Your single, greatest fear.

[MeatloafCat42]

I have necrophobia, a fear of death and dead things. If I get anywhere near, say, taxidermy I start to get agitated and get a strong desire to flee. If I can't get away I shake with fear, cry, my teeth chatter, and in extreme cases, get physically ill. I know how some people say that they have a phobia, like "Yeah, I have a phobia of spiders, they really creep my out!" But I don't think they actually understand just how severe a phobia really is. Only very rarely have I ever run into someone who has a genuine phobia, where they basically start to lose their mind when confronted with something they are phobic towards.

 

[Daenthos]

Top three, Either Stranded in space/the ocean without any way to call for help, sandboarding, or having a very sadistic person torture me, peeling back my skin, flaying off thin layers of muscle, nerve, and sinew, and then carving into my bones, keeping me on an anasthetic and forcing me to watch, via headclaps and peeling off my eyelids.

 

[docsax]

Anything happening to my daughter. Death, severe injury. Yeah. I'd be willing to go so far as to say that, unless you're a parent or been on a battlefield, you have no idea what "fear" means.

 

[NoOne852]

I am most afraid of losing those closest to me. I'm not sure I could handle them all dying, or being dead. I've come to value them over anything else, so losing them would be incredible devastating.

After that, I am most afriad of heights. I've nearly passed out from being in some high places.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

Dying.

Not actually being dead, oh no, the act of dying. Or more specifically, I'm afraid it'll be a painful and horrifying experience.

And it's coming. We're all going to die eventually.

Will I die, bleeding out, in some terrible traffic accident? Will I get caught in a building while it burns and be incinerated alive?
Or will I drown?

Drowning.

If I had to pick one, that's my single greatest fear.


Dan Brown described drowning in his book, Deception Point. Here's the relevant passage, but beware, it's one of the most terrifying things I've read.

Spoiler

Drowning, Ming had once read, was the most horrific death imaginable. He had never dreamed he would find himself on the verge of experiencing it. His muscles refused to cooperate with his mind, and already he was fighting just to keep his head above water. His soggy clothing pulled him downward as his numb fingers scratched the sides of the pit.

His screams were only in his mind now.

And then it happened.

Ming went under. The sheer terror of being conscious of his own impending death was something he never imagined he would experience. And yet here he was? sinking slowly down the sheer ice wall of a two-hundred-foot-deep hole in the ice. Multitudes of thoughts flashed before his eyes. Moments from his childhood. His career. He wondered if anyone would find him down here. Or would he simply sink to the bottom and freeze there? entombed in the glacier for all time.

Ming's lungs were screaming for oxygen. He held his breath, still trying to kick toward the surface. Breathe! He fought the reflex, clamping his insensate lips together. Breathe! He tried in vain to swim upward. Breathe! At that instant, in a deadly battle of human reflex against reason, Ming's breathing instinct overcame his ability to keep his mouth closed.

Wailee Ming inhaled.

The water crashing into his lungs felt like scalding oil on his sensitive pulmonary tissue. He felt like he was burning from the inside out. Cruelly, water does not kill immediately. Ming spent seven horrifying seconds inhaling in the icy water, each breath more painful than the last, each inhalation offering none of what his body so desperately craved.

Finally, as Ming slid downward into the icy darkness, he felt himself going unconscious. He welcomed the escape.

So yeah, sorry to make this thread all macabre...

That brought up some terrible memories... I didn't die but I came close and it was the single scariest moment of my life. Drowning/suffocation has got to be one of the worst ways to go.

I'm gonna go with drowning. I experienced it once and it was enough to keep me away from oceans, lakes, rivers and pools until.. Well I actually still avoid them. And I avoided bathtubs until I hit 6 feet tall.

 

[Sir Pootis]

It's really unlikely, but being stranded in space.

Imagine being stuck, drifting without any control of your trajectory, billions of kilometers from home, heading further and further away, unable to avoid the inevitable point where supplies/oxygen/energy runs out, and you just have to either commit suicide or wait for your unavoidable oblivion.

 

[Spinozaad]

Being forgotten.

Physical death is inevitable, but at some point there will be no one left who remembers your presence. It's kind of a "second death."

You will die, but at some point it'll be as if you never existed at all.

 

[Arakasi]

Either being wrong or rejection.
I actively fear being wrong and I attempt to take steps in order to correct that, however I'm not sure which is the biggest fear.
I think the rejection fear is more subconscious, whereas being wrong is more consious.