Do you have any fear of walking through a cemetery at night?

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   Denise Handlonposted 11 years ago

   Do you have any fear of walking through a cemetery at night?
   
   I was taking my late afternoon walk to the neighborhood high school and back when the time got away from me.  It was dark when I started back, which took me through a cemetery.  I'm wondering what other people feel about walking through cemeteries at night?

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   Paul Maplesdenposted 11 years ago

   I find cemeteries very peaceful places at day and night. I volunteer to help conserve a local Victorial cemetery and find it a beautiful, reflective place. I don't feel morbid around the stones, the lives of the people buried there were every bit as vivid (if not more so) than my own.
   
   WHere I might have some anxiety in my own life, I find burial places to be very calming and stilling to the spirit, at any time of day or night.

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Paul, thanks for your honest assessment of the feelings you have in and out of cemeteries and in comparison to your own life.    Peace to you.

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   chef-de-jourposted 11 years ago

   I have no fear of cemeteries or headstones or graves or burial mounds or anything like that. Fear of tombstones is called placophobia but I don't have that either.
   
   I can understand how some people do become fearful and start to panic when they are 'amongst the dead' because we're conditioned to become horrified at the thought of those who might still be able to haunt and threaten us, simply because they have ceased to live. How many horror movies and t.v. dramas do we sit through as children, delighting in the fact that hauntings and zombie mobs and the evil walking dead are about to grab hold of us and do awful, evil nasty things to us?
   
   About a half hours walk from my home is a wonderful gothic looking cemetery attached to an 11th century church. It has the most evocative atmosphere at night. You can look along the headstones and see wonderfully wierd silhouettes of angels, broken crosses, large weathered memorials, twisted yew trees and so on. It's not a neglected graveyard but it is very old with lots of half tumbled down headstones and tombs.
   
   As a child I used to play close by and we were often told about the Blue Lady who walked up and down looking for the heart of her lost son, killed whilst away on the Crusades!! I never saw her but I didn't stay around long enough to find out if she really existed.

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks chef-de-jour, your response was very helpful.

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   Lisa HWposted 11 years ago

   I'm not at all afraid of cemeteries because of the "buried-people factor" or anything spooky.   I really don't think, though, that it's at all a good idea for people (especially women) to walk through a cemetery at night any more than walking anywhere that is isolated/desolate at night is a good idea.
   
   I live in a low-crime area, but even in the day my sister and I prefer to go there together rather than alone, at least if it's not a time when a few other people are coming and going there.
   
   It's not uncommon for purse-snatching or assaults to take place at cemeteries.  In fact, not long ago someone in Boston was grabbed from the sidewalk near a cemetery, dragged in and assaulted.  Crime aside, because cemeteries are generally quiet, animals feel freer to spend their time there.  One day my sister and I were at "our" cemetery and there was a huge, huge, number of wild turkeys that went through.  (They were fun to watch because they were so orderly as they walked up each little "road" in a row and took their rights and lefts at the same places; but we were just a little nervous at how many of them there were.  I stopped counting at fifty, but the number of them was huge; and we generally don't see that kind of thing in a downtown or even residential area.)  (Of course, "our" cemetery does border lots of woods-type land, so a city cemetery might not be as likely to have as many animals coming through.  Still, there are coyotes in pretty much all US cities/towns. The bird/animals don't generally bother people, but not long ago it was on the news that some wild turkeys attacked a woman.)
   
   So, "spooky"/"dead-people" things aside (and I know it's not my business what anyone else does), I'd really hope that people keep in mind that where there's an isolated place like a cemetery there's also generally more reason to be concerned about being assaulted in, or even just near, one (especially at night).  Years ago someone tried to get my purse in an empty-ish shopping center parking lot after dark.
   
   I had been walking frequently (not but not on a consistent schedule) at night, and I generally wasn't afraid (considering that it's a residential, low-crime (but not no-crime) area.  There weren't at a lot of cars but there were houses all along the way.  Having a group of "yelling" coyotes come through by my front door one night, and one show up a few feet from the house one afternoon at three, was enough to make me think I don't want to be out walking nights at all now.

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for your comments, Lisa.  Wow, a wild turkey party!  You've made some valid points here.

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   lburmasterposted 11 years ago

   No. I actually enjoy going to the cemetery. It's peaceful, calming, and relaxing. Especially in New Orleans because most are above ground. But my favorite is the cemetery at Normandy. Extremely emotional.

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Interesting.  I find cemeteries more interesting in the daylight b/c of the historic components on the gravestones.  Thanks for your answer.

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   Wesman Todd Shawposted 11 years ago

   Absolutely not.  The cemetery nearby is completely beautiful and very well cared for.  I've always liked to stop there from time to time and walk around.  Of course I'm generally doing that during the daytime.
   
   At night time the county police, should I run into them, might have questions as to why I'm there...and who needs that sort of trouble?
   
   Now that I think about it, I can't recall having ever visited a cemetery that wasn't a very tranquil sort of place.  I do think the upkeep on one is a major contributor to all of that, and also if families plant flowers there, it is nice.

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I usually walk thru during the day as well.  We have many 'family' cemetery plots on pieces of land in rural NC.  Thanks for your feedback.

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   Jlbowdenposted 11 years ago

   Hi Denise:
   
   To be perfectly honest with you, I would prefer to view all bone yards from a safe distance from my car window. And when the sun is high in the sky!  (:

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Jim, thanks for your honest answer.  Many people feel the same way that you do. 

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   alfredfoxposted 11 years ago

   I spent new years eve in the year 2000 on my own in a cemetery. I was on my way to a party and like yourself time got away from me. The streets were empty and I couldn't bare to spend the Millennium on my own in the street. I saw that there was a church beside me with a small cemetery so being a little tipsy I thought I would go and sit on the bench with the graves, better spending it with the dead I thought than alone.
   
   After about ten minutes a man approached me and sat down by my side, i recognized his collar straight away and realized that I was in the presence of a priest. We sat together for a few minutes discussing how I ended up in the cemetery and we both had a good laugh, it turned out that he was the parish priest.
   
   When I said my goodbyes I didn't leave through the entrance that I had first entered. Instead I walked behind the back of the church and around to the other entrance. It was when I was walking behind the back of the church that I noticed what bad condition it was in. It wasn't long before I realized that the church was in fact derelict and as I turned around to look at the priest who was still sitting on the bench, he smiled at me and disappeared. It turned out that I wasn't sitting with a priest after all, I was sitting with a ghost. What surprised me the most, and answer to your question, was that I wasn't scared in the slightest, no fear, just a warm sense of love.

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you so much for your response, Alfred.  Intriguing to say the least! 

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   jennshealthstoreposted 11 years ago

   I actually work in an office at a cemetery. I say this, the people residing at the cemetery are not the ones to worry about. They are not going to hurt you. On the other hand, I would not suggest walking through any dark deserted place especially by yourself at night.

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      Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for commenting, Jenn.

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    tksabresinosposted 11 years ago

    I'm not afraid in the slightest about walking at night through the cemetery. My friends and I went to the cemetery with a ouija board trying to see if we could communicate with the spirits. We sat next to the grave of a mason trying to gain some sort of knowledge. Unfortunately we didn't get any communication so what we decided to do was venture on our own for about half an hour each to see if we could get some sort of reading. I went off on my own and my two friends went on their separate ways. I pretty much walked the path that was there circling around the graves and I thought in my mind some very spiritualistic questions to see if it could invoke some sort of response from those that had passed. I thought things like "What's the meaning of life seeing you have died what did you get out of it?" or "Do you regret?" things along that sort. As I was walking on the path in a circle I felt this weird kind of calmness in the air and had this weird feeling. One very strange thought that popped in to my head was " I'm walking in this circle in a cemetery. How many people walk the same path that you follow?" After having walked in circles for a while I met back with my friends and we left. We didn't get any kind of ghost encounter, but we all felt a bit more spiritually awakened.

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       Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Interesting activity, tk.  Thanks for sharing your experience.

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    arksysposted 11 years ago

    if there is enough light to be able to see where i'm going then i have no trouble walking through or sitting in a cemetery alone.
    
    I remember i was really missing my dad, recently after he had passed away and i knew only he would have understood me so i went to visit his grave at around 1 am ... I prayed for him as well as for everyone else buried in that cemetery and came back home with a clearer head.

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       Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Nice, Arksys, thanks for sharing your thoughts here.

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    eugbugposted 11 years ago

    No, and have done it several times. I don't have any fear of the dead, The only danger would be from the living who might be hiding behind headstones ready to jump out and mug me! Seriously though, I have no fear of cemeteries or wandering around the countryside or up the mountains alone. I love going into old cemeteries, especially the old ones with knee high grass in them. It sometimes makes me sad to read the inscriptions on centuries old headstones and empathize about these people who once lived and are now forgotten with no relatives to visit their graves.

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       Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Hi eugbug.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject.  I agree...some of the old headstones can be interesting...but forgotten.

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    CJ Sledgehammerposted 11 years ago

    Some cemeteries can be very creepy, while others are said to be haunted. I have never felt frightened in a cemetery as of yet, and I feel that often times the inhabitants of cemeteries make better neighbors than the obnoxious living.
    
    The thing that frightens me most about walking around a cemetery at night (which is not commonplace) is falling into one of the freshly dug pits. I was lucky to escape serious injury on one occasion...thank the LORD.

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       Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       OMG  I can't even imagine that experience!!!   Thanks for sharing that.

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    ocbillposted 11 years ago

    I don't have a fear per se.
    However, a cemetery to me is a large park and at night you don't want to always think you are safe in areas that are not well lit no matter how strong you might be or if you took MMA classes. A couple of assailants with a knife or other weapon will beat you. It's the same as walking down a poorly lit alley at night. I know there are crimes in the broad daylight but most happen at night since it is more advantageous for criminals. If I had to go through it at night I would and be prepared for any problems. You gotta be smart so you live long.

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       CJ Sledgehammerposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       I hear what you are saying. Although I enjoy visiting the resting place of the deceased...I am in no hurry to take up permanent residence there. :0)

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       Denise Handlonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

       Good points.  I happen to have a cemetery in my neighborhood and it's easier to cut through it to the high school. 

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