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Freud formulated the idea of a 'death instinct' or a diminution of vital tension. Heidegger introduced a metaphysical concept postulating that the existence of death is always with us and throws a shadow continuously over our lives. The authors approach the problem by recording statistical data relating to the attitudes toward death and dying in normal and neurotic individuals. The replies were anonymous.
The questions centered around objective and subjective experiences with death, and the respondents were encouraged to write fully. The questions concerned the frequency of thoughts about death, speculation about one's own death, imaginations of one's appearance after death, changes in attitude toward death in the course of years, imaginations concerning the appearance of a person who had been murdered by the individual, etc.
An analysis of the answers indicated that in conscious and unconscious psychological experiences, death has several meanings for the same individual. In all the answers and in the analytic cases (Schilder) in which death ideas were prominent, death had the same symbolic meanings: (1) An escape from an unbearable situation. One lives in death a new life without any of the difficulties of the present life, and it becomes rather a play with the idea of death. There is a close relation between this psychological attitude and physiological reflexes found in certain animals: 'sham death' (Todstellreflex). (2) Death may represent a method of forcing others to give more affection than they are otherwise willing to grant. (3) Being killed may be an equivalent of the final sexual union in intercourse. (4) Death may mean the final narcissistic perfection which grants lasting and unchallenged importance to the individual. (5) Death