2. The Premature Burial

The narrator describes his struggle with catalepsy, a condition in which he randomly falls into a death like trance. This leads to him having a fear of being buried alive. Obsessing over his disease, he became obsessed with the idea that he would fall into such a state away from home and people would think that he is dead and bury him. He makes his friends promise not to bury him prematurely. He refuses to leave home and builds himself a tomb with equipment allowing him to signal for help if he awakes "after death".

The narrator awakens in pitch darkness in a confined area - he has been buried alive, and all his precautions went to waste. He cries out and is immediately hushed. He realizes that he is in the berth, a small sleeping place, of a small boat, not a grave. The event shocks him out of his obsession with death.