Ptosikrevatithanatosphobia

Tonight, I was having one of the late-evening chats with ME that I have grown so fond of.  We always seem to diverge into the most outlandish and interesting topics, and I love that his mind is as willing and capable of going down this path as mine is.  Somehow, we managed to get onto the topic of irrational fears, and he told me that his was of being crushed to death while sleeping in the bottom bed of a bunk bed.  While this fear is more common than you might think, and while it seems completely legitimate, I still had not personally ever heard someone say that was their biggest fear.

I had had bunk beds as a kid, and I don't recall ever feeling scared to be on the bottom bed.  And I definitely don't recall ever feeling like the top bunk might come crashing down on me in the middle of the night and slowly crush me to death as I struggled to unpin myself from underneath it.  I mean I think what makes this irrational is that it's not falling from very high, and even with someone on the bed, it seems unlikely to kill you instantly.  Injury?  Yes.  Death?  Unlikely.  Also, wouldn't the person on the top bunk realize it was falling and get off to help you before you were slowly crushed to death?

As I write this statement, I think of my own brother, and I have my doubts as to whether he would have helped me back then...such was the nature of our relationship.  He might or might not have gotten off of the fallen bed.  I seriously doubt he would have helped me out of the mess.  So, put into this context...brothers and maybe prison cellmates...I guess it is theoretically possible to be slowly crushed to death by an upper bunk bed.

The most amazing part is that as apparently as common as this fear is, ME and I were unable to find a scientific name for it.  If we make up our own, using Greek as our root, then it might be something like "ptosikrevatithanatosphobia," which loosely translates as "falling bed death fear."  While definitely a mouthful, it has the importance-sounding and length of most words describing a particular fear, so I think it meets the criteria needed.  And since the scientific community did not take being slowly crushed to death by a falling top bed in a bunk bed seriously enough to name it, we now have our official name for it.  So it shall be written, so it shall be done.