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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 arein 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 death does not imply that we fail to suffer [[about]] the [[certainty]] of death. [[Anxiety]] about death occupies a central [[place]] in our lives, and ultimately it is this that [[superego]] anxiety and [[castration]] anxiety refer to. Moreover, death is represented in [[dreams]] and [[symbols]]. Departures and muteness, or the ability to hide from [[others]] are oneiric representations of death. Among the typical [[dream]] types Freud mentions in The [[Interpretation]] of Dreams (1900a) is the dream of the death of loved ones. [[Perception]] about the death of the [[other]] is a central element in obsessive neurotics. Freud wrote, "these neurotics [[need]] the [[help]] of the possibility of death chiefly in [[order]] that it may act as a solution of conflicts they have [[left]] unsolved" (1909d, p. 236). By suppressing an element of indecision, death would allow [[resolution]], but death, and the possibility of escaping it through superstitious magical activities, is associated with their unconscious [[hatred]] in the [[conflict]] of [[ambivalence]]. The [[idea]] of death offers a solution in obsessive [[neurosis]], but it is also, for everyone, a [[value]] that, by establishing a contrast, exalts the value of [[life]]. Freud demonstrates this in relation to transience (1916a [1915]), but he also emphasizes it in relation to the risk of death: "Life is impoverished, it loses in interest, when the highest stake in the [[game]] of [[living]], life itself, may not be risked" (1915b, p. 290). Beyond the impossible [[representation]] of one's own demise, there is the question of death as enigma, similar to [[birth]], as the end mirrors the beginning. Freud questions [[primitive]] man's attitude to death (1912-1913a) by distinguishing between the triumph before the corpse of the [[enemy]] and the [[pain]] experienced in the [[loss]] of a loved one. Certainly, in these cases [[identification]] could lead primitive man to also consider his own death. But Freud introduced an additional idea, that of the ambivalence that would lead to [[suffering]] and relief, and considered it to be the root not of the representation of death but of the fact that the [[disturbance]] caused by it might have led men to [[think]]: "What released the spirit of enquiry in man was not the [[intellectual]] enigma, and not every death, but the conflict of [[feeling]] at the death of loved yet [[alien]] and hated persons" (1915b, 293). As for [[children]], Freud also felt that the origin of the [[activity]], if not of [[thought]], at least of research, was found in the [[desire]] for affection (preserving the [[love]] of one's [[parents]] without sharing it with younger siblings). In contrast he does not appear to have considered that for children the representation of death and, in [[particular]], their own death, might have constituted an enigma and encouragement for [[reflection]]. "Children", he wrote, "[[know]] [[nothing]] of the horrors of corruption, of freezing in the ice-cold grave, of the terrors of eternal nothingness—[[ideas]] which grown-up [[people]] find it so hard to tolerate, as is proved by all the [[myths]] of a [[future]] life" (1900a, p. 254). On the contrary, we can consider that the theories, or myths, that the [[child]] creates to explain the origin of life also treat its end, and that both preoccupations are inseparable. These theories raise the question of the [[causality]] of death. We know that the [[adult]], rather than [[seeing]] death as an inevitable destiny, will consider the immediate causes, or even look for those [[responsible]] (1915b). The child, in a similar [[position]], does not hesitate to make death the result of [[murder]]. For here the [[relationship]] to death retains its original [[form]], that is, the impulse to kill [[repressed]] by an important [[moral]] [[injunction]], "Thou shalt not kill." However, there is one area where this impulse can be given free rein: [[literary]] [[fiction]], which provides the [[pleasure]] of remaining alive and the certainty that we have not killed anyone. "In the realm of fiction we find the [[plurality]] of lives which we need" (1915b, p. 291). The fact that so-called "crime" [[writing]] has always enjoyed such success attests, as surely as the existence of a moral imperative, to the existence and persistence of this impulse to murder and the enigma contained in this [[return]] to death, here couched in playful [[terms]] (Mijolla-Mellor, 1995). SOPHIE DE MIJOLLA-MELLOR See also: Beyond the Pleasure [[Principle]]; Castration [[complex]]; Certainty; Death [[instinct]] ([[Thanatos]]); [[Estrangement]]; "[[Mourning]] and [[Melancholia]]"; "On Transience"; [[Phantom]]; Suicidal [[behavior]]; [[Suicide]]; "[[Thoughts]] for the [[Times]] on War and Death"; "[[Uncanny]], The".[[Bibliography]]  * Freud, Sigmund. (1900a). The interpretation of dreams, part I. SE, 4-5. * ——. (1912-1913a). Totem and taboo. SE, 13: 1-161. * ——. (1915b). Thoughts for the times on war and death. SE, 14: 273-300. * Mijolla-Mellor, Sophie de. (1995). Meurtre familier. Approche psychanalytique d'Agatha Christie. Paris: Dunod. * M'Uzan, Michel de. (1977). De l'art à la mort. Paris: Gallimard. Further [[Reading]]  * Laplanche, Jean. (1976). Life and death in psychoanalysis (Jeffrey Mehlman, Trans.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.