me I share, not for pity (I wouldn't even mention my pain for years for that reason) I've just gotten to the point when I do, to show that people with disabilities (off all sorts, mine is one that others don't see when they look at my body) can accomplish much   (Oh and someday I might find someone who knows a new expert to refer me to   )

I understand what you mean. I tend to only share my experiences when I think it can help someone else. I've never been someone that could swallow pity easily.

I think your motives are more pure than mine. While your problems push you to be the best you can, my problems have blocked off directions in my life i might have taken otherwise. At this point I know if i worked in construction or even as a cable repair man my life would be short and pointless. That's the only reason i'm going for my teaching degrees. All of us strive to make a difference before we die. That's just the directions my life leads me towards.

I imagine if i wouldn't had my problems I would probably be driving a tractor for the city or something.

I'm not a fatalist.  I just think that a belief that a solution to all problems lies just around the corner is not very helpful.

Your talking about hope there though. When man sees a technology is possible, it's his instinct to reach out and make it a reality. It is almost unavoidable. Most people here see that these technologies are in reach, and they hope that within their lifetimes these new advances will come to pass.

Hope is a political tool. Look at stemcells. There are millions of people and hundreds of special interest groups that are lobbying to get federal financing. It's going to be an issue come election time. The hope of a cure is a powerful way to guide people to a candidate.

Edited by bobscrachy, 14 August 2007 - 07:01 AM.

I'm not a fatalist.  I just think that a belief that a solution to all problems lies just around the corner is not very helpful.

Your talking about hope there though. When man sees a technology is possible, it's his instinct to reach out and make it a reality. It is almost instinctual. Most people here see that these technologies are in reach, and they hope that within their lifetimes these new advances will come to pass.

Certainly. I agree with Peter Medawar that, "everything which is in principle possible can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute." Total control of the biology of aging, and disease generally, is fully consistent with the laws of physics, and therefore doable in principle. Once enough people want it, it will be done.

With respect to time horizons, I speak from the perspective of having told people 30 years ago that a solution to aging was 10 or 15 years in the future. Most of the people I told that to are now dead, and I feel very bad about that.

I remember being especially inspired by this article by Robert Anton Wilson, which interestingly someone has put on the web.

http://www.futurehi....mmortality.html

Note what was being said in 1978:

Dr. Alex Comfort, generally regard­ed as the world's leading gerontologist by others in the profession said recently, "If the scientific and medical resources of the United States alone were mobilized, aging would be conquered within a decade." That means most of us have a good chance of living through the Longevity Revolution.

Similarly, Dr. Paul Segall of UC-Berketey predicts that we will be able to raise human lifespan to "400 years or more" by the 1990s. Robert Prehoda, M.D., says in his Extended Youth that we might eventually raise life expectancy to "1,000 years or more." Hundreds of similarly optimistic predictions by research­ers currently working in life extension can be found in Albert Rosenfeld's recent book, Prolongevity.

Expert opinion on longevity has grown steadily more optimistic every time it has been surveyed, because the lab results are better every year. In 1964, a group of scientists was polled on the question and predicted chemical control of aging by the early 21st Century. In 1969, two similar polls found scientific opinion predicting longevity would be achieved between 1993 (low estimate) and 2017 (high estimate.) Dr. Bernard Strehler, one of the nation's leading researchers on aging, predicted more recently that the breakthrough would occur sometime between 1981 and 2001.

Robert Anton Wilson is now dead. In fact, with the possible exception of Robert Prehoda, everyone quoted above is now dead.

On a cheerier note, however near or far these developments are, they are 30 years closer now than then. And it is tremendously gratifying to see a new energetic generation picking up the torch. I only want to caution that the race is still a marathon, not a sprint.

Wow! Another good example of why cryonics is good 'backup', --how slowly things change.

Thanks for putting up the quote from 1978, it is very inspiring and shows why we all need to do more to support Aubrey (cool that my book is linked with his on Amazon, if you buy a book to donate to a library--you can get mine at the same time http://www.amazon.co...f/dp/1886057001 )

bobscrachy---good luck with your teaching!