Afterpants: Afterlives (Afterlife Angst)

Welcome back to Afterpants: Afterlives in which I discuss various media tropes about certain topics regarding the hereafter.

Today's topic is "Afterlife Angst"

This is the storytelling phenomenon that has the main character (or side characters) living in a sort imaginary Limbo where they still believe they are alive. (or some variation of their lives such as living in the past etc...)

This can seen in such classics as Beetlejuice, Jacobs Ladder or the awesome Sixth Sense.

This is a bit different than the "unfinished business" trope or the more serious "Grudge" effect. This is more the idea that they're dead, but don't know it, or they suspect something's amiss but can't quite put a ghostly finger on it.

Being a student of religions and afterlives in general, I can put a stamp of "probably true"

on this one as every culture has SOME sort of story where the dead get "lost" and can't find their way to their proper afterlife.