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Fear Of The Dark

taras

Least Haunted
Joined
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Why is it that you (well, I) can be absolutely petrified in the dark for no reason, then turn on the light and think "how stupid", then turn off the light and instantly become terrified again?

Is there some kind of deep psychological thing going on here? I suppose this could relate to the whole 'random reasonless panic' thing.
 
I'm no psychologist, but it's always said that it's not fear of the actual dark, but fear of what's in the dark that scares people.
 
There are a few shades of definition (if I may make a small pun) about fear of the dark:

Dark or night- Nyctophobia.
Dark place, being in- Lygophobia.
Darkness- Achluophobia or Myctophobia, or Scotophobia.

So which one would you say you have?
 
Fallen Angel said:
So which one would you say you have?
None of them, I am quite happy to be in the dark (indeed, one of my favourite experiences was standing alone in an empty rural church in complete darkness - it was amazing).

I just mean that occasionally - for example, after perusing a perticularly disturbing FT, it can be pretty creepy in the dark. But as soon as you turn the light back on, it just seems silly...
 
taras said:
But as soon as you turn the light back on, it just seems silly...

I consider that a huge part of the whole FT "Experience"!

Not only do you get that rush from "being frightened",
it starts you thinking about the "why" -- which takes
you down some fascinating roads! And then you can
laugh at yourself (which I consider a very healthy
activity anyway!)

TVgeek
-who is just along for the ride...
 
TVgeek said:
Not only do you get that rush from "being frightened",
it starts you thinking about the "why"

The letter a few months ago about a 'haunted' house where the doors opened and slammed for no reason gave me a fright, mainly because as I read the word "slam", someone in the room next to mine decided to open the door rather loudly... although I didn't have a measuring tape handy, I estimate I jumped about 4 feet in the air :D
 
I know the feeling. You see a mysterious shape, and you think "ah... just the dressing gown ruffled up a bit strangely".

And then you get thinking... "is it the dressing gown? Is it a man lurking round the side of the wardrobe? Or is it an unspeakable horror from the pits of Hades itself?"

It's always the dressing gown. But you always have to check just in case.
 
"Things that go bump in the night,
Should never give one a fright,
It's the hole in each ear,
That lets in the fear,
That and the absense of light."

Spike Milligan the well known typing error.
 
I think an article I wrote once may be appropriate here!


THE FEAR OF THE DARK



The dark. A primal fear of mankind going back hundreds of thousands of years… the fear of what we cannot see…the unknown. As children, most people at some stage or another get scared of “the bogey man” or the “thing in the wardrobe” or “the thing under the bed”. These monsters always seem to lurk in the darkness where people cannot see, where it is felt that human influence has waned and is beyond our control. It is no surprise that monsters and creatures of evil are referred to collectively as “the forces of darkness” by many literary and movie sources alike.

It is a fact that people get scared when they don’t know what is going on and since humans rely on our eyesight for the most part then when it is too dark to see we tend to get nervous. How many times have you been walking alone down a dark street, your footsteps the only sound, when your imagination kicks in and you start to visualise muggers, creatures etc in the dark corners where whatever light there is, does not penetrate. You think you feel strange eyes looking at you…your footsteps quicken and all your senses sharpen, straining themselves to detect the slightest hint of movement, adrenaline is pumping and your body readying to run. You are alert for the slightest sound and you don’t feel safe until you are back in human-occupied areas and familiar surroundings.

This has its origins in the very distant past, in our remote ancestors all the way down the ladder of evolution where other animals all around were ready to devour you. They needed these senses for their very survival; they could never afford to be caught unawares, especially in situations where their senses were diminished by light or sound.

When a child is left alone in a darkened room they look at the darkness all around them and feel vulnerable… then they start imagining what lies within that darkness and get scared and their body responds accordingly stimulating their senses to greater efforts. Slight creaks and rattles take on eerie significance and it feels like you are surrounded on all sides by hidden powers. As we grow up our intellect can for the most part dismiss all these fears rationally, and such things usually don’t bother us, but for a child magical things do happen, monsters can walk through walls and trees can come alive to rattle on windows.

It is interesting to note several of the intricacies of the human psyche:

While a wardrobe with its door closed causes little fear to a child, a wardrobe with its door ajar slightly so that the child can see into the darkness within does cause fear. This is due to the fact that we feel safer with something solid between us and any perceived danger while if the door is open “things” can escape and get to us. How much safer do you feel with your door locked at night?



Another interesting observation is that of the human “pack animal” instinct. Put a child in the “scary” room on it’s own and it will be scared, put two in that room and they will be much, much happier. This comes from the perceived “safety in numbers” attitude common to a large number of animals, including humans. In fact with two or more children you may find that they actually go hunting monsters and ghosts, under their beds or in a “haunted” nearby locale. On their own they may never dream of doing these things but when there is more than one their curiosity often gets the better of them, yes they are still scared but they get the feeling that nothing bad can happen to them because they are with other people. I know I personally spent many an evening hunting ghosts and monsters with my childhood friends while being scared witless. I seem to recall that involved a lot of running away and returning a few minutes later to investigate that little bit further. On one occasion we genuinely heard phantom footsteps… nobody was around (we checked), nothing was moving or could otherwise have made that sound but still we heard footsteps walking along the road. Whither they were true phantom sounds or just some weird aural fluke is anybodies guess. We did actually try to capture a ghost on one occasion, although how we expected to capture a ghost with a jam jar filled with soil, sugar and stones is anybodies guess, all I know is that we had faith in our “ghost catcher” and we were not as afraid. If your child is scared of ghosts and monsters you two could set up a ghost catching item or give them a special monster-bashing pillow!



Even as an adult we still get those feelings of fear, although these days our imagination usually conjures up burglars, thieves, muggers and the like rather than the old childhood monsters we used to get. Occasionally though we can recapture that sense of childhood monster fear and reacquaint ourselves with the dread of the unknown. It is no surprise that a lot of the evil creatures and monsters of legend only ever come out at night when we feel vulnerable, it is easy to glimpse something moving outside during the night and let our imaginations fill in the rest. I have personally seen oddly moving shadows, where none should be, inside a cave while on a holiday as an adult, that struck me as being horribly unnatural and I had to leave there...quickly. This feeling is especially evident in places with otherworldly connections such as stone circles, caves, cairns, old castles etc where we think there might be...just might be something out there in the darkness…waiting for us.




This article is based entirely on my own childhood and adult experiences and that of my friends and acquaintances.
 
I guess its cos as humans, we rely on our eyesight to inform us of the world around us. It is our Primary sense, so much so that all our other senses are marginalised. when we cannot rely on this to give us a clear idea of our surroundings, we become confused and agitated. our other senses, not usually relied upon suddenly come to the fore (I'm thinking mainly hearing) with little or nothing 'Visual' to back it up. so we can't make heads or tails of whats going on, our minds fill in the blanks. with our subconcious fears.

Maybe.
 
The dark is the fear of the unknown for me. I wouldn't say I was afraid of the dark. I love sitting up in bed when it is completely dark with the quilt pulled up around me for warmth. It's very calming.
What is scary, is when you are not in surroundings you feel are safe and in the dark. That's a different thing altogether. :eek:

Love the Milligan poem BTW. :)

And Quicksilver, clowns are the things of nightmares. Off to post in your creepy poll right now...
 
The thing about being scared of the dark is that by and large it doesn't contain anything so nasty that it will still get you if you hide under the bedclothes. Hooray for the shield of duvets!
 
Breakfast said:
The thing about being scared of the dark is that by and large it doesn't contain anything so nasty that it will still get you if you hide under the bedclothes. Hooray for the shield of duvets!

I always used to have my bedroom light or a night light on when I was a kid.

Bedclothes are very protective - as long as I tucked my hair under the covers the Red Indian wouldn't come and scalp me in the middle of the night . . .

Carole
 
I remember always being terrified by vampires. So much so, that I still only feel comfortable sometimes with the duvet up under my chin. Now, why is it that things which I'm pretty sure don't exist have the power to scare me absolutely rigid at night? Rationally, I know that Evil will exist in daylight as much as night-time. So why do we seem to have this instinctive, primitive fear of the dark? Irrational fear of the dark, I might add - in that I'm not worried about being eaten by a bear at night, but a nightmare about zombies will have me up all night with the light on reading a book.
 
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Embodiment

I'd guess we have fears that hook into our primal, primitive limbic system, and the dark evokes many of them. Some won't even have names. Then we clothe them in certain comprehensible guises, such as vampires.

Far from being off-topic, I'd say it goes to the heart of why we have invented such creatures. Giving a form to a fear allows us to begin mythologizing it, and thus handling it. Leaving it formless keeps it beyond any control, even if that control is only fictional.
 
Still, when you get right down to it, what is there about the dark to fear? :confused:

You can tell this is one of those existential questions that's kept me awake at night, can't you? well, actually, the half-awake, half-blind notion that the clothes horse is some looming figure come to haunt me kept me awake, but you have to have something to think about, don't you?

It's like those ridiculous stories that did the rounds about a year ago about 'Black Eyed Children'. A more obvious UL type horror story I haven't heard since the Claw Hanging on the Bumper, and yet if I think about it, it still scares me today. Even though I'm certain it's fiction.

When I go into the kitchen, I look out onto an unlit pathway through the houses. And three motorbikes. And yet there's always always the fear that I'll see something else

Eldritch howl supplied for dramatic effect....:D


edit Oh, by the way, I agree completely. We formed our fears and gave them names. It's just sometimes, deep down, I wonder whether by naming them, anthropomorphesising (is that a word? Or can I just not spell?) them, we may, just may, have actually given them life (of sorts)
 
Darkness is transforming; it hides things.

How many times have you seen a figure standing by a door in the gloom only for it to resolve into a dressing gown or coat?

Back in the past, when the circle of light cast by a fire was the only protection from wild beasts, you couldn't be sure whether the eyes out there were those of a jackal, a lion or perhaps something worse.

I'm sure that fear of the dark is mentioned in 'Hogfather' by Terry Pratchett.
 
I can understand the fear of something out there, in that it might be bigger than you, have sharper teeth, and not have eaten recently. I just wonder why we piled our fear of the unknown into the dark. Why can't we be just as scared in daylight? Why do programmes like Most Haunted insist on that ridiculous night lens, as though ghosts will only appear in pitch black?

There's no real answer, other than the primitive thing; I know. But despite my mom's constant assurances as a child that if it's not there when the light's on, it's not there when the light's off, I still have a fear of the dark. It's quite embarrassing. Although it may be more to do with being claustrophobic - but then again, which came first? I find darkness incredibly claustrophobic, as does my mom, yet oddly enough I wasn't aware of her phobia until I already had mine.

I don't think it's helped by being blind as a bat without my glasses. And it's funny you mention the dressing gown on the back of the door - my mom used to know a song about a boy who spent all night wide awake in terror at the hulking shape by the bedroom door, preventing him from leaving - until the dawn light revealed it to be the dressing gown! My mom used it as a salutary lesson that if you hear or see something that you don't know what it is, go and investigate - otherwise you'll just scare yourself silly wondering what it is.

Anyway, I'm rambling again. :D
 
Fear of Dark

Fear of the dark is a misnomer. We're afraid of what may be hidden by the dark. We're made uneasy by our main sense, that of sight, being so greatly diminished by the dark. We fear, frankly, that something unseen, unobserved, maybe even unthought-of, is creeping up on us and will pounce at any instant.

Atavistic fears, as I say, from the bad old days.

Anyway, consider the fact that innocents and pure hearts fear the dark while the nefarious and scurvy embrace it.

Character test, sort of.
 
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Not sure about the innocent bit!!

Ah well, that may have answered part of my query, at least as it relates to my personal circumstances. I find the dark stifling. It feels like a blanket over my face, unless I can make out shapes. So we have to have some kind of light on in the house, to filter through into the bedroom. That, and it stops us tripping over the cats when we get up in the night. ;)

So perhaps my particular fear is, at least partly, claustrophobia related.
 
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the dark night of the soul

Ever read St John of the Cross?

I never sleep in the dark so I can't be a vampire, though I do work nights! But I never draw the curtains, in fact I have none in my bedroom which overlooks greenfields fortunately!! Whe not on nights I leave my bedroom door open and the landing light on. There's nothing more scarier than pitch dark.

Darkness/blackness in a strange concept, it may be tied up with racism I suppose, you know, the black arts, white magic--when you think about it its a very sort of primitive divide.

Forunately animals don't have these problems, except from a human perpective. I have several cats, including my all black one called Sabbath. HMMM.

My dog is all black also, but there seems to be less suspicion attached to black dogs than black cats. Though isn't black dog supposed to be another name for depression??
You could think of lots more connections--black looks, black hearted, blacklisted and so on--well, what were we saying about vampires? I've forgotten!
 
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I'd say the use of "black" to mean "evil" is simply the absence of light, inferring God's light (i.e. God's love). Hence darkness. Fear of the dark (as mentioned earlier) is a natural reaction to not being able to see surrounding dangers. I don't think it has anything to do with racism - after all, racism is at least equal black / white as white / black.
 
I have no idea if this is any help at all, but darkness is often a psychological thing, you can banish feelings of depression/evil simply by putting lights on. In recent times research into the illness that is triggered by dark nights (can't remember the medical name for it, have been in the pub all afternoon) found that patients could be helped by putting a lighted screen in their rooms. The racism thing is completely off-kilter as far as I can see.
 
research into the illness that is triggered by dark nights (can't remember the medical name for it, have been in the pub all afternoon)

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), I believe.
 
Seasonal affective disorder!!! Of course! And don't forget the effects of our good old circadian rhythms.

When our whole system feels at a low ebb and we're just too tired to focus properly this usually occurs during the dark hours. No wonder the darkness is seen as somehow an ideal setting for weirdness! What can be weirder than dreams? The sleep of reason begets monsters!!

And don't you forget it!!! :cross eye
 
I have always felt safer in the dark than in light, as a boy I used to have the lights off in my room and a very small candle lit so as to throw shadows on the walls that moved, I found it strangely comforting :shock:

When I was very small I didn't sleep much and often complained in the night to my parents of my lack of ability to sleep, much to their distress and anoyance.

That probably went on till I was 11 ish during which i slept my majority of good sleep in the early evenings.

I suppose that is why I have no fear of the dark whatsoever - Dunno just guessing.

It is certainly strange how our very early traits affect us all thro the rest of our lives.

I wish I had some way of passing this lack of fear to others, but as I don't really understand why I am this way , I'm not much help really :(
 
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Maybe it's your amygdala that gets twitchy in the dark ...

Newly published results from a small study indicate fear or anxiety caused by darkness may well be caused by emotional tension induced by the amygdala and / or ventro-medial prefrontal cortex in the absence of light.
Afraid of The Dark? Blame Your Brain, Not Monsters Under The Bed

Fear is a common response to darkness, especially in children, and now scientists think they might have figured out the brain mechanisms behind it, mechanisms that work in a couple of areas of the brain in particular.

The amygdala section of the brain is responsible for processing emotion and regulating our fear response, and a new study highlights how brain activity in this region changes as we're exposed to light and darkness.

"Light, compared with dark, suppressed activity in the amygdala," write the researchers in their published paper. "Moderate light exposure resulted in greater suppression of amygdala activity than dim light."

What's more, the presence of light seems to strengthen the link between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, another part of the brain that's associated with controlling our sense of fear.

In this new piece of research, fMRI brain scans from 23 people were analyzed as they were exposed to 30-second periods of dim (10 lux) and moderate (100 lux) lighting, as well as darkness (<1 lux). The scans lasted around 30 minutes in total.

The moderate lighting was shown to cause a "significant reduction" in amygdala activity, with dim lighting causing a smaller reduction. There was also greater "functional connectivity" between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex during the times when the lights were on. ...

In other words, light might keep our brain's fear management centers in operation, based on this small sample of volunteers. We'll need more data to figure out what exactly is happening, but disconnects between these brain areas have previously been linked to anxiety. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/small-...ints-on-why-some-of-us-are-afraid-of-the-dark
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract from the published research report. The full report is accessible at the link below.

McGlashan EM, Poudel GR, Jamadar SD, Phillips AJK, Cain SW (2021)
Afraid of the dark: Light acutely suppresses activity in the human amygdala.
PLoS ONE 16(6): e0252350.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252350

Abstract
Light improves mood. The amygdala plays a critical role in regulating emotion, including fear-related responses. In rodents the amygdala receives direct light input from the retina, and light may play a role in fear-related learning. A direct effect of light on the amygdala represents a plausible mechanism of action for light’s mood-elevating effects in humans. However, the effect of light on activity in the amygdala in humans is not well understood. We examined the effect of passive dim-to-moderate white light exposure on activation of the amygdala in healthy young adults using the BOLD fMRI response (3T Siemens scanner; n = 23). Participants were exposed to alternating 30s blocks of light (10 lux or 100 lux) and dark (<1 lux), with each light intensity being presented separately. Light, compared with dark, suppressed activity in the amygdala. Moderate light exposure resulted in greater suppression of amygdala activity than dim light. Furthermore, functional connectivity between the amygdala and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex was enhanced during light relative to dark. These effects may contribute to light’s mood-elevating effects, via a reduction in negative, fear-related affect and enhanced processing of negative emotion.

SOURCE / FULL REPORT:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252350
 
Breaking my... oooo... twenty-ish year silence on the forum as I finally have something to say! Liza Frank of the Everyday Lore project* is currently researching fear of the dark - if anyone is interested you can learn more and complete her research survey here: https://liza-frank.com/are-you-afraid-of-the-dark/

* where she spent all of 2020 incorporating folklore into her life each day, def worth a look if you're interested
 
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