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Are you afraid of the dark?
Picto
Posts: 24,270 Forum Member
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When darkness falls and all the lights go out does a foreboding anxiety take over.
Does the small creak you hear turn into a supine monster concealed in the shadows under your bed. Usually it's not the dark itself, but what's concealed in the dark that fuels our fears.
Some believe that this grinding anxiety is a good thing, a limiting mechanism against reckless behaviour in the dark. Predators prefer the cover of darkness to hunt and our fear stems from the subconscious absolute: stay out of the dark because that's where the danger is.
Generally the dark holds little fear for me but i do get the odd anxiety knot on occasion, especially after watching a particularly scary horror film. Reaching out into a darkened room, grasping for the light switch, sometimes sends goosepimples down my arm.
The one thing that did scare me when i was a child was my bedroom had the loft hatch in the ceiling. When the lights went out i always imagined the hatch creaking open slowly with something unknown looking out from the attic.
Are you afraid of the dark?
Does the small creak you hear turn into a supine monster concealed in the shadows under your bed. Usually it's not the dark itself, but what's concealed in the dark that fuels our fears.
Some believe that this grinding anxiety is a good thing, a limiting mechanism against reckless behaviour in the dark. Predators prefer the cover of darkness to hunt and our fear stems from the subconscious absolute: stay out of the dark because that's where the danger is.
Generally the dark holds little fear for me but i do get the odd anxiety knot on occasion, especially after watching a particularly scary horror film. Reaching out into a darkened room, grasping for the light switch, sometimes sends goosepimples down my arm.
The one thing that did scare me when i was a child was my bedroom had the loft hatch in the ceiling. When the lights went out i always imagined the hatch creaking open slowly with something unknown looking out from the attic.
Are you afraid of the dark?
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Comments
The pop singer?
Regarding 'the witch in the bedroom'. Sometimes unfortunate juxtapositions in the gloom do throw up scary figures. There's a vase and flowers in our bedroom that turns into a witch at night time due to the play of light and shadow. Total darkness banishes the witch. So darkness whilst i'm in bed is quite welcome but darkness when i'm measuring an abandoned buildings basement is a different matter.
Often in my Nan's house when I'm going up the stairs in the dark I feel really creeped out and have to sing or make a noise until I get to the light switch on the top landing.
My wife was away and I was in bed late at night reading "The Exorcist" and it had "got" me.
I had to cross the room to turn out the light.
I poised with one finger on the switch and got as close to the bed as I could.
I flicked the switch, bolted under the duvet and let out a scream to release the tension.
It took a while to look out from under the duvet as I was convinced I would see something in the room.
I'm a big boy now though
Ah, well yes. That would be different. I guess my point is that, generally speaking, I don't mind the dark. I don't mind walking the dog alone on dark nights and stuff but, yeah, I doubt I'd take him into some very dark, abandoned, secluded area.
Although I have, on occasion been a bit nervous about what may be hidden in it.
http://www.wikihow.com/Not-Be-Afraid-of-the-Dark
Point number 9 is blatantly wrong. 'Remember that a supposed murderer or monster can't see in the dark either. Surely they'd just fumble about and bump into things'.
What about those monsters that live in caves who have enhanced senses or the muderer who is wearing night vision goggles. Schoolboy error there Wikihow.
I'm always embarrassed to admit that I'm more afraid of being in a clinical white room or in a place outside, like a snow-covered field. I don't know why, but the sheer whiteness unnerves me.
I think that's why I enjoy watching horror films that take place in the snow - The Thing, Whiteout and so on.
Yes, these fears aren't always black and white.
Darkness is not something that requires any fear as it is just a state. It may require caution if you are required to move about in it, but the actual darkness can do you no harm at all.
I used to be afraid of the dark, but now I'm not. I grew out of it by the time I was 45...:D
Then the title should have been "Are you IRRATIONALLY afraid of XXXXX"
As adults we have many emotions which make us wonderful creatures that are not robots, but an effort should be made to purge all irrational nonsense from our minds.
We can lead more happy productive lives then.
It might be quite difficult to purge our fear of the dark (or what's in it) from our minds. Scientists believe that anxiety associated with darkness lies deeply rooted in our psyche due to evolutionary development. This is the result of generation upon generation of early humans reacting to and subsequently preparing for dangers that lurk in the darkness.
Generally I know that there is nothing to be afraid of in the darkness but on the odd occasion i still get that foreboding sense that something is lurking just out of sight. Maybe my ancient ancestral genes are calling out to me.
Over-emotional personification at its best. Dangers are present, they don't lurk as they have no mind to do anything.
And all the dangers are man made and as a result of walking mindlessly around in the dark instead of cautiously and then inventing that it wasn't their own actions but that of an imagined malevolent thing within the darkness.
Economy of sentence structure.
Then when I was 12 I was allowed to sit up one night and watched a horror film called 'Trilogy of Terror' - the one with Karen Black being chased around her flat by a demon voodoo doll. Well that really capped it for me - I could not sleep for looking down the hallway from my bed for a demon doll to come running after me. I was not getting to sleep until almost 5 in the morning and then going to school! I was 17 before I could sleep without the bathroom light on and that was because I had left school and was working and getting a wider perspective on things - when 'rational thought kicked in' as a previous poster put it so well. I have to admit though that even today I don't like pitch blackness and if I've watched a creepy film I tend to lie there beside my snoring husband for a bit just listening for a sound before I drift off. The Blair Witch Project gave me such a moment
But it was a deeply unpleasant aspect of an otherwise very happy childhood.
If I have to walk from one side of the house to the other in the dark, every possible light along the way needs to go on, without any time spent looking into the darkness.