To those afraid of the dark.

[Booze Zombie]

Well, people don'y like not-knowing what could be near them...

 

[SonicSoulstrike96]

Yep. It's part of the normal function of the brain- filling in the blanks. It's the reason why so many illusions work. You can only process so much of what you see, so your brain uses past experience to fill in the gaps and the holes in your vision that you don't even realize are there.

And I think we tend to fill in the big dark gap with what we see in scary movies... >.>
Our brain likes to think ahead and jump to conclusions and make comparisons like that.

 

[AngloDoom]

It's the sense that you've lost your main sense and connection to the world. If you close your eyes while stumbling around in the dark, it feels like you are in control of what you see and it can sometimes make you feel better about it all.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Fear of the unknown, simple as that. I for one love the dark, nothing beats walking around the deserted streets on a rainy night. It's peaceful, that feeling of solitude. The rain makes it feel very private as well, it's fantastic.

 

[Iron Mal]

I personally feel more comfortable in the dark (being slow isn't a problem when the other dude doesn't know you're there...in the interest of self defense of course) but, as others have said, our fear of the dark is more of a fear of the unknown that some of us have instilled at birth.

It could also be partly down to what (if I remember my psychology right) are called 'schemea', in other words, imagine that you walk home from a party one night and decide to take a shortcut down a dark street (not a wise idea), unsuprisingly you get attacked and hurt but still make your way home with a memory of the event.

This bad experience in a particular situation (ie: the fact that you got your ass handed to you in the dark) will result in you being uneasy about simmilar situations in the future (you'll be hesitant or otherwise unwilling to go down dark streets again because of your bad experience before) which would result in a 'fear of the dark'.

 

[Markness]

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?

Speak for yourself, there are places without copious amounts of light pollution.

I'm in agreement with other people. In daylight you know there is not something dangerous there because you can see the area, but with darkness, who knows.

 

[Diablini]

Bruce Dickingson? Don't know. It's just a natural fear of what you don't know or in this case - can't see.

 

[Abedeus]

Darkness is nothing but the absence of light, no need to be afraid.

Death is just absence of vital signals.

Yeeaaah.


Okay, correction - death is just a process in which vital signs disappear.

 

[Pegghead]

well it's dark, alone in the dark, That book, y'know, the old picturew book where it was all like "{In a dark, dark house on a dark, dark hill", NIGHT of the living dead. It is kind of associated with bad things. Though I think people become afraid of the dark mainly because at a young age kids are taught that y'know, monsters live in the dark, the buy you nightlights and treat them as a symbol of protection, protection against THE DARK (Y'know, I didn't have a night-light). And I think they do that because they just know that if all kids weren't afraid of the dark then eventually SOMEBODY would trip on something they couldn't see and fall into the nearby woodchipper which was accidentally turned on when someone bumped into it.
Besides, I have a pretty wild imagination, right now I've just got this little lamp right next to my computer, the rest of this room is covered in horrible, horrible darkness, like the very essence of death.