Over the last year or so, I've managed to find myself feeling a sense of immense panic and dread over the specific concept of dying of old age, and the experience of death itself (for context, I'm not religious or spiritual).
I think this has been triggered by my interest in space, where the vastness of the entire thing is also incomprehensible and links to the concept of my mortality in my head. Every night, I get in bed, and my internal monologue tells me, involuntarily, "I'm going to die". Then, I feel waves of panic and dread. I tell myself it's normal and do breath work meditation.
I got over this before the end of 2024 initially. But then I got interested in space again because of artemis 2, and it sent my mind back to these thoughts at night.
I'm kinda sick of this getting in my head all the time. I would wager other people experience this sort of thing too. Would love to know what helped you reduce these intrusive thoughts for good. I definitely avoid listening to podcasts and video essays about space and abstract existential concepts now (even though I think it's really interesting, which sucks).