this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2025
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L'appel du vide, literally "the call of the void", is a French phrase
used to refer to intrusive thoughts or the urge to engage in
self-destructive behavior during everyday life.[1]

Most commonly reported examples include thinking
about swerving into oncoming traffic while driving,
or feeling the urge to jump off a cliff's edge while
overlooking one.

https://en.everybodywiki.com/L%27appel_du_vide

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[–] Draegur@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I had no idea "the call of the void" originated from French! Neato!

The void calls out to me constantly.

Every day.

All Day.

... I figure it's just self-test diagnostics:
"hey, we're still nominally functional and sane, right? Thinking about gives us the badfeels like it should, right? Okay. Good."

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago

That's a cool way of thinking about it.

It reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend the other day. I was trying to ascertain whether other people experience mild, easily dismissable intrusive thoughts, as I do. It feels weird to call them intrusive thoughts if they're easily dismissed — I feel like that phrase better describes thoughts that stick around and cause distress due to not going away. What I experience is fairly frequent thoughts that are like "imagine if you did [awful thing]", and then I mentally reply "yes, that would indeed be awful, which is why I have no interest in doing that", and then I'm fine.

I like your framing of it as self check diagnostics. I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but that feels like an accurate description of what goes on internally for me.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

You know those video games where you see a flashforward of a character dying and then have to prevent that scenario from happening? It feels like that. Your brain doing risk analysis of potential dangerous situations.

[–] LittleBorat3@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Oh so, I am not insane...

[–] Sunsofold@lemmings.world 1 points 1 day ago

Why spray brain with liquid cheese?

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I am thankful for the safety feature where locking the lid also depresses a button that allows the food processor to operate, but I also keep it unplugged when the lid is off for an extra layer of redundancy.

[–] filcuk@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

I dont really put my hands close to the blades when it's unplugged either. One could have a brain fart and think it's unplugged.
Paranoid? Yes. Farted? Often. Brain? MIA

[–] yogurtwrong@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

This is an instinct to make you avoid danger, from what I heard