WEBVTT - Why Are Graveyards Scary?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, under the watchful gaze of

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<v Speaker 1>crumbling marble saints and baby faced cherubs, you hurry down

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<v Speaker 1>a path lined with mausoleums. You pass crops of headstones

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<v Speaker 1>glinting in the moonlight, each engraved with the cliff Notes

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<v Speaker 1>version of a dead person's life. You practically run past

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<v Speaker 1>sunken graves and dying bouquets of flowers, hoping upon hope

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<v Speaker 1>that the sound you hear is just the wind, and

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<v Speaker 1>trying to shake the feeling that something is following close

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<v Speaker 1>on your heels. All right, So, maybe you've never taken

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<v Speaker 1>a midnight shortcut through the local cemetery, but if you

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<v Speaker 1>have ever set foot in a graveyard, you've likely felt

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<v Speaker 1>a hint of the fear and uneasiness that is their legacy.

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<v Speaker 1>Maybe you were attending a family funeral, a touring historic graveyards,

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<v Speaker 1>or simply fleeing flying silver spheres, or whatever your reason

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<v Speaker 1>for strolling amongst the tombstones, you probably felt something noteworthy

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<v Speaker 1>about the experience, something different from all the other spaces

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<v Speaker 1>and places that fill our lives. After all, graveyards are

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<v Speaker 1>the final resting place for many of our dead, and

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<v Speaker 1>people say their last goodbyes there, sometimes returning year after

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<v Speaker 1>year to leave flowers or say a few words. No

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<v Speaker 1>matter where you travel in the world, cemeteries often are

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<v Speaker 1>silent and solemn settings, Whether the grounds are finely manicured

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<v Speaker 1>or left the weeds, Graveyards exist as the place where

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<v Speaker 1>the living contemplate the mysteries, traumas, and heartbreaks associated with death.

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<v Speaker 1>But why are so many people so spooked out by graveyards?

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<v Speaker 1>Is it the thought of all those decaying bodies under

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<v Speaker 1>the dirt, or the idea of a bony arm emerging

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<v Speaker 1>from the soil to grab your ankle, or is it

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<v Speaker 1>something deeper To answer that, we'll have to travel to

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<v Speaker 1>a place full of dark secrets and hidden skeletons the

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<v Speaker 1>human brain. To us humans, graveyards represent the mystery and

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<v Speaker 1>the outrage of mortality. Like it or not, we're all

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<v Speaker 1>gonna die. You may think you've accepted that fact, but

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<v Speaker 1>it's an issue humanity has struggled with for as long

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<v Speaker 1>as there's been humanity. Unable to avoid it, We've tried

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<v Speaker 1>to figure out what lies beyond its doors. Will we

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<v Speaker 1>haunt this world? Live forever in another be reincarnated or

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<v Speaker 1>simply ceased to exist. We've pined for understanding in the

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<v Speaker 1>shadows of the pyramids and stared into the blinking eyes

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<v Speaker 1>of guillotined heads, hoping to glimpse something other than the

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<v Speaker 1>emptiness of non existence. Biologically, fear exists as a response

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<v Speaker 1>to stimuli that threatens our survival. As a species. We're

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<v Speaker 1>programmed to fight or to run from anything that might

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<v Speaker 1>cause death, and we approached death itself with the same attitude.

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<v Speaker 1>We flee from it every day by distancing it from

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<v Speaker 1>our thoughts and lives. In many parts of the world,

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<v Speaker 1>we've handed the duties of entering the dead over to

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<v Speaker 1>religious or mortuary professionals, thus limiting our personal intimacy with death.

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<v Speaker 1>Fighting death is trickier. To avoid staring down mortality, we

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<v Speaker 1>often redefine what death is. We choose to see dying

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<v Speaker 1>not as something our bodies eventually do, but something that

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<v Speaker 1>eventually happens to our bodies. We cast ourselves as the

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<v Speaker 1>victim of death, which is the reason grim reapers and

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<v Speaker 1>other death dealing spirits permeate world beliefs. If death is

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<v Speaker 1>a natural counterpart to life, there's nothing we can do

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<v Speaker 1>about it in the end. But if it's something inflicted

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<v Speaker 1>on us by an outside force or being, then perhaps

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<v Speaker 1>we have a fighting chance. Modern society often sets aside

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<v Speaker 1>the angel of death and instead chooses to practice what

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<v Speaker 1>sociologists Sigmat Balmann called the deconstruction of mortality. That is,

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<v Speaker 1>we break down the insurmountable mystery of death into smaller

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<v Speaker 1>pieces that we can digest easily, of biological functions, diseases,

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<v Speaker 1>and mental dysfunctions. If prayer or bribing the reaper doesn't work,

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<v Speaker 1>maybe multiple organ transplants will. But though you can pray

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<v Speaker 1>and philosophize about death all you want, it's still going

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<v Speaker 1>to happen. Disposing of a body isn't technically difficult. You

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<v Speaker 1>can bury it in the forest, cremate it, or just

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<v Speaker 1>leave it out for vultures, right that Zeoastrians in India

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<v Speaker 1>still practice. Not only are these methods cheaper than buying

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<v Speaker 1>a fancy casket and obtaining a plot in the local cemetery,

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<v Speaker 1>but they also allow the environment to reclaim the decaying

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<v Speaker 1>organic matter faster. The use of stone mausoleums, coffins, and

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<v Speaker 1>embalming procedures only slows down natural decomposition. Some of these

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<v Speaker 1>procedures are based in religious beliefs that the dead may

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<v Speaker 1>need their bodies down the line, but these procedures aren't

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<v Speaker 1>entirely about the dead. They're also about the living. A

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<v Speaker 1>funeral is the last rite of passage we can take

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<v Speaker 1>a loved one through the same way that a prom

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<v Speaker 1>or kin signera or bar mitzvah is a rite of passage.

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<v Speaker 1>So as a funeral and at funerals, we generally do

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<v Speaker 1>our best to stave off some of the unsightly properties

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<v Speaker 1>of death for our own sakes, and we build tombstones

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<v Speaker 1>and monuments to serve as long lasting markers of the

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<v Speaker 1>life that was. A cemetery stonework also serves to encourage

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<v Speaker 1>a sacred atmosphere, enforcing notions of afterlife and further establishing

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<v Speaker 1>the site as a kind of sacred ground between life

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<v Speaker 1>and death. The humans instinctively fear death, yet we work

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<v Speaker 1>hard to maintain hallowed spaces where the dead are memorialized

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<v Speaker 1>and at least partially preserved. On top of that, we

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<v Speaker 1>have religions heaped full of resurrection prophecies and thousands of

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<v Speaker 1>years worth of superstitions, folk tales and ghost stories. We're

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<v Speaker 1>constantly repressing our feelings about death or magnifying them to

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<v Speaker 1>tremendous proportions. Maybe you avoid cemeteries in nursing homes, or

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<v Speaker 1>maybe you actively try to speak to the dead through

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<v Speaker 1>a psychic medium. Both cases are somewhat avoiding the real,

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<v Speaker 1>plain relationship that exists between life and death. All that

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<v Speaker 1>is to say that we humans have poured a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of sacrament, superstition, and fear into our graveyards, which makes

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<v Speaker 1>for quite a powerful atmosphere. Graves have long been a

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<v Speaker 1>frequent haunt of legendary and mythical creatures, sometimes their spirits

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<v Speaker 1>of the dead, other times nefarious beings who like to

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<v Speaker 1>hang out near the dead, like ghouls. In extreme cases,

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<v Speaker 1>people may experience cometrophoe, be the fear of graveyards. The

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<v Speaker 1>condition involves a heightened anxiety of graveyards that actively interferes

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<v Speaker 1>with a person's life. Like other phobias, Therapy can help

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<v Speaker 1>patients cope with and overcome the fear, because, for the

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<v Speaker 1>most part, the only things you really have to fear

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<v Speaker 1>in graveyards are collapsing tombstones or falling branches. And besides that,

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<v Speaker 1>living breathing humans are responsible for more graveyard assaults than

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<v Speaker 1>all the vampires, zombies, and ghoules combined. Today's episode is

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<v Speaker 1>based on the article what makes graveyards Scary on how

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<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot Com, written by Robert Lamb. Brainstuff is

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<v Speaker 1>a production of I Heart Radio in partnership with how

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<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.

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