Reader’s Question

I’ve come to the conclusion after a decade of not being able to sleep that the reason for it is that my mind constantly thinks about eternity.

I’m an atheist, so I believe when we die, that’s it. The rest is an eternity of absolutely nothing. I believe anything that lasts for an eternity would be torture, so if I were religious, I’d be just as troubled by the idea of heaven or hell. But my mind keeps coming back to this one truth: that the day I die I will either cease to be — forever — or go through an endless eternity of something which, be it heaven or hell, would eventually feel like torture to me.

I’m not so concerned about solving this philosophical dilemma as I am finding out why my brain does this and getting some form of counseling or medicine that will make my brain stop thinking about these things at night so I can finally sleep.

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

The major philosophical and religious schools of thought emerged largely because of man’s innate awareness of and desire to understand and reckon with the eternal. And most folks eventually find a belief system that helps them reconcile the big issues of life. Some personalities are constitutionally predisposed to seek novelty and excitement and experience an innate revulsion to the idea of monotony or boredom. That might help explain your discomfort with the notion that anything might last FOREVER. But you also purport to have a firm belief that all existence and awareness will end with your death, so it’s quite inconsistent that you’re experiencing such existential anxiety with regard to matters eternal. So, perhaps your convictions are not as firm as you have led yourself to believe, which would argue against the notion that your problem is not one of philosophical ambivalence but rather of ignorance of how to shut down an overactive brain.

A trained counselor or therapist can certainly be helpful in providing you tools and techniques to help lessen your obsessions, quell your anxiety, and get more rest at night. Your therapist might also help you deal with those aspects of your personality that make the thought of an eternity such a tortuous concept. But you might also need to open yourself up to a wider exploration of issues of a much more profound nature in order to really find peace.