“I am
      alive,” were the uncomprehended words which, upon recognizing the
      locality of the dissecting-room, he had endeavored, in his
      extremity, to utter. It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these—but I
      forbear—for, indeed, we have no need of such to establish the
      fact that premature interments occur. When we reflect how very
      rarely, from the nature of the case, we have it in our power to
      detect them, we must admit that they may frequently occur without
      our cognizance. Scarcely, in truth, is a graveyard ever
      encroached upon, for any purpose, to any great extent, that
      skeletons are not found in postures which suggest the most
      fearful of suspicions. Fearful indeed the suspicion—but more fearful the doom! It may be
      asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well
      adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental
      distress, as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression
      of the lungs—the stifling fumes from the damp earth—the clinging
      to the death garments—the rigid embrace of the narrow house—the
      blackness of the absolute Night—the silence like a sea that
      overwhelms—the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror
      Worm—these things, with the thoughts of the air and grass above,
      with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us if but
      informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate
      they can never be informed—that our hopeless portion is that of
      the really dead—these considerations, I say, carry into the
      heart, which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and
      intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must
      recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth—we can dream
      of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hell. And thus all narratives upon this topic have an interest
      profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the sacred
      awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly
      depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated. What I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge—of my own
      positive and personal experience. For several years I had been subject to attacks of the singular
      disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy, in
      default of a more definitive title. Although both the immediate
      and the predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of
      this disease are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent
      character is sufficiently well understood. Its variations seem to
      be chiefly of degree. Sometimes the patient lies, for a day only,
      or even for a shorter period, in a species of exaggerated
      lethargy. He is senseless and externally motionless; but the
      pulsation of the heart is still faintly perceptible; some traces
      of warmth remain; a slight color lingers within the centre of the
      cheek; and, upon application of a mirror to the lips, we can
      detect a torpid, unequal, and vacillating action of the lungs. Then again the duration of the trance is for weeks—even for
      months; while the closest scrutiny, and the most rigorous medical
      tests, fail to establish any material distinction between the
      state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute death. Very usually he is saved from premature interment solely by the
      knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject to
      catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all,
      by the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are,
      luckily, gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are
      unequivocal. The fits grow successively more and more
      distinctive, and endure each for a longer term than the
      preceding. In this lies the principal security from inhumation. The unfortunate whose first attack should be of the extreme
      character which is occasionally seen, would almost inevitably be
      consigned alive to the tomb. My own case differed in no important particular from those
      mentioned in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent
      cause, I sank, little by little, into a condition of
      semi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in this condition, without
      pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking, to think,
      but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the
      presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the
      crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect
      sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell
      prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and
      silent, and Nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could
      be no more. From these latter attacks I awoke, however, with a
      gradation slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure. Just as the day dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar who
      roams the streets throughout the long desolate winter night—just
      so tardily—just so wearily—just so cheerily came back the light
      of the Soul to me. Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health
      appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all
      affected by the one prevalent malady—unless, indeed, an
      idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as
      superinduced. Upon awaking from slumber, I could never gain, at
      once, thorough possession of my senses, and always remained, for
      many minutes, in much bewilderment and perplexity—the mental
      faculties in general, but the memory in especial, being in a
      condition of absolute abeyance. In all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of
      moral distress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel, I talked “of
      worms, of tombs, and epitaphs.” I was lost in reveries of death,
      and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my
      brain. The ghastly Danger to which I was subjected haunted me day
      and night. In the former, the torture of meditation was
      excessive—in the latter, supreme. When the grim Darkness
      overspread the Earth, then, with every horror of thought, I
      shook—shook as the quivering plumes upon the hearse. When Nature
      could endure wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle that I
      consented to sleep—for I shuddered to reflect that, upon awaking,
      I might find myself the tenant of a grave. And when, finally, I
      sank into slumber, it was only to rush at once into a world of
      phantasms, above which, with vast, sable, overshadowing wing,
      hovered, predominant, the one sepulchral Idea. From the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in
      dreams, I select for record but a solitary vision.