So, this is a little embarrassing, but maybe talking about it will make me feel a little better.
I am 23 years old. I am an adult. I have a job, have my own apartment, take care of all my bills, am engaged, have all sorts of adult responsibilities, yadda yadda yada.
I am also afraid of the dark.
I don’t know what caused it. Blame it on CNN kidnapping stories or too many scary movies (I watched ‘Poltergeist’ when I was 7. It’s the only time a movie ever game me nightmares). Whatever the cause, whenever I close my eyes I can’t help but feel things around me, watching me, waiting to ‘get’ me.
I don’t like to hang my hands or feet out of the blankets when I sleep because who knows what shit is waiting underneath my bed to reach out and grab me?
I can’t sleep with mirrors facing my bed. I don’t like to look in mirrors at night or in dark rooms, because I’m afraid of what I might see in them.
This, I recognize, is a problem (a completely embarrassing one). A lot of the visualization and meditation exercises I’d like to try involve closing my eyes for extended periods of time. I can’t do it without getting really anxious and peeping out from under my eyelids to check and make sure everything is “ok.”
Does anyone else have this problem, and do you have any tips?
How about reprogramming your memories or recalling the cause of the fear? Hypnotic regression is one way to achieve the latter. Have you read a book by Dr. Brian Weiss called Many Lives, Many Masters? The book centers around a patient of his who has an incredible number of fears. No medicine could cure her. In the end she agreed to hypnotic regression therapy, which helped her uncover the reasons for her fears. Through the recollection of memories, she was healed!
I really don’t think anything has happened in my past to trigger a specific fear of the dark or anything like that. I really think it’s just being exposed to millions and millions of horror movies which have given me a ridiculous fear of ghosts that are going to kill me.
I am 19 and do ALL of those things. I’ve always thought, aren’t i a little old for this? Definitely watching The Grudge when i was 10 was not my brightest idea! I always keep in mind that i’m going to wake up the next morning and everything is going to be fine. I also watch a lot of Family Guy, South Park, and other funny shows to keep my mind off of it. Try Melatonin, its a natural sleep pill that you can buy at the drugstore. It helps me stay asleep at night. Hope i helped!
The Grudge! Oh, that one’s the worst. I keep thinking there’s going to be a ghost girl in my shower or something, ha ha.
And Melatonin doesn’t do much for me, I usually sleep worse with it so I’ve learned to avoid it. Ditto with watching lots of funny shows before bed though.
Don’t worry, it is not that bad. Sometimes when I am alone at home, late at night, having watched horror movies (and I do that over and over again – they say some people learn from their mistakes, but I am too consistent for that!), I get anxious, afraid of what might be behind the other closed doors or in the cabinets… oh, and we have cats who like to scare me. Doesn’t help. I usually have to talk myself out of that in a really rational way, such as, “Come on, who would possibly want to hide in your office? All there is inside it is books!” And such.
If you do not like closing your eyes during mediation, try and see whether a protective circle calms you down enough. You need to learn how to make safe space for yourself. (I put up protection around our home, and special protection around the bedroom.)
I’ve always been a bit spooked by the dark too, but it has gradually declined as I’ve gotten older. When I was your age I still didn’t like to sleep in a totally dark room or keep my eyes closed for long periods in a public place. Now I don’t care about either of those. I no longer have to keep my limbs tucked under the bedding, either. Walking outdoors in darkness is still a problem for me, though.
In my case it wasn’t because of watching too many horror movies – I’ve never liked them and still don’t have any interest in watching them. I think there are probably far more people with some degree of fear of the dark than we imagine, and I think part of the cause of it is that it’s never talked about, in childhood or adulthood. I think if children were encouraged to talk through their fears. rather than telling them to suppress or ignore them, they’d overcome them earlier.
Perhaps it would help you to invoke a spiritual guardian to watch while you sleep. Saint Michael or Kwan Yin would be obvious ones, but perhaps a deity of darkness like Hekate, Selene or La Santissima Muerte would be more comforting.