A Day at the Morgue: Student Interpretations of Death and Reality.

This study involved the reflections of 15 college students six months after a visit to a morgue. After witnessing the various aspects of death at the morgue (e.g. morgue intake of bodies, significant time spent in a very large storage cooler for corpses, as well as an autopsy) a qualitative inquiry was conducted to determine whether or not the participants' experiences were "real" or "surreal." Analysis revealed that most determined their experience to be surreal. The students' lack of experience with death, to the extent they experienced it at the morgue, no doubt resulted in more subjects determining the experience to be surreal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]