It is the fear of being buried alive after a misdiagnosis of death , usually due to a sudden disorder of immobility and apparent cessation of vital functions that can be postponed for days (catalepsy).
This phobia, recurrent in horror literature, is not one of the most irrational and unfounded; It arises from a series of accidental burial cases prior to the advent of modern medicine , which even led to the devising of safety caskets that would provide an escape route to the unfortunate resurrection. The medical advances we have today make it completely impossible for this to happen again; However, many people are inclined to cremation precisely because of the fear of waking up inside the coffin and finding no way to avoid an imminent death.
Although highly unlikely, the truth is that there are reasons to be terrified at the prospect of premature burial. The chances of survival are even lower than we usually believe, since death would overtake us before exhausting the oxygen contained in the coffin, which would occur in an estimated time of 5 hours. The carbon dioxide exhaled into the environment during the act of breathing itself would end up intoxicating us much earlier , although it is true that by then, the lack of oxygen would have already made us lose consciousness and enter a comatose state that, fortunately, would free us from the feeling of suffocation.
