Dead people remind us of our own mortality. There is also an evolutionary component; dead people are often accompanied by danger, like predators or disease, and so we instinctively recoil.

I have only experienced death firsthand with my pets. When an animal dies, it is my sense that the essence of the animal leaves, and all that is left is a shell. It is a striking sensation, like a vessel being emptied.

I think the fear of dead people comes from the fear of the unknown. People don't know what happens after they die and they feel that they have no control over death, therefore they cannot prepare themselves, cannot accept the inevitability of death and are afraid to face up to their own mortality. I also think that hollywood has a lot to answer for scaring people about death through making movies about dead people coming back to life, zombies etc.

I think this has to do something with what demons are called in the Kabbalah, they are call something like Quiploth which means shells. Isn't that interesting a demon is called a shell, and the dead body is nothing more than an empty shell.

More interesting is how people fear mannequins or dolls coming to life, again an empty shell animating, and as I pointed out demons are called shells so it seems an absents of what we know. Kind of like matter fearing antimatter really, it is opposite of what is believed and commonly experienced as normal.

The interesting thing is to a child these are not scary as a matter of fact a child dreams of having her doll come to life to play with and this would be wonderful not scary. The child hasn't yet a set normal standard of how things should be, so something different is acceptable and wondrous not scary. So in that innocents is great power over the thing most see as evil, because it is acceptance as it is. This is why the child plays with Dr. Frankenstein's monster on the teeter totter in the movie Frankenstein.

So I believe we fear the dead because it doesn't fit with how we believe things should be.

...and cemetaries at night...

I think that has something to do with the etheric bodies of those passed over and possibly the accumulated emotions of hundreds or thousands of grieving loved ones over time.

With individual corpses, I do think that sometimes they are still there and we sense it despite physical evidence to the contrary. Some texts tell us that it takes 3 days to completely die - pass over.

People does not actually fear dead bodies which might actually have been previously inhabited by their friends.In reality the dead bodies forcefully bring to the consciousness of the fearful,the inevitability of their own eventual demise and not being in the know of what happen after physical death they become fearful of what may or will happen to their ignorant souls when their time come to pass on thus technically speaking the fear of the dead is the fear of the unknown brought about by sheer ignorance and sometimes by the realisation that reactions to all evil actions by them awaits them after their present earth life.

I can personally say, that I have a HUGE fear of dead human bodies. I cannot explain it. I know they won't jump out and get me, there is no risk of harm, and it's not about my own mortality. I know we all die, my motto has always been, if you gotta go, ya gotta go! I know the difference between not liking something and fearing it. I don't like snakes, sure I have no problem looking at them with some glass inbetween us, but I would never hold one.. they creep me out, but I don't fear them. When I was 3 my grandfather died, and I refused to go to his funeral. I wanted to, I really did but I physically couldn't. In high school alone, I had 12 people die(aunts, godmother, friends...) and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't attend the funeral or burials. I can watch Autopsy Files with Dr Baden, and see pictures of dead bodies(in coffins and murder sceens) and that doesn't bother me. I see a hurst on the road and I have a panic attack.. I even passed out once. I know its irrational, but I can't can't breath, my whole body tenses up, I start to sweat and I just physically lock up. I have tried taking a few Xanies, or having a few shots of tequilla, nothing works. I even saw a shrink, and I was considering getting hypnotized, because do you know or realize how hard it is to drive in a urban enviornmet with driving past a funeral home? 2 blocks away, and I have to take the Pan AM route to avoid them all, even if it means driving through SMM territory! Joking around with the hubbie, if theres ever a zombie outbreak, I always say, I'll just give myself up for the greater good b/c I coun't be around the bodies. As for the ghost thing.. I have always envied people who "see" or communicate with the dead, and although I believe in ghosts, try as I may, I have never experienced anything paranormal. So, in my mind yes ghosts exist, but in reality I have nothing to base that off of. So I suppose that if someone has a real phobia... there isn't always an explaination. I never stumbled onto a decomposing body walking home, I never physically saw someone die.. but the fear is still there. I didn't always live in the ghetto, I used to live in "white surburbia".... So if someone has an hour to read this post :) maybe they can figure out what the hell a phobia arises from... cause I sure can't!