Does the idea of being burnt alive scare you or do you find it paralyzing?
Would burning alive be excruciating or would shock/adrenaline block most of it?
I've had a pretty natural fear of burning alive (dreams about it and such) and seeing stuff like the woman killed in the elevator this week is deeply disturbing.
Having had small burns before I know how painful even second degree burns can be. My question is would it hurt that badly all over your body the whole time or would the pain mostly be blocked? Obviously it wouldn't be pleasant but surely it can't be as bad as I'd think, right? This is absolutely crippling. It seems like the harder I try to forget about it all, the more prominent it becomes. It is a completely irrational thing to think about but yet I can't help but have this crippling anxiety that I might one day end up like that. The thought just pops up out of nowhere when I least expect it, although not as often in social gatherings. I need advice to know what to do to completely irradicate this fear that I assume seems completely illogical to most people, but which does indeed have a real impact on my well-being. Thanks! When I was a kid, I witnessed a woman burn herself to death. What is the most shocking/terrifying/traumatic thing you experienced?
One day when I was 13 and walking home from school, around the corner I saw smoke in the sky, and I thought - hey someone's house is on fire (I couldnt see what the smoke was from at this point yet because there was a building in the way). Then when I actually got past the corner, I saw a lot of people from my school who had gathered at the footpath and there was some obvious commotion. When I finally got into a spot where I could see from the people, I saw this lady in her front yard on fire. I am talking about her whole body from head to toe engulfed in flames and she was just standing there screaming. Her husband was standing next to her 'trying' to hose her down. By trying I mean the water coming out of his garden hose was about as much as my pee stream. I remember thinking "wtf turn the water up, and make her roll on the grass".
Eventually she fell to the ground and just lay there burning. After a while I ran hope because I was so shocked and terrified. The thing that stuck with me the most was that her son of about 5 years old was standing next to her watching her this entire time. I am talking about like 5 metres away. For a long time afterwards when I would walk past that house on my way to and from school, there was a black patch of grass where she fell and burned.
I know they feel tremendous amounts of pain as the skin is burnt, but after watching the ISIS video showing the pilot being burnt alive, he runs around in the cage for a while, then he comes to an abrupt stop. Sits down, tits his head down, then dies. I'm talking about that moment when his skin is charcoal black. Is he feeling pain in that period? Or does shock set in and he feels nothing? How long does it take to reach that state after someone is engulfed in flames? The editing in the video really annoyed me as it wasn't RAW footage so I couldn't tell how long he was actually engulfed In flames for.
Does the idea of not existing after death scare you? Why or why not?
I grew up in a religious home, but have always been an admitted atheist. However, if I think on the idea too much, the idea of nonexistence for a sentient and conscious being is terrifying to me. Anyone else?
What do you think is worse? Being burned to death or electrocuted to death?
I later found out her husband was cheating on her and mistreating her at home, and she bought some petrol and poured it over herself and struck a match. It made sense why he didnt really try to save her or seem devastated. He just stood there like he was watering a plant, so calm and so little water. She suffered third degree burns to 90% of her body and died.
Burned alive and buried alive, the two worst fates for any living creature that I could ever possibly imagine. If forced with the choice, which would you pick? Unbearable physical agony, or extreme mental torture? The most excruciating pain imaginable, or the utmost form of horror that the human mind is capable of conceiving? Up to a few years ago, I didn't know either. Why would you even consider it if not forced to? Well, one day I found out which I'd choose. One day so dreadful that there's no adjective in the English language strong enough to properly convey the horror of it; a day so awful that I struggle just to recall it, I had the choice put upon me. Here is what happened:
Years ago, I bought my first home. Being an overall fan of the macabre and, living in rural New England, I decided on a nearly ancient American Colonial style home. Reminiscent of something out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne or Arthur Miller story, it was the product of a bygone era. Though it was built in the early 1800s, as the cliche goes, it had good bones, and had been fairly well maintained considering it’s age. That being said, it still needed some work.
A few weeks after closing, while fixing some of the faulty old wiring in the basement, I came across a centuries old drain set into the stone flooring. It was maybe three feet in diameter and covered with a heavy iron grate that was worn with many decades worth of rough, brown corrosion. It resembled the entrance to a dungeon.
Like I mentioned above, I have a curiosity for all the dark and morbid elements of the world. Finds like this were the exact reason I wanted this house! So I decided to have a closer look at the forgotten thing. I laced my fingers through the dirty old grate and gave it a firm pull. It opened with a pained and rusty cry. I gazed down into the hole. A faint, acrid stink arose from its depths. It was as dry as old bone and quiet as a crypt. I assumed, due to the home’s location on the side of a small hill, that the basement had once been prone to flooding, and that modern technological developments had rendered that, like so many other things in this place, a relic of the past. I poked my head a little farther in and looked into the deep, dark recesses of the ancient plumbing. I could make out just the faintest bit of light at the far end. I went out into the yard and found the outlet hidden deep in a thicket of tangled brush. Evidently lacking access to chicken mesh, someone had covered it with a makeshift criss-crossing of merciless looking barbed wire, apparently to keep any unwanted creatures from crawling in during the night. I thought that whomever had done so had made a smart choice. The pipe looked nearly big enough for a person to squeeze through.
A few months later down the road, I was back working in the basement. The previous owner had left boxes upon boxes of yellowed old newspapers, books and other forms of aged literature stacked under the stairs. I wanted to move out what I could as they were taking up a lot of valuable storage space and were a possible fire hazard, especially under the dry, splintery wood of the basement risers. Honestly though, I really wanted to look through them to see what sort of curious old volumes might be hidden within the dusty mound.
About thirty minutes into my task, I had sifted through and moved about five of the boxes without finding anything of much interest. In the sixth box, however, I came upon a strange volume bound in worn leather that looked like it must be older than the house itself. It had the words Kitab al Kanuz embossed on the cover and was written in what appeared to be Arabic, though I'm no linguist. There were English translations or notes of some sort written in the margins. They seemed to say something about the locations of lost and hidden treasures. This was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Excited by my find, I moved out from under the stairs in search of better lighting to read it by. I went over to a large flood light I had left in the basement from a previous project and flicked it on. The decrepit wiring running under the stairs sparked violently.
I spun quickly and, in doing so, tripped and fell backward. By the time I got up, the sparks had already lit a fire in the stack of boxes that stood nearly a meter high. It was licking and biting at the withered stairs like the jaws of a hungry animal. In hindsight, at this very moment, I should have sprinted through the flames to safety. Whatever burns I would have suffered would have paled in comparison the trauma I was doomed to endure by staying put. But, like they say, hindsight is 20/20. Instead, I sat frozen in shock of the sight in front of me. When I snapped out of it, I looked around frantically for any sign of something to douse the flames with, but of course there was nothing. Nobody thinks to keep a fire extinguisher in their basement.
About a week after the incident, there was a funeral, but that black patch of grass remained for almost 2 months. Then the fire spread to the exposed fiberglass insulation in the ceiling. It jumped from section to section like a stone skipping across a pond. The air became thick with the baking heat. The sound of the flames crackling was now constant and unrelenting. Smoke was filling up the already close air, curling and twisting through the space. Every breath I took tasted of hot ash. I finally decided my only hope was to sprint up the stairs through the inferno and pray my injuries weren't life threatening. Thoughts of pink, stinging burns, blisters, wet peeling flesh and skin grafts flashed through my mind. I hesitated. I tried to steel my nerves against it all. Then the staircase collapsed. I drew back against the concrete wall behind me, hoping for respite from the sudden gust of fiery air that followed. It didn't help. It was like standing too close to a bonfire, but with no way to back up. I looked up at the doorway. The threshold was 15 feet up and surrounded by flame. I moved away along the wall, desperately searching for any relief from the heat and smoke. Everything was on fire now. I could barely see. My eyes burned and every breath choked my lungs. I was beginning to feel light-headed and nauseous. I was going to die down here, asphyxiated and burned alive. I prayed to God to feel as little as possible.
I got down on my stomach hoping to delay the inevitable. My hands felt cold metal on the floor. I heard it grind and shift with my movement. My fingers slipped through elongated holes. I was lying on top of the drain.
My heart jumped and then immediately dropped to the pit of my stomach. I had a way out, but it meant squeezing through hundreds of feet of suffocating underground tunnel. I pulled it open and it gave that same rusty cry as before. I put my head inside. The air felt cool and fresh compared to the basement. I looked at the spec of light way down in the darkness. It looked miles away. I tried pushing myself inside. My shoulders pressed against the sides of the drain, pinning my arms tightly to my sides. Claustrophobia hit me like an electric shock. I scrambled back up immediately. The fire was closing in around me. I could barely breath anymore. The heat was like being in an oven. Like baking to death. I felt flames lick at my back and I jumped forward. Fire burnt the skin of my face. I pulled back. I had nowhere left to go. Without stopping to think any further, I shoved my body headlong into the hole.
I wriggled in like a worm, the flames burning at my feet and legs giving me the dearly needed motivation to move forward. My arms were pinned to my sides again. Because of the "L" shape of the drain I had to go in upside down. It was like being trapped in a coffin. It was like being stuck in a cave miles below the earth's surface. Dread and anxiety like I've never felt before consumed me. I wriggled and squirmed and kicked. I moved mere centimeters with each desperate effort. The sides of the pipe clenched around me like a fist. Every move felt like it would wedge me hopelessly in the pipe. In my position, I couldn't even see where I was going. I had no idea how much progress I was making. If I was even getting closer to the opening. The darkness was total. I sobbed and screamed and squirmed further, scraping my skin on the rough sides of the dried up old pipe. My mind was pure panic now. I pushed with my legs all I could, but I only had room to lift my knees a few inches. I struggled wildly to keep moving, the sides of the cylinder grinding against my shoulders and hips. My manic breathing and hopeless cries echoed deafeningly in the pipe. Then I came to a rise. I could feel it like a ridge under my back. The build up of centuries of rock hard mineral deposits created a stalagmite like formation underneath me that gradually rose up the sides of the passage. I kept pushing and squirming as feverishly as ever until I felt my shoulders squeeze right up against my neck. I kicked and I twisted and I yelled, but I could not move. I was pinned within the jagged ridge. There wasn't room to move forward and I had no way to back up. I was stuck. Completely and totally stuck. I thrashed my legs and jerked my torso violently. I whipped my head around and cried out like an animal in a trap, banging my forehead against the top of the pipe and scraping the skin off. Still my body wouldn't move. I cried and I screamed until I was exhausted. Then I cried and screamed even more. I began to fade in and out. I dreamt that I saw the faces of the dead climbing out of the earth above me. I heard the voices of demons in my ears chanting and laughing at me in strange languages. I could feel the pipe squeezing and tightening and relaxing just to play with me. The world spun uncontrollably at times, making me dizzy and sick. Other times I floated paralyzed through the void. My thoughts whirled violently round my brain like mad, biting flies. My head felt like an oven with my brain baking inside. The salt of my tears burned my dried up eyes. I was going to die in here. Alone. Stuck. Unable to move. They had to wait until the fire had died down before they could call in an excavator. Eventually, the heavy machine became too risky, as it could easily have collapsed the decaying old tube, burying me within. So they set to work digging it up with shovels. After they moved enough earth to expose the pipe, they had to cut out the section I was entombed in with a large saw. I know people were speaking to me during this time, trying in vain to keep me calm, but all I remember is the deafening, metallic shrieking that echoed through the pipe, stabbing at my eardrums like ice picks. Once freed from the rest of the conduit, they lifted the section that held me out of the ground with a small crane and set it down in the yard. I vaguely remember another floating sensation. I had hoped I had died. Soon they went to back to work with smaller, yet barely less hideous sounding saws. It was night at this point, so I didn't even get the miniscule benefit of daylight to ease the suffering. Other than the noise, it felt no different than when I first crawled in.
Finally, it felt as if a great weight was lifted from all sides of me. My body seemed to expand in all directions. Cool night air brushed across my skin. I was lifted up and carried away.
This, like I said, was years ago. I am just now regaining the sanity needed to be able to process these events and write them down. My therapist tells me it's a good idea. That it will help me get past the event to whatever degree possible. He says it may help with the night terrors too. I can barely sleep without teleporting right back into that suffocating space. The other patients in the hospital are used to my nightly screaming by now. So are the nurses and orderlies. It was they who gave me the details of my rescue. They tell me I was stuck in that pipe for nearly ten hours before the rescuers got me out. They also tell me that crawling into it was the only reason I survived. The house was nothing but a pile of ashes after the fire and, because of its subterranean location, very little heat or smoke got into that awful drain.
I've had a pretty natural fear of burning alive (dreams about it and such) and seeing stuff like the woman killed in the elevator this week is deeply disturbing.
Having had small burns before I know how painful even second degree burns can be. My question is would it hurt that badly all over your body the whole time or would the pain mostly be blocked? Obviously it wouldn't be pleasant but surely it can't be as bad as I'd think, right? This is absolutely crippling. It seems like the harder I try to forget about it all, the more prominent it becomes. It is a completely irrational thing to think about but yet I can't help but have this crippling anxiety that I might one day end up like that. The thought just pops up out of nowhere when I least expect it, although not as often in social gatherings. I need advice to know what to do to completely irradicate this fear that I assume seems completely illogical to most people, but which does indeed have a real impact on my well-being. Thanks! When I was a kid, I witnessed a woman burn herself to death. What is the most shocking/terrifying/traumatic thing you experienced?
One day when I was 13 and walking home from school, around the corner I saw smoke in the sky, and I thought - hey someone's house is on fire (I couldnt see what the smoke was from at this point yet because there was a building in the way). Then when I actually got past the corner, I saw a lot of people from my school who had gathered at the footpath and there was some obvious commotion. When I finally got into a spot where I could see from the people, I saw this lady in her front yard on fire. I am talking about her whole body from head to toe engulfed in flames and she was just standing there screaming. Her husband was standing next to her 'trying' to hose her down. By trying I mean the water coming out of his garden hose was about as much as my pee stream. I remember thinking "wtf turn the water up, and make her roll on the grass".
Eventually she fell to the ground and just lay there burning. After a while I ran hope because I was so shocked and terrified. The thing that stuck with me the most was that her son of about 5 years old was standing next to her watching her this entire time. I am talking about like 5 metres away. For a long time afterwards when I would walk past that house on my way to and from school, there was a black patch of grass where she fell and burned.
I know they feel tremendous amounts of pain as the skin is burnt, but after watching the ISIS video showing the pilot being burnt alive, he runs around in the cage for a while, then he comes to an abrupt stop. Sits down, tits his head down, then dies. I'm talking about that moment when his skin is charcoal black. Is he feeling pain in that period? Or does shock set in and he feels nothing? How long does it take to reach that state after someone is engulfed in flames? The editing in the video really annoyed me as it wasn't RAW footage so I couldn't tell how long he was actually engulfed In flames for.
Does the idea of not existing after death scare you? Why or why not?
I grew up in a religious home, but have always been an admitted atheist. However, if I think on the idea too much, the idea of nonexistence for a sentient and conscious being is terrifying to me. Anyone else?
What do you think is worse? Being burned to death or electrocuted to death?
I later found out her husband was cheating on her and mistreating her at home, and she bought some petrol and poured it over herself and struck a match. It made sense why he didnt really try to save her or seem devastated. He just stood there like he was watering a plant, so calm and so little water. She suffered third degree burns to 90% of her body and died.
Burned alive and buried alive, the two worst fates for any living creature that I could ever possibly imagine. If forced with the choice, which would you pick? Unbearable physical agony, or extreme mental torture? The most excruciating pain imaginable, or the utmost form of horror that the human mind is capable of conceiving? Up to a few years ago, I didn't know either. Why would you even consider it if not forced to? Well, one day I found out which I'd choose. One day so dreadful that there's no adjective in the English language strong enough to properly convey the horror of it; a day so awful that I struggle just to recall it, I had the choice put upon me. Here is what happened:
Years ago, I bought my first home. Being an overall fan of the macabre and, living in rural New England, I decided on a nearly ancient American Colonial style home. Reminiscent of something out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne or Arthur Miller story, it was the product of a bygone era. Though it was built in the early 1800s, as the cliche goes, it had good bones, and had been fairly well maintained considering it’s age. That being said, it still needed some work.
A few weeks after closing, while fixing some of the faulty old wiring in the basement, I came across a centuries old drain set into the stone flooring. It was maybe three feet in diameter and covered with a heavy iron grate that was worn with many decades worth of rough, brown corrosion. It resembled the entrance to a dungeon.
Like I mentioned above, I have a curiosity for all the dark and morbid elements of the world. Finds like this were the exact reason I wanted this house! So I decided to have a closer look at the forgotten thing. I laced my fingers through the dirty old grate and gave it a firm pull. It opened with a pained and rusty cry. I gazed down into the hole. A faint, acrid stink arose from its depths. It was as dry as old bone and quiet as a crypt. I assumed, due to the home’s location on the side of a small hill, that the basement had once been prone to flooding, and that modern technological developments had rendered that, like so many other things in this place, a relic of the past. I poked my head a little farther in and looked into the deep, dark recesses of the ancient plumbing. I could make out just the faintest bit of light at the far end. I went out into the yard and found the outlet hidden deep in a thicket of tangled brush. Evidently lacking access to chicken mesh, someone had covered it with a makeshift criss-crossing of merciless looking barbed wire, apparently to keep any unwanted creatures from crawling in during the night. I thought that whomever had done so had made a smart choice. The pipe looked nearly big enough for a person to squeeze through.
A few months later down the road, I was back working in the basement. The previous owner had left boxes upon boxes of yellowed old newspapers, books and other forms of aged literature stacked under the stairs. I wanted to move out what I could as they were taking up a lot of valuable storage space and were a possible fire hazard, especially under the dry, splintery wood of the basement risers. Honestly though, I really wanted to look through them to see what sort of curious old volumes might be hidden within the dusty mound.
About thirty minutes into my task, I had sifted through and moved about five of the boxes without finding anything of much interest. In the sixth box, however, I came upon a strange volume bound in worn leather that looked like it must be older than the house itself. It had the words Kitab al Kanuz embossed on the cover and was written in what appeared to be Arabic, though I'm no linguist. There were English translations or notes of some sort written in the margins. They seemed to say something about the locations of lost and hidden treasures. This was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Excited by my find, I moved out from under the stairs in search of better lighting to read it by. I went over to a large flood light I had left in the basement from a previous project and flicked it on. The decrepit wiring running under the stairs sparked violently.
I spun quickly and, in doing so, tripped and fell backward. By the time I got up, the sparks had already lit a fire in the stack of boxes that stood nearly a meter high. It was licking and biting at the withered stairs like the jaws of a hungry animal. In hindsight, at this very moment, I should have sprinted through the flames to safety. Whatever burns I would have suffered would have paled in comparison the trauma I was doomed to endure by staying put. But, like they say, hindsight is 20/20. Instead, I sat frozen in shock of the sight in front of me. When I snapped out of it, I looked around frantically for any sign of something to douse the flames with, but of course there was nothing. Nobody thinks to keep a fire extinguisher in their basement.
About a week after the incident, there was a funeral, but that black patch of grass remained for almost 2 months. Then the fire spread to the exposed fiberglass insulation in the ceiling. It jumped from section to section like a stone skipping across a pond. The air became thick with the baking heat. The sound of the flames crackling was now constant and unrelenting. Smoke was filling up the already close air, curling and twisting through the space. Every breath I took tasted of hot ash. I finally decided my only hope was to sprint up the stairs through the inferno and pray my injuries weren't life threatening. Thoughts of pink, stinging burns, blisters, wet peeling flesh and skin grafts flashed through my mind. I hesitated. I tried to steel my nerves against it all. Then the staircase collapsed. I drew back against the concrete wall behind me, hoping for respite from the sudden gust of fiery air that followed. It didn't help. It was like standing too close to a bonfire, but with no way to back up. I looked up at the doorway. The threshold was 15 feet up and surrounded by flame. I moved away along the wall, desperately searching for any relief from the heat and smoke. Everything was on fire now. I could barely see. My eyes burned and every breath choked my lungs. I was beginning to feel light-headed and nauseous. I was going to die down here, asphyxiated and burned alive. I prayed to God to feel as little as possible.
I got down on my stomach hoping to delay the inevitable. My hands felt cold metal on the floor. I heard it grind and shift with my movement. My fingers slipped through elongated holes. I was lying on top of the drain.
My heart jumped and then immediately dropped to the pit of my stomach. I had a way out, but it meant squeezing through hundreds of feet of suffocating underground tunnel. I pulled it open and it gave that same rusty cry as before. I put my head inside. The air felt cool and fresh compared to the basement. I looked at the spec of light way down in the darkness. It looked miles away. I tried pushing myself inside. My shoulders pressed against the sides of the drain, pinning my arms tightly to my sides. Claustrophobia hit me like an electric shock. I scrambled back up immediately. The fire was closing in around me. I could barely breath anymore. The heat was like being in an oven. Like baking to death. I felt flames lick at my back and I jumped forward. Fire burnt the skin of my face. I pulled back. I had nowhere left to go. Without stopping to think any further, I shoved my body headlong into the hole.
I wriggled in like a worm, the flames burning at my feet and legs giving me the dearly needed motivation to move forward. My arms were pinned to my sides again. Because of the "L" shape of the drain I had to go in upside down. It was like being trapped in a coffin. It was like being stuck in a cave miles below the earth's surface. Dread and anxiety like I've never felt before consumed me. I wriggled and squirmed and kicked. I moved mere centimeters with each desperate effort. The sides of the pipe clenched around me like a fist. Every move felt like it would wedge me hopelessly in the pipe. In my position, I couldn't even see where I was going. I had no idea how much progress I was making. If I was even getting closer to the opening. The darkness was total. I sobbed and screamed and squirmed further, scraping my skin on the rough sides of the dried up old pipe. My mind was pure panic now. I pushed with my legs all I could, but I only had room to lift my knees a few inches. I struggled wildly to keep moving, the sides of the cylinder grinding against my shoulders and hips. My manic breathing and hopeless cries echoed deafeningly in the pipe. Then I came to a rise. I could feel it like a ridge under my back. The build up of centuries of rock hard mineral deposits created a stalagmite like formation underneath me that gradually rose up the sides of the passage. I kept pushing and squirming as feverishly as ever until I felt my shoulders squeeze right up against my neck. I kicked and I twisted and I yelled, but I could not move. I was pinned within the jagged ridge. There wasn't room to move forward and I had no way to back up. I was stuck. Completely and totally stuck. I thrashed my legs and jerked my torso violently. I whipped my head around and cried out like an animal in a trap, banging my forehead against the top of the pipe and scraping the skin off. Still my body wouldn't move. I cried and I screamed until I was exhausted. Then I cried and screamed even more. I began to fade in and out. I dreamt that I saw the faces of the dead climbing out of the earth above me. I heard the voices of demons in my ears chanting and laughing at me in strange languages. I could feel the pipe squeezing and tightening and relaxing just to play with me. The world spun uncontrollably at times, making me dizzy and sick. Other times I floated paralyzed through the void. My thoughts whirled violently round my brain like mad, biting flies. My head felt like an oven with my brain baking inside. The salt of my tears burned my dried up eyes. I was going to die in here. Alone. Stuck. Unable to move. They had to wait until the fire had died down before they could call in an excavator. Eventually, the heavy machine became too risky, as it could easily have collapsed the decaying old tube, burying me within. So they set to work digging it up with shovels. After they moved enough earth to expose the pipe, they had to cut out the section I was entombed in with a large saw. I know people were speaking to me during this time, trying in vain to keep me calm, but all I remember is the deafening, metallic shrieking that echoed through the pipe, stabbing at my eardrums like ice picks. Once freed from the rest of the conduit, they lifted the section that held me out of the ground with a small crane and set it down in the yard. I vaguely remember another floating sensation. I had hoped I had died. Soon they went to back to work with smaller, yet barely less hideous sounding saws. It was night at this point, so I didn't even get the miniscule benefit of daylight to ease the suffering. Other than the noise, it felt no different than when I first crawled in.
Finally, it felt as if a great weight was lifted from all sides of me. My body seemed to expand in all directions. Cool night air brushed across my skin. I was lifted up and carried away.
This, like I said, was years ago. I am just now regaining the sanity needed to be able to process these events and write them down. My therapist tells me it's a good idea. That it will help me get past the event to whatever degree possible. He says it may help with the night terrors too. I can barely sleep without teleporting right back into that suffocating space. The other patients in the hospital are used to my nightly screaming by now. So are the nurses and orderlies. It was they who gave me the details of my rescue. They tell me I was stuck in that pipe for nearly ten hours before the rescuers got me out. They also tell me that crawling into it was the only reason I survived. The house was nothing but a pile of ashes after the fire and, because of its subterranean location, very little heat or smoke got into that awful drain.
