Being buried alive

Fear of it, you may have suspected, isn't without basis in reality:

Throughout the enlightenment, doctors were learning more about the human body and death. As they learned to revive people who were previously considered dead (such as drowning victims via the recently invented mouth to mouth resuscitation) doctors began to question if all the people they were burying had truly been dead. With increasing reports of premature burial, by the late 1700s the fear of being buried alive had fully taken hold of the Western mind.

It was a common enough fear that in 1799 as President George Washington lay dying he told his servants "Do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead. Do you understand?” to avoid such a fate.

I suppose everyone can understand fear of such a thing; it's certainly not a pleasant thought, regardless of how remote a possibility it appears to be. It has very little to do with this, but I've always found cremation more appealing. With any luck, it won't matter to me; I'll actually be dead.