What if your last breath was only a poor assumption, a supposition? What if your family, the doctor, the coroner were all wrong, and you found yourself buried alive? You’d scratch and claw, scream and shout, and no one — NO ONE — would hear you.

There’s a name for this feeling: Taphophobia, the overwhelming fear of being buried alive.

Luckily, enterprising taphophobes throughout history (especially in the 19th century) have invented creative techniques to make sure that only the truly dead stay six feet under.

Click here to read the entire article at Atlas Obscura.