Fear of being buried alive is considered to be one of the basic phobias of the human psyche. In the medical and psychiatric literature, the term “taphophobia” is used to designate it (from the Greek τάφος - coffin and φόβος - fear), included in a number of other names indicating similar mental disorders - fear of closed spaces (claustrophobia), darkness (nyctophobia), stuffy rooms (clitrophobia), etc. That is why, from a psychological point of view, the existence of stories about imaginary death and burial alive does not seem surprising. They express fears that stem from the deep foundations of human psychophysics and, in principle, do not directly depend on the sociocultural context of their transmission.