Nyctophobia is a term used to mean a severe fear of the darkness. The word ‘nycto’
is derived from the Greek word νυξ,
which means “night”, making the word literally mean fear of the night. Other
terms that can also be used to indicate this phobia are achluophobia, scotophobia, and
lygophobia. All these terms can be
used to describe the fear of the dark at a degree that is severe enough that could
be considered extreme. The fear of darkness has varies degrees, to could range
from minimum to extreme fear, and although it’s mostly common among children,
there are also adults that have this fear. The people who have this type of
phobia, fear of the dark, are often not scared of the darkness itself; instead
the fear is more towards the dangers that might be hidden in the darkness,
which is usually imagined by their consciousness. In some cases, the degree of
fear in people is natural, but it could easily become extreme. In recent
studies, researchers have found that more the 90% of children with some type of
fear, and the most common fear that they face, usually from the age of 2 years
old, is the fear of the dark.
Some researchers believe that the fear of the dark
could be considered as a display of separation anxiety disorder. People with
nyctophobia are likely to become very nervous when they are confronted with
being in dark environments. They tend to have to always sleep with the
nightlight, and sometimes be unwilling to go out at night due to this phobia.
When they have to endure being in places where it’s dark, they tend to experience
increased heart rate, shake, sweat and even feel sick. For the people who
experience severe nyctophobia, they might even try to run away or avoid being
in dark places. They could even get enraged or annoyed at people who tries to convince them to go to places with
darken environments.
One of the most common phobia treatment techniques that is used to “cure”
or overcome nyctophobia is a treatment known as flooding. In this treatment,
the patients are being forced to go through or confront the situations that
they try to avoid. However, in this treatment, the patients have a choice of
participating or not depending on whether they feel they can or not get through
it. This treatment is always controlled and monitored by a specialist, so the
patient is not put in any danger.
-Nurul I. R.-
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