The fear of being buried alive has been around for centuries, with stories and inventions to prevent it. Today, high-tech safety coffins and films continue to show the fear’s prevalence. Phobias are common, but can be overcome with cognitive therapy.
The possibility of being buried alive has terrified people for centuries, at least in part due to the publication of numerous accounts of such a frightening event. In the mid-1800s, for example, Edgar Allan Poe wrote several of these stories, including “The Cask of Amontillado.” A Boston doctor named Moore Russell Fletcher published a compendium of terrifying stories about premature burial that he had collected from around the world. The fear was so widespread that inventors began devising ways to ensure you had an escape route if you found yourself breathing while buried six feet below. Over the years, these have included coffins with bells that could be rung to alert those above ground to one’s plight; tombs with built-in ropes and ladders; and a window dug into the ground that showed a clear view of the supposedly deceased’s face far below. While not as widespread as it was in the 18th and 19th centuries, the fear of premature burial is still alive and well today, as evidenced by new patents for high-tech safety coffins and feature films like Buried and Buried Alive.
Fear itself:
Phobias are one of the most common mental disorders; about 10% of Americans have some type of phobia.
The National Institute of Mental Health says most phobias can be overcome with cognitive therapy, by confronting rather than hiding from the fear.
The medical community officially recognizes at least 400 phobias, and recent studies suggest some may be hereditary.
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