To ask how to deal with my fear of the dark?

[topazdiamondsandemeralds]

It's been going on since I was a teenager and I'm currently sat here in the dark, with a dying battery, terrified.
It's not the dark in itself, it's more the fact that I get awful hallucinations etc.
I stay up until around 5am most nights and once it gets to 2Am, thats it. I have to stay up or else I feel extremely anxious.
I have a weird fear of 3am, no idea why, I just always have. I have a fear of what i'll hallucinate, fearing the noises etc everything.
I can hear drums now. Every night i've been hearing big loud drums, seeing figures in the hallways etc. One night I woke up and saw a big bloody monkey in the corner of the room.
I'm aware that this isn't normal but it's terrifying. My battery is dying and I can't turn the light off or i'll see things.
Please help MN.

I hope its just a broken charger.

Are you sure they are hallucinations and hearing things? Could you have been so tired you fell asleep and didn't realise, and it's actually sleep paralysis? I used to live alone and would be terrified of the dark. I would stay up all night and sleep during the day, i had awful sleep paralysis which stemmed from being scared to be alone at home. I really do sympathise. Is there anyone who you could combine households with for the foreseeable?

You're definitely not alone OP. I don't think most people like the dark, certainly not pitch black kind of dark. I can only sleep in that if I have someone with me otherwise I need some form of light.

But the hallucinations sound really scary. Can you see someone about those? Agree with PP, sounds like sleep paralysis.

This has happened to me OP without sleep paralysis, but just after closing my eyes.

I suffer with this. I have to have some light coming into room or I can't sleep and have since I was a child. I currently have the landing light on with the door open but I also have dimmer bedside lights so if things are bad I can always have a low light. The hallucinations I've had for about 15 years. Mine are called hypnopompic hallucinations as they occur if I wake but yours sound more like hypnagogic hallucinations which you get as you fall asleep. I had one tonight hence why I am awake now. They are more common than you realise and what has helped me the most with them is understanding them and realising others get them. They can be terrifying such as figures leaning over my bed or creatures sitting in my room but most are just annoying like lights flying around the room or spiders crawling across me ( think pink and hundreds of them). The person who suffers the most is my husband who I often wake because he needs to see the lights too or I'm trying to get the spiders off him. The weirdest thing about them is I am in some way awake. I sometimes even know I'm hallucinating and I remember all the events the next day but they are so real and that's the hardest thing to explain to anyone that the hundred spiders running across my bed aren't like in a dream but are as real as anything else and I can talk to you as I see them. I don't have hallucinations in the day or any other similar issues. I hope this helps in realising you are not alone in this experience. There are sleep clinics which look into these things.

I've always feared the dark, so I've always slept with a night light in my room. I also have the hallway light on all night.

Hey OP,

As others have said, if you're frightened, leave a light on. I am scared of the dark avd never sleep without the light when I am alone. I also hate that 3am time. I am convinced if I wake up around then, that there all sorts of boogie monsters are out there.

The hallucinations are a worry and I woukd advocate seeing your GP and seeing what help there is.

It's okay, and quite common to have these old primal fears. My advice is to accept that you have them, and find a workaround, night light/sleep meds for a time etc, rather than trying to cure yourself.

I grew up always having my bedroom door open a little and the hallway light on, and it’s something I have continued in adulthood. It allows enough light to seep in so it’s not pitch black but without being in the same room. I can sleep in the dark if I have to, but I prefer it with some light. You don’t have to force yourself to do something you find uncomfortable.

Just woke up - Thank you all. I will definitely be going to a GP after quarantine. ♥️ Thank you for your advice.

You might have a vitamin or nutrient deficiency. I had a strong fear of the dark and similar issues and it went away after I fixed a B vitamin deficiency it turned out I had

They sound like hypnagogic hallucinations. I get them too, they can be linked to sleep paralysis and also stress, so you could be in a vicious cycle of stressing yourself out, hallucinating, scaring yourself which leads to more sleep stress. Try leaving a light on and practice good sleep hygiene, and ask yourself if there’s anything going on that is causing you stress or anxiety. For me the hallucinations are always a symptom of some life stress.

OP, I'm a little late in replying but wanted to say I've had mild hallucinations throughout my childhood and teens too - as a small child it was "specks" which looked like a multi-coloured blizzard, and would form shapes which always seemed to be coming towards me. (After some heavy googling or looks like this may have been visual "misfires" due the brain having no real visual input in the dark - ie since I couldn't actually see anything my brain decided to just make some visual shit up). Once in my teens I would see things as I was falling asleep - like PP I knew I was awake, but also that I was sort of dreaming, but at the time the light crawling across the ceiling or the walls tilting or the things moving across my bed seemed 100% real. I've also in later years experienced a kind of waking dream when I've been very tired.

Unfortunately I have nothing useful to add, just wondered whether the "drums" you mentioned might be palpitations? I don't get this as frequently as an adult, but as a child the "marching" or "drums" noise which would accompany the hallucinations freaked me out much more than simply seeing things. It stopped in my early teens and I didn't give it much thought until I experienced palpitations a couple of times when out of breath or stressed, and realised it was the same noise that I heard every night in my childhood.