Watching darkness

[vakkotaur]

When was the last time you experienced true darkness? Not evil, not bewilderment, but the utter absence of light. Chances are it wasn't recently, if at all.

During the day, well, there is daylight. And at night there is the moon or stars if the sky is clear. Also there are all the lights. Porch lights. Security lights. Advertising lights. Mercury vapor and sodium vapor lights. Automobile lights. Red lights on towers, or worse, strobe lights. That's outside. Some of those are necessary, but many are not.

Inside there can be darkness. The lights of night can be shut out with shades, or blinds. And the lamps can be switched off. At least the main ones can be. But chances are there is an electric clock which emits light, even if dimly. If there is a stereo system of some kind or a VCR, there is another light. Some phones will even blink. But these can be masked or covered. And then there is, finally, darkness.

I found, or perhaps I should say made, darkness last night. And I watched it. It wasn't dark in the dark. That is, it was not just an inky blackness to my eyes. This wasn't a matter of healthy eyes and vitamins from carrots giving me good dark-adaption. I was seeing something that wasn't quite really there.

If I close my eyes in light I can see, for a bit, the afterimage of the things of the last scene I viewed before closing my eyes. What I saw last night wasn't an identifiable afterimage. It was sort of the ghost of afterimages, slowly fading and growing less discernable. As time went on what had been a jumble of faint lines became more nebulous. There was a patchiness to the bits. What I saw had the eerie almost-there look of a faint nebula just on the edge of visibility. I wonder how much was afterimage and the slow chemical restoration at the ends of optic nerves and such and how much was processing noise of the eye-brain combination trying to get something as input.

There were other images or 'lights' as well. If I strained to aim my eyeballs far in one direction or another I could see flashes at the periphery of vision - something like can be seen from a powerful cough or sneeze, but not as pronounced.

The curious thing was that while I had complete absence of light, I didn't see the darkness. I saw my eyes trying to see. It was lighter than other less dark darknesses. That seems odd, but what I saw last night was a dim grayishness with lighter bits in it rather than blackness. Far away from artificial lights (a harder and harder place to find now, alas) I have seen a 'dark' sky punctuated with stars. Between the stars there was a blackness blacker than what I saw last night. But there was also starlight. I had stars to look at and to provide contrast with the places where they weren't. Perhaps light can be defined by dark, but dark is more defined by light, it seems.

Comments

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Curious. I don't have a problem with total darkness, if I can get it. But I can sleep in less than total darkness. Daylight isn't too bad, but varying light is a problem. If it's a day with some clouds drifting past the sun, napping isn't so easy.

I do like some sound though. I'd rather hear white noise or a fan or something than my own breath or heartbeat. And constant noise is best. The low rumble of a big rig's engine idling is ideal. Someone gunning a gasoline engine from time to time is anything but.

[pharwarner.livejournal.com]

The darkest places I've been would have to be inside a pyramid in Egypt, and inside the underground magazine of a 9.2" coastal defence battery. The pyramid was dark, and on reflection, probably one of the darkest places you can be when the lights are off. And also the quietest. Countless tons of granite and sandstone keeping light, sound, and moisture out forever. Truly a place out of time where a minute is an eternity, and eternity a mere moment. Dark, silent, cool. Everything that Egypt isn't. Maybe they just wanted to get a good night's rest in the afterlife?

But I couldn't really relax there, as you can never let your guard down in that country. In the 9.2 battery, I had time to play with the dark. I had control of the lights there a few times, so I found the darkest spot, which was quite hard. Away from armored doors which didn't quite close properly, and away from air shafts that although baffled, let in a glow. First I played "frighten in the dark". Then "loose your balance in the dark". Then something more interesting. "Let's concentrate on the dark." I began, the more I looked, to see white luminous spots. And then flashes. Seems similar to what you saw.

Have you tried turning your eyes all the way to one side in the dark, and then pressing on the other corner? I used to do that a lot as a kid as I loved the coloured flashes that would cause. Or that colourful, almost static effect you sometimes get with your eyes closed.

I agree. We can't see darkness.