Four years later, researchers in Taiwan put 53 students through a rehearsal of their own death, with a coffin at the end, and measured what was left of its effect afterward. After one week, a lot. Six to eleven weeks later, one part was gone and another was still there.
A funeral you can walk away from
If you want something that shakes you awake, in South Korea you can attend your own funeral.
What is a living funeral?
A living funeral is a rehearsal of your own funeral while you are still alive and well. At Hyowon Healing Center in Seoul, started by a funeral company, people put on a burial shroud, have a portrait taken for their funeral, write their last will and lie in a closed coffin for about ten minutes.
The center opened in 2012. By 2019 more than 25,000 people had taken part, the international news agency Reuters reported. On the day Reuters reported from the center, the people in the coffins ranged from teenagers to retirees.
Jeong Yong-mun, who runs the center, told Reuters why he does it. He is glad when relatives make peace at a funeral, and sad that they wait that long. "We don't have forever," he said.
One of the participants was Choi Jin-kyu, a 28-year-old university student. Lying in the coffin, he realized how often he saw other people as competitors. "When I was in the coffin, I wondered what use that is," he said. After graduating, he planned to start his own business instead of fighting for a place in a crowded job market.
The six-hour seminar
My own coffin was in Seoul too, at the end of a six-hour seminar in Korean that simulated your last day. An English-speaking participant translated for me.
I wrote my own farewell letter. Then my hands and feet were tied, as Korean death rituals prescribe, and a cloth went over my eyes. There was a farewell photo of me and a candle, as if I had already died. In the dark, I saw my life go by: the people, the mistakes, the chances I had missed, and the things that went right.
Then the lid opened.
Fresh air, bright sunlight. I flew home that same evening, and what later became Last Hour Experience started there. In a short video on The Deeper Story, a page on this site, I sum it up in two words: intense, and life-changing.
What I did not know then was how long that lasts.
Measured in three rounds
One answer comes from Taiwan. In 2020 and 2021, researchers at Taipei Medical University invited first-year nursing students and second-year medical students to take part in a study, and 134 said yes. The 53 who were willing to lie in a coffin, and had the time, did. The other 81 filled out the same questionnaires without it.
The whole ritual took almost three hours, in a classroom set up with coffins, led by a psychologist and a social worker who had been running it for nearly ten years. The students changed into burial clothes and watched a video about a girl with bone cancer who dies. They wrote their will and the words for their own gravestone, and read part of it aloud. Then each of them lay down in a coffin, the small window in the lid was closed, and they stayed inside for about ten minutes.
Afterward they climbed out and celebrated being reborn.
Everyone filled out questionnaires three times: a week before, a week after, and six to eleven weeks after.
How long does the effect of a living funeral last?
In a study in Taiwan, a few weeks. A week after the coffin, the students agreed more strongly with lines like "I know whom I live for and why I live." Six to eleven weeks later, their answers were back where they had started.
A week after the coffin they also scored higher than the other students on questions about making time for people who need comfort. By the last round, that difference was gone.
The part that stayed
Does a living funeral make you less afraid of death?
In the Taiwan study, it did. A week after the coffin, the students were less afraid of death than the 81 who had skipped it, and less inclined to push the thought away. Six to eleven weeks later, the difference was still there.
The researchers call their results preliminary. The students chose for themselves whether to go into the coffin, and by the researchers' own calculation a firm answer would have taken about 248 people, not 134. They also could not say which step made the difference: the clothes, the video, the will or the minutes inside the coffin.
So I read the numbers like this. Knowing what you live for faded within weeks. Being less afraid lasted at least as long as anyone measured. If there is something you want to change, those first weeks are the time to do it.
Before it fades
What do you do in the first week after a wake-up call?
Put the one thing you have been postponing on your calendar for that week. In the Taiwan study, knowing what you live for could still be measured one week after the coffin and was gone by the next round. The one-week round is the only measurement in which it was still there.
Can you rehearse a living funeral without a coffin?
Partly. You can take the writing home. Write your will, or the one line you would want on your gravestone. Read it aloud to someone you trust, and ask them to bring it up again a week later.
How do you make the wake-up call from a living funeral last longer?
Talk about it, or write about it, afterward. The researchers in Taiwan suggest adding group conversations after the coffin, or writing down what you noticed, so that the sense of meaning fades less quickly. They had not tested that yet. It is their next question, and one you can investigate for yourself.
At home, with headphones
Last Hour Experience is what I built after Seoul: about an hour alone at home, with headphones on, in which you live through your own final hour. There is no coffin. Near the end you write a farewell letter, to whoever you choose. If the Taiwan numbers hold, what you do in the week after is what makes it last. What would you put in that letter, and who would you tell about it before the week is over?
Questions people ask. One of them is me.
Is a living funeral only done in South Korea?
No. The researchers in Taiwan describe classrooms with coffins at a college in Taiwan, in use for almost ten years, and a company in Tokyo where people attend their own memorial service and lie down in a coffin. In Seoul, the funeral company Hyowon alone had more than 25,000 participants by 2019, according to Reuters.
How long do you lie in the coffin at a living funeral?
About ten minutes. At Hyowon's living funerals in Seoul, Reuters reported about ten minutes in a closed coffin. In the Taiwan classroom it was also about ten minutes, at the end of a ritual of almost three hours. My own seminar in Seoul lasted six hours in total.
What do you write at a living funeral?
That depends on where you go. At Hyowon's living funerals in Seoul, people write their last will. The Taiwan students wrote a will and the words for their own gravestone, and read part of it aloud. At my own seminar in Seoul, in 2016, I wrote a farewell letter.
What if a living funeral turns out to be too much?
In the Taiwan classroom, every coffin had an emergency button. One of the 53 students pressed it soon after lying down. One of the guides came to check, let the student take a break and skip the rest of the time in the coffin. The researchers report no other unpleasant reactions.
Sources
The coffin study from Taipei Medical University, published on January 5, 2023 in BMC Medical Education, a scientific journal about how doctors and nurses are trained. The full text is free to read. It describes the classroom, the 134 students and the three rounds of questionnaires.
The Reuters report from Hyowon Healing Center in Seoul, as printed by the Taipei Times, an English-language newspaper in Taiwan, on November 7, 2019. It gives the number of participants since 2012 as 25,000 and the words of Choi Jin-kyu and Jeong Yong-mun.
From Pilot to Purpose, the first article on this site, in which I describe my day in Seoul from beginning to end.
About the Founder, the page on this site about my years as a pilot and the six-hour seminar in South Korea.
The Deeper Story, the page on this site about how the hour began, with the short video in which I describe the farewell letter and the coffin.