As people grow awareness of possible consciousness behind a “vegetative state” I wonder what lengths people will go to avoid the situation. It reminds me of liv

As people grow awareness of possible consciousness behind a “vegetative state” I wonder what lengths people will go to avoid the situation. It reminds me of live burial fears. In the 19th century, master story teller Edgar Allen Poe exploited human fears in his stories, and the fear of being buried alive was no exception. In “Premature Burial," a short story first published in 1844, the narrator describes his struggle with things such as "attacks of the singular disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy," an actual medical condition characterized by a death-like trance and rigidity to the body. The story focuses on the narrator’s fear of being buried alive and the corrective actions he takes to prevent it. He makes friends promise that they will not bury him prematurely, does not stray from his home, and builds a tomb with equipment allowing him to signal for help in case he should be buried alive only to wake from one of his episodes. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/people-feared-being-buried-alive-so-much-they-invented-these-special-safety-coffins-180970627/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/people-feared-being...