Death anxiety

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I have death anxiety. I just find it hard to fathom that being dead means you just don't exist any more and you're just gone, no consciousness or anything. Just no more. It's not like you die and think "oh, I've just died", it's just one minute you're there, the next you're gone. It's oddly frightening.

People say it's the same as sleeping, but usually when I'm asleep I'm dreaming, or if I'm not then I soon wake up, so it's still hard to imagine being asleep permanently.

I think what scares me more about death is knowing when I'm going to die, for example if lunatic Putin decides to blow up the UK and minutes before the government reports it to everyone and you've just got to anticipate the "big bang" or whatever. I'd rather the government not tell us that we're about to die inevitably from a nuclear blast. At least then you won't know anything about it and you'll be gone in the blink of an eye.

Sometimes I have terrifying nightmares where I've been informed that a nuclear bomb has been launched and I'm just sitting there waiting to die but it doesn't happen, and I start panicking because I just want to get death over with. I hate those dreams.

According to Christiantiy your soul is eternal. At the end of the world everyone will be given a new physical immortal body, then a new physical earth will be created.

I've been studying Hinduism every so often. I believe when we die we keep evolving in the blissful realm after this. It's here we learn new things in each reincarnated life. The soul evolves that way. And once we're done learning here we go on to the dimensions higher. We don't die we change form.

As with most things, I fluctuate. I have managed to get to a degree of equanimity regarding death, but I think that when it comes down to the end, I might well be terrified anyway. It probably depends on how it happens.
For me it's complicated by an encounter I had with a faerie who told me I would die young. That kind of thing is difficult to step back from, what with self fulfilling prophecy and all. Sometimes I believe it and sometimes I think faeries are full of s*#t!

I also aim to reach that "zen" state.

What is stopping me is my faith - I am still a relatively new Christian, and my belief isn't quite at the level where I can say I'm sure that there is a life beyond this one. But I hope to get to the level that you described.