Journaling Prompts for Existential Dread
Existential dread—the sudden, vertiginous awareness of death, meaninglessness, or the vastness of time—can arrive without warning. In the middle of an ordinary day, a thought lands: what is any of this for? Why does anything matter if everything ends? These are not broken thoughts. They're deeply human ones. The problem isn't that you're having them; it's when they arrive unprocessed and just sit there, generating anxiety without generating insight. Writing about existential questions can transform them from dread into something more like inquiry—still uncertain, but less terrifying.
Journaling Prompts
Write about the specific existential fear you're currently carrying. Get it all the way out—not the sanitized version, but the full, raw question your mind is sitting with.
What would it mean for your life to be meaningful, by your own definition—not a philosophical one, just yours? What makes a day, a relationship, a year feel like it mattered?
How does the awareness of death change what you want to do with your time? Not as a threat—as information. What does it clarify about what matters?
What are you most afraid of being true about existence? And what would you do—how would you live—if that thing were true? Would it actually change as much as the dread suggests?
What gives you a sense of connection to something larger than yourself—nature, other people, art, work, something else? How present is that experience in your current life, and what would it mean to have more of it?