scared of the dark
- Thread starter riku_124
- Start date
haha!!!
no, just kidding. if you think about it, it's an instinctively rational fear. you can't see much, so your other senses have to become more sensitive to compensate, so you hearing something fall off your desk will stimulate higher than normal. but this isn't very much information, so your mind will try to fill in the blanks with "what if" possiblities of what the situation is. is there a snake on the floor? holy crap, that pile of clothes looked like a guy sitting on the couch! was that a squrrel or a crook outside my window?
the trick to overcomming this fear is allowing reason to overcome instinct. is there a snake on the floor? no, because the odds of that are extremely small, it's likely just my shirt falling off the doorhandle. you know, stuff like that
no, just kidding. if you think about it, it's an instinctively rational fear. you can't see much, so your other senses have to become more sensitive to compensate, so you hearing something fall off your desk will stimulate higher than normal. but this isn't very much information, so your mind will try to fill in the blanks with "what if" possiblities of what the situation is. is there a snake on the floor? holy crap, that pile of clothes looked like a guy sitting on the couch! was that a squrrel or a crook outside my window?
the trick to overcomming this fear is allowing reason to overcome instinct. is there a snake on the floor? no, because the odds of that are extremely small, it's likely just my shirt falling off the doorhandle. you know, stuff like that
I was thinking about fear of the dark recently. I used to be scared of the dark, but I'm not anymore. One is scared of the dark because it is hard to see. Any normal animal that undergoes predation would be fearful of an environment where they're blind. Unknown predators could lurk in the dark. Our ancestors were hunted by cats. Big cats. In the dark.
But we eventually over come our fear of the dark, as nothing ever happens to us in the dark. Habituation.
But we eventually over come our fear of the dark, as nothing ever happens to us in the dark. Habituation.
Walk quietly so you can hear your surroundings, and carry a big stick.
Stay out of caves, carry a candle, a few flashlights with extra batteries, and walk along well-lighted streets. if you move to New York, you'd have no problem, aka: "The city that never sleeps."
Stay out of caves, carry a candle, a few flashlights with extra batteries, and walk along well-lighted streets. if you move to New York, you'd have no problem, aka: "The city that never sleeps."
M
Mr Anonymous
Guest
is it wierd that i am a bit scared of the dark, and i sleep with my radio on for the LCD light? please dont make fun of me
Around here...?
No, seriously. It isn't weird at all - lots of people have the same thing. Just keeping the radio/alarm on for a shred of light is hardly extraordinary behaviour for anyone, irrespective of age.
Don't be scared of the dark riku, be scared of whats in the dark and wants to eat you.
is it wierd that i am a bit scared of the dark, and i sleep with my radio on for the LCD light? please dont make fun of me
How do you see the light while asleep ?
:bugeye:
LoL
(sorry)
Maybe I'm weird...
I like it black as the bottom of the ocean when I'm going to sleep.
That way I can just stare off into space and let my mind quiet down until I'm asleep.
Ah.
But if you go farther back into the misty mornings of our ancestry, you'll find that we derive from nocturnal stock.
How do I know this?
Because of our loss of two cones in our retinas.
Nocturnal vision is colorless. Thus, cones are unnecessary. The loss of two cones hardly concerned our nocturnal ancestory.
It wasn't until the dinosaurs died off and some of our ratty forefathers crawled, blinking, into the light that the need for an additional cone became manifest.
And one was produced. But not very well. Hence our propensity for color-blindness...
I sleep with a pillow over my head to block out all light.
The July 2006 issue of Scientific American.
"What Birds See."
I posted on this in a thread or two here and there.
Got some of the pics uploaded.
THe middle pic shows lines for how oil droplets in the retina increase clarity of vision, but is another matter altogether. The dashed lines are the reaction slope of the cones without the effect of the oil droplets.
You can see how, in the last picture, the duplicated cone is quite similar to the one which it was duplicated from. The mutation wasn't that great.
The duplication and mutation occured on the X chromosome, by the way, which is why men are prone to color blindness more than women.
"What Birds See."
I posted on this in a thread or two here and there.
Got some of the pics uploaded.
THe middle pic shows lines for how oil droplets in the retina increase clarity of vision, but is another matter altogether. The dashed lines are the reaction slope of the cones without the effect of the oil droplets.
You can see how, in the last picture, the duplicated cone is quite similar to the one which it was duplicated from. The mutation wasn't that great.
The duplication and mutation occured on the X chromosome, by the way, which is why men are prone to color blindness more than women.
Ok. Now all you have to do is figure out how to get the oil droplets from the surface of your eye to the retina. Then you'll be set.
is it wierd that i am a bit scared of the dark, and i sleep with my radio on for the LCD light? please dont make fun of me
It is wrong to be scared of the dark!
ignore the posts in this thread, lol.
Try to desensitise yourself, go slowly, one step at a time and that. e.g. try sitting down in a dark room with maybe a small lamp, do this for a few mins, when you are comfortable with that you can use a small candle, you could then do it closing your eyes. When your comfortable with that do it with no light! And keep your eyes open! Make sure you go slowly. After about a month of that you maybe able to sit in a worn-down graveyard at 2 in the morning and feel nothing, lol.
flatcapman
Registered Senior Member
No your not a wimp I certainly would not laugh at you considering what happened to me 2 nights ago. Last night I slept with a torch in my bed just in case it ever happened again. Nothing came to me but there were strange noises in the house which unsettled me a bit.
FCM
FCM
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
It can be related to where you grew up and where you are now. I was born in Chicago, where the nights were so bright you could see pretty clearly once your eyes adapted. Then we moved out to the Arizona desert, and on a moonless night it was incredibly dark. My folks gave me a night light without even asking whether I wanted it. It started out in my room but eventually migrated out to the hallway. I don't think I was ever "afraid" of the dark the way you describe but I was certainly "bothered" by it.
Then I moved to Los Angeles to go to college and it was rather distracting to have the nights be so bright again--difficult to fall asleep actually. Then after decades there my wife and I moved up into the redwood forest, where the trees block so much of the light that even under a full moon the house is so dark that I can get disoriented just finding my way out of the bathroom.
Fear of the dark can be irrational, but it can also be either caused or aggravated by circumstances. Some locations are much darker than others and they can make you feel helpless because you actually are a bit helpless. You could be at a tremendous disadvantage if a real emergency happens during the night. Every year a handful of people really do have snakes crawl into their house, burglars, tree branches falling through a window, earthquakes, etc.
I debated about putting that last sentence in but I decided it was worth taking the risk of making you even more uncomfortable in order to try to put a rational face on your fears. There are no monsters under the bed, no spiders descending from the ceiling, no bats trying to smother you--there really aren't and to still worry about them is to have some unresolved childhood issues that are beyond the scope of SciForums to deal with.
But there are real things that happen during the night and it's okay to worry about them. What's important is to put them in perspective, what we professionals call a "risk analysis." Consider that several hundred Americans are killed by lightning every year. Do you worry about being struck by lightning? Do you even follow the standard safety precautions in a thunderstorm? Probably not. Several thousand Americans are killed by drunk drivers every year. You probably don't worry about that either. This is a rational risk analysis. The odds of one of those victims being you is so low that you'll have a much greater impact on your longevity by putting your energy into learning about nutrition, doing exercises, and urging your friends and family to vote for sane politicians who won't get one-sixth of the world's population pissed off at us.
In this context of rational risk analysis, where does the risk lie of having something icky and dreadful happen to you in a dark house? Earthquake, serial killer, rabid bear, falling satellite, all of those risks combined? Those risks are real, but they are less likely than bee stings, which kill off several dozen of us every year.
Put it in a rational, statistical context like this and then see how you feel about it. If you're still worried and want to take precautions, that's fine because how you run your life is entirely up to you. But at least you will be running it rationally instead of based on a fear you can't quite understand.
The LCD on your radio is a good idea in any case. It's easy to trip and fall when you get up to go to the bathroom, find out why the dog is whining, or close the window because it's too cold. If one day you find yourself living in a dormitory room or a studio apartment, you'll have so many digital appliances surrounding you that you will be able to see rather clearly by their light. Especially things like VCRs with clocks, cable TV boxes that always show the channel number, etc.
These days most people have digital clock radios with LEDs that are always on. As you get older and you need a larger display so you can tell the time without putting your glasses on, you'll find that your bedroom is plenty bright enough at night.
Funny story related to this... I've been living away from home in Maryland for several years and it's taken me a long time to get used to life east of the Rockies. I had never seen a firefly before. My basement studio is crammed with furniture, but it's full of digital appliances. I've gotten used to navigating my way to the bathroom without bumping into anything or turning the light on and waking myself up too abruptly. One night I got lost. Kept stumbling into things, losing my balance, really odd. I simply could not find my way, even using all of the little LEDs, which come to think of it seemed unusually bright. I finally gave up and turned the light on--after first finding it because by now I had no idea where I even was. There were several fireflies that had sneaked in when I let the dogs out on last patrol, and they were sitting on the floor, on the ceiling, and other places, completely screwing up my navigation and even my sense of up and down. They look just like LEDs.
Then I moved to Los Angeles to go to college and it was rather distracting to have the nights be so bright again--difficult to fall asleep actually. Then after decades there my wife and I moved up into the redwood forest, where the trees block so much of the light that even under a full moon the house is so dark that I can get disoriented just finding my way out of the bathroom.
Fear of the dark can be irrational, but it can also be either caused or aggravated by circumstances. Some locations are much darker than others and they can make you feel helpless because you actually are a bit helpless. You could be at a tremendous disadvantage if a real emergency happens during the night. Every year a handful of people really do have snakes crawl into their house, burglars, tree branches falling through a window, earthquakes, etc.
I debated about putting that last sentence in but I decided it was worth taking the risk of making you even more uncomfortable in order to try to put a rational face on your fears. There are no monsters under the bed, no spiders descending from the ceiling, no bats trying to smother you--there really aren't and to still worry about them is to have some unresolved childhood issues that are beyond the scope of SciForums to deal with.
But there are real things that happen during the night and it's okay to worry about them. What's important is to put them in perspective, what we professionals call a "risk analysis." Consider that several hundred Americans are killed by lightning every year. Do you worry about being struck by lightning? Do you even follow the standard safety precautions in a thunderstorm? Probably not. Several thousand Americans are killed by drunk drivers every year. You probably don't worry about that either. This is a rational risk analysis. The odds of one of those victims being you is so low that you'll have a much greater impact on your longevity by putting your energy into learning about nutrition, doing exercises, and urging your friends and family to vote for sane politicians who won't get one-sixth of the world's population pissed off at us.
In this context of rational risk analysis, where does the risk lie of having something icky and dreadful happen to you in a dark house? Earthquake, serial killer, rabid bear, falling satellite, all of those risks combined? Those risks are real, but they are less likely than bee stings, which kill off several dozen of us every year.
Put it in a rational, statistical context like this and then see how you feel about it. If you're still worried and want to take precautions, that's fine because how you run your life is entirely up to you. But at least you will be running it rationally instead of based on a fear you can't quite understand.
The LCD on your radio is a good idea in any case. It's easy to trip and fall when you get up to go to the bathroom, find out why the dog is whining, or close the window because it's too cold. If one day you find yourself living in a dormitory room or a studio apartment, you'll have so many digital appliances surrounding you that you will be able to see rather clearly by their light. Especially things like VCRs with clocks, cable TV boxes that always show the channel number, etc.
These days most people have digital clock radios with LEDs that are always on. As you get older and you need a larger display so you can tell the time without putting your glasses on, you'll find that your bedroom is plenty bright enough at night.
Funny story related to this... I've been living away from home in Maryland for several years and it's taken me a long time to get used to life east of the Rockies. I had never seen a firefly before. My basement studio is crammed with furniture, but it's full of digital appliances. I've gotten used to navigating my way to the bathroom without bumping into anything or turning the light on and waking myself up too abruptly. One night I got lost. Kept stumbling into things, losing my balance, really odd. I simply could not find my way, even using all of the little LEDs, which come to think of it seemed unusually bright. I finally gave up and turned the light on--after first finding it because by now I had no idea where I even was. There were several fireflies that had sneaked in when I let the dogs out on last patrol, and they were sitting on the floor, on the ceiling, and other places, completely screwing up my navigation and even my sense of up and down. They look just like LEDs.
That's too far back. We're hominids, descended from diurnal frugivores. That's a long ways to come from proto-mammals hiding from Saurischians. The K-T was what, 65 MYA, while the divergence from Homo erectus was about 250 thousand years ago.
But that's cool that we re-evolved the cone. Adaptive radiation. Mammals rushing to fill all the niches the extinct dinosaurs left.
is it wierd that i am a bit scared of the dark, and i sleep with my radio on for the LCD light? please dont make fun of me
you are not doing enough stimulating and challenging things during your day, perhaps what you are doing bores you.
If you can find more stimualtion in your waking hours, you will find you are too tired and too 'busy' with other thoughts that fear of the dark does not enter your head.
What I told you above was advice I once rec'd many yrs ago from a hypnotist sitting at a nearby table in a restaurant! We got chatting and this topic came up.
I am afraid of the dark. The product of a vivid imagination. It's a problem because I also cannot sleep with any shred of light. I deal it with by going to bed when I am so tired I don't care. Which means I retire generally at 12-1am, awake 6-7am. Unless bf is staying then we go to bed earlier.
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Most people are afraid fo the light.is it wierd that i am a bit scared of the dark, and i sleep with my radio on for the LCD light? please dont make fun of me