Mere Oblivion

(permanent link) added: 2009-09-18 03:23:23 by Unknown20Troper (last reply: 2009-10-11 05:37:35) edit this YKTTW

There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.

-Isaac Asimov

Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night.

-Socrates

Because many people confuse The Nothing After Death with permanent loss of consciousness and simply ceasing to exist, and as a result put examples that don't fit in that trope.

Examples:

Live Action TV

In Star Trek Voyager, Neelix winds up in this. Since we don't see what he experiences, it's possible that he experiences no sensations at all during the time he was dead, like unconsciousness.

Webcomics

This is what Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance is threatened with when K'Z'K takes over her body.

Tabletop Games

Subverted in Chaos, with the big reveal that the peaceful state of non-existence some oblivion-worshippers think they want to get to in order to escape suffering is actually an eternal hell where they are caught in a quantum state of vacuum fluctuation, an unstable nothingness where they live a nightmare of forever feeling that they don't exist but not being able to do anything about it.

(corrected spelling - aurora369)

replies: 25

Troperville

Tools

Examples: