What are your fears and phobias?

    Fear of the dark is something most people grow out of as they get older, or so I’ve heard. However in this age of people unafraid of the absence of light, one man bravely chooses to be afraid of what nobody else is: Me. Unlike most people, I have been consistently afraid of the dark since I can remember. As one might expect, this fear has some consequences, especially for a late night sleeper like myself.

    In the modern day my fear of the dark takes place mainly as a consequence of my self-limited sleep, but even well rested parts of this fear will persist. We’re not always the same person, and alternating a different situation you’ll eventually start noticing the differences. Sleepy Dima is a lot more prone to his active imagination running circles around his mind about some threatening situation than Well-Rested Dima. The mental degradation takes root and thoughts that wouldn’t produce emotional responses under usual circumstances become strong enough to overcome action. 

I’d like to clarify that I don’t really have a fear of the dark in that the lack of light is what causes me to be afraid. As I fall asleep my room is usually dark, but only sometimes am I afraid of the darkness that surrounds me. The crucial factor which determines whether or not I am afraid is not the darkness of the room, but my own mental disposition. For example, sometimes when it’s 11PM and I’m getting a little hungry, I think about going downstairs and getting a snack. I decide to try and open my door and begin my walk. However, as I reach for the handle I remember how dark and uncertain the hallway is compared to the lightened safety of my room. My hand retreats from the door knob as images of large figures decide to enter my head. “Eh, I’ll go get a snack later, I'm not hungry enough yet”. That’s a typical encounter with my fear for me, images of some sort of creature in the darkness and a decision to acquiesce and procrastinate on whatever it is that I’m doing. These fears are only accentuated by my use of a phone flashlight to traverse my darkened house when I overcome the initial fear, unable to use my peripheral vision to alert myself as my imagination goes haywire with shadows throughout the house.

My fears aren’t exactly rational in any sense of the word, it’s not like any of my fears ever have been or will be verified. Yet, fear is a powerful emotion, we feel fear in response to movies or stories when no threat is even implied to the reader. As I sleepily trudge through the void my imagination isn’t overly specific, but the shapes in my mind certainly do imply some threat to myself. So, as I walk down the basement stairs and approach a 4-way junction of the stairs and 3 doors gaping with the abyss, and I have to walk past 2 of them with at most a light glance over I feel I am “justified” in my fears. Not that I feel that I am in danger, at least when looking back at the time, but that given the information I am subjecting myself to, a response of fear seems to be the appropriate response. My fear may not be rational, but it is justified, a distinction I hope I am able to articulate. 

I’m sure some will come out of this essay with the conclusion that I’m just a wuss, fearing my own shadow, which, to be fair, is a correct assessment. A combination of sleep deprivation-induced paranoia combined with a light uncomfortableness with the dark causes me to hide within the confines of my room. Yet, that’s just how life is, and my fear is genuine so I don’t feel any shame in sharing this fact about myself.