To those afraid of the dark.

Recommended Videos

Crash486

New member
Oct 18, 2008
525
0
0
Juven Ignus said:
What is it about darkness that strikes fear in people? As far as I can remember, I've never feared it nor found a reason to. It's just dark, it can't hurt you, all that happens is just some low visibility. This fear seems obsolete to me since most places now that lights keep the night lit up until daybreak.

So tell me Escapists, why do you fear the darkness?
It's because of the low visibility. People and animals alike feel uncomfortable when taken out of their normal element. Since sight is probably the main sensory input human's use to navigate and detect changes to their environment, its only natural to feel uncomfortable when it is handicapped.

Juven Ignus said:
bernthalbob616 said:
I think it's because you can't see what's going on around them. It's fairly disorientating.
But that's the point. Nowadays, lights are just about everywhere you look. So why be scared?
Lol well if light is everywhere its not dark and you've invalidated your question.
 

RavingPenguin

Engaged to PaintyFace
Jan 20, 2009
2,438
0
0
I did fear darkness at one point, but then I conquered it with logic. Quite simply, nothing exists in the dark that cannot exist in the light. This is actually conforting to me. Also another issue with darkness is a sense of claustrophobia, in which case all you need to do is stay calm and think about the area around you.
 

Dr.Susse

Lv.1 NPC
Apr 17, 2009
16,498
2
43
WanderFreak said:
Because you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
you beat me too it and i thought i was so funny when i thought of it.
im not afriad of the dark because cthulhu can attack at any time
 

Housebroken Lunatic

New member
Sep 12, 2009
2,544
0
0
Kiutu said:
Cause of whats in it. I actually prefer the dark...when I know whats in it. Though as a nerd, its usually darkness with blaring screens. I went into a cave though once (tourist trap ones, not a random one in the mountains) and they brought us to the end where it stopped cause the diggers heard like, noises coming out of the hole they were making (as the tour guide told us) then proceeded to turn off all lights. I was scared as hell (and 12 at the time)
I've done something like that too, but it was an old closed down mine which they now keep as a tourist attraction. But you don't really have a tourguide, they just give you a hard hat with a light on it and let you lurk around in the mine as you please. Usually people kept to th generic areas but you could wander away into a lot of side tunnels as well.

Now im not usually afraid of the dark but actually quite comfortable in dark enviroments. But I decided to walk down one of those side tunnels and kept going for quite a while. Soon I could barely hear other peoples voices and I felt all alone. Being alone in a dark tunnel only illuminated by the light mounted on a hard hat was quite creepy.
 

Silva

New member
Apr 13, 2009
1,122
0
0
I think a more pressing question for this community is: why are you afraid of the light?

Just kidding.

Seriously though, Crash486 is right. It's all about where you're comfortable, and survival instincts. Of course, one could argue about how useful such an instinct is if we have to sleep in the dark 7 hours out of every 24, minimum... But no one said evolution worked especially hard with us except for the brains.
 

Biosophilogical

New member
Jul 8, 2009
3,264
0
0
Alot of people (I am guessing here) would know all about the stereotype of being mugged in a dark and secluded area by a bunch of thugs and at night everyone else is inside and you are quite isolated. It would seem daunting to some that for all they know a crazy person or a rabid dog is hiding in a bush about to steal their money and rip their throat out through their liver.
 

silasbufu

New member
Aug 5, 2009
1,095
0
0
it's not the dark itself. Maybe some iron maiden lyrics will clear that out better :) : "Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a constant fear that something's always near
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someone's always there"
 

LongAndShort

I'm pretty good. Yourself?
May 11, 2009
2,376
0
0
I reckon it has something to do with our primal urges and survival instincts. We can't see as well as many other predators, we are at a disadvantage, so our brains trigger fear as cautionary measure.
 

Vern

New member
Sep 19, 2008
1,302
0
0
As has been said, the fear of darkness comes from the fact that it's much harder to see what's in it. It's not the dark, it's what's in the dark, or what you might think is in the dark. If you couple that with an inherit paranoia your mind can really play tricks on you. Then there's the legitimate feeling of walking around in the woods at night by yourself and seeing a mountain lion 40 yards in front of you and watching it walk off into the dark and being scared. I still live in one of those rare areas where you can drive for 20 minutes and be out of the city and into heavy woods, that's when not being able to see around you at night gets creepy. Mountain lions, coyotes, and wolves, oh my. I'd say it's an evolutionary trait, for almost 200,000 years mankind existed without any really reliable light sources. If you went out in the dark, you had to be scared because our night vision is very limited compared to predatory animals. Fear of the dark was basically bred into us for our protection.
In my house I'm not afraid of the dark, when I go for a walk at night I'm not quite scared but nervous and cautious enough, seeing four inch diameter cat prints half a mile from your house does that.
 

Emilin_Rose

New member
Aug 8, 2009
495
0
0
Because with visibility decreased, it is far easier for someone to come close enough to kill or kidnap you, and where i live there is no one to hear you scream.
 

LockHeart

New member
Apr 9, 2009
2,141
0
0
The dark is unsettling to us for a number of reasons, namely that we've evolved to be daytime creatures - we work best with plenty of light and without this we feel outside of our comfort zone because we can't rely on our main sense: sight. When you can't tell what's going to come at you out of the darkness (knowing instinctively that lots of predators hunt at night), it's easy to see why a lot of people fear the dark.
 

Lusperus

New member
Aug 20, 2008
493
0
0
Would you rather..
Be in a room in front of a man eating tiger and monitor its movements

Be in a pitch black room with a man eating tiger not knowing where it's going to strike
 

AbsoluteVirtue18

New member
Jan 14, 2009
3,616
0
0
It's human nature. Way back when during the caveman days we had all kinds of crap out to kill us, and we barely knew how to make fire. The dark represented almost certain death.