Taphophobia

Taphophobia (from Greek τάφος – taphos, "grave, tomb"[1] and φόβος – phobos, "fear"[2]) is an abnormal (psychopathological) phobia of being buried alive as a result of being incorrectly pronounced dead.

[5] In 1896, an American funeral director, T. M. Montgomery, reported that "nearly 2% of those exhumed were no doubt victims of suspended animation",[6] although folklorist Paul Barber has argued that the incidence of burial alive has been overestimated, and that the normal effects of decomposition are mistaken for signs of life.

According to the story,[8][better source needed] in 1804 Mrs. Lee took ill and apparently died; she was rescued from the burial vault by a sexton who heard noises coming from her casket.

Fear of being buried alive was elaborated to the extent that those who could afford it would make all sorts of arrangements for the construction of a safety coffin[10] to ensure this would be avoided (e.g., glass lids for observation, ropes to bells for signaling, and breathing pipes for survival until rescued).

For example, a study of Pakistani women found severe taphophobia in one third of subjects with mental illness and a mild degree of this fear in half of the controls.