Koreans Are Having Funerals And Laying In Coffins While Still Alive

Many people are curious as to what it feels like to die. However, for South Koreans, this isn’t merely a curiosity. This can become a real-life experience.

Living funeral services are becoming a big hit in Seoul. This would mean a person who is alive and well, will be able to experience how it is to be at your own funeral.

The Morbid Ritual

In Hyowon Healing Center, many individuals experience being dressed in burial garb, having their funeral portraits taken, creating a will, and laying down in their own coffin for a lengthy 10 minutes. There is an instructor who would walk them through their “final moments” in a morbid ritual as they would be climbing into their very own coffins.

According to Reuters, since 2012, the healing center has served “living funerals,” for more than 25,000 people who are not dead. As per NYPost, the last rites for these undead individuals would include questions that would make them think about their lives.

Steps Taken Before Coffin Closes

“In this last moment before your death, who comes to mind?” this is being asked by the instructor to those who seek the service. Aside from this, the instructor would make the participants imagine that they are already dying and that their organs are failing. “Now, all of you are dying, your organs are failing, one by one, and you will eventually take your last breath,” the participants will hear the instructor say as their wooden coffins are closed.

Some people may not like the whole experience, but the head of the healing center says that the goal of the living funeral service is to make people appreciate their lives. There are participants who would seek reconciliation with family members. Some seek forgiveness from friends.

Leading To Happy Lives

Accordingly, he believes that this experience is important because it allows people to reconcile and apologize at the earliest, and live happy lives thereafter. One participant, Cho Jae-hee, said that after participating in the free service, he was able to take a new approach to life.

Although there are varied opinions on this living funeral service, it continues to exist up to the present, providing people with an almost “death” experience. Since it is free, paying the healing center a visit to Seoul is all that it would take to experience it.