Our own death cannot be represented, which is obvious since it would require a self-observing consciousness that disappears with death and therefore cannot perceive the death. Any anticipation of our own death as nothingness is therefore impossible. For Freud, this philosophical evidence was reflected in his remarks that "our unconscious . . . does not believe in its own death; it behaves as if it were immortal" (1915b, p. 296) and "it is indeed impossible to imagine our own death; and whenever we attempt to do so we can perceive that we are in fact still present as spectators" (1915b, p. 289). These two propositions should not be confused. The second is a logical statement, since in the absence of existence there is no consciousness, while the first refers to the make-up of the unconscious system and especially the fact that it ignores time and its passage, and more radically, negation.

The inability to represent one's own...