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How do you perceive 'the Dark'?

That depends mostly on what exactly your talking about "the dark" as in the night is something I view as a cloak that shields me from the world, and allows me to walk freely, eyes and senses wide open, the hustle and bustle of life quieted enough so that my senses are not overwhelmed. If you mean "the dark" as in the darkness that resides within our souls, I view it was a natural part of some people, we all have some amount or form of darkness within ourselves. I view it as a natural thing, something as normal for me as breathing and drinking.

...the dark is the opposite of light...in another term, dark is evil, light is good. For me dark represent freedom from the dogma of the light. Are the both exist? probably we will know after our departure.

Well my imidieate thought when someone says "the dark"three things come to mind
-Shadows
-Night
-Ignorance
Shadows and night are obvious because there is not as much light as the day with it's burning sun. Instead it has the gental radieance of the moon.
Ignorance is because those whom can not see through the distortion of life or are uninformed are like those who cannot see in the dark. Thus they are in their own way in the dark.

The dark is the absence of light. For me darkness entails ignorance, death, fear, loneliness, but also comfort for the bright light of the sun (or even manufactured lighting) lets shine all of my flaws and imperfections. It is truly easier to hide in the dark.

I would not equate the saying,"to be in the dark" to be Ignorance. Ignorance is the lack of understanding, not the lack of knowledge as the saying presupposes. So there's a difference... I am Dark, both literally and figuratively... Am I in the dark for certain things? Yes, I'm sure I could be. I have also emotional pain that has bent my mind and scarred me. For what reason I am not sure. It's not like you're the Elite. So the rest has been pretty much mentioned.

Darkness is the opposite of illumination... Darkness is a natural state and most of the universe is darkness.

Human beings have a tendency and need to group things, to classify them for there own understanding. Knowing this, when someone asks:
"How do you perceive the Dark?"... With the dark in quotes. I can only assume they mean the dualities of light and dark, good and bad, God and Lucifer.

My answer is that despite your perception if you stand in a perfectly pitch black room full of darkness and flick on the smallest amount of light and the darkness will disappear... But you can not do the opposite.
You can not stand in a room full of bright light and have any hope of over whelming that light no matter how much darkness you have.

Thanks to both Samm & Severus. Very well stated, both of you.

Darkness is, by very definition, the absence of light...the absence of energy. Or, metaphorically and rhetorically speaking, the absence of knowledge.

Only for the religious (read: superstitious) is it mislabeled "evil." And this due, ironically, to the true darkness (ignorance) inherent to all superstitions.

Indeed, it seems fanatic, nutters or vampire wannabes believe that "the dark" is some evil force. Trust me when I say, Evil is quite corporeal and can be seen everywhere, you can even bump into it or even be next door. The darkness is just the absence of light but it can be used by the less moral types. I myself have enjoyed tracking people while hidden in the shadows but that is simply a use of the dark, not the dark itself or a sign of it being evil.

darkness can be that inside, which transcends alll logic, to dictate one's actions...

The dark is a cloak that hides all of the mysteries of life, yet even though, we may become enlightened, no one removes all of the darkness in their life time. Furthermore, we all return to the dark once we pass from this life.

"even though, we may become enlightened, no one removes all of the darkness in their life time."

'bout right.

BUT, one can allow/encourage, the pink/sparkles, to shine in one's own persoanl darkness.

To me dark represents "The Darkness Within" the soul of each creature. Its negative emotions to outright evil.

In modern times we are taught from an early age how to think rationally and tangibly. This is a very left brain method of education and it has more harmful effects than positive. The left brain deals with logic, details, facts, patterns, practicality, science and math whereas the right brain deals with feelings, intuition, symbols, images, risk-taking, philosophy and religion.
With modern societies push for government controlled educational curriculum, generation and generation of youth are being taught to focus only on the facts and figures... the numbers. Repetition is used to train children subconsciously to accept what they are learning. Children are not rewarded for questioning the validity of the information they receive, they are ridiculed. However, children who blindly accept the information as true and merely regurgitate the information on command when it is time to take a test, those children go on to become the decision makers in our government, law, medicine, business and any other occupation with power and prestige.

This way of thinking with only our left brains has caused us to see the world not as it really is. We are given the illusion of our individual bodies... The idea that we are separate an independent of everything around us. That is the most detrimental effect of being pushed away from holistic thinking with the full brain, into a strictly left brain type of thought is that every male and female both possess feminine and masculine qualities to their persona. This has nothing to do with being a man or woman it is the simple balance of duality. This balance is represented by the left and right brain... Yin and Yang, Black and White, Light and Dark, and every other form of duality are suppressed when you only use one side of the mind to govern your everyday approach to life. It forces us to oppose one while excepting the other, an ideological, spiritual, and physical imbalance occurs. The end result is we are taught that it is possible to always be happy and never sad, that we can be good and never bad, that we can be caring all the time without needing to be self-serving. We are tough that we can live in harmony, never opposing anyone else's point of view or opinion and that the accepting and understanding of them is somehow enlightening even though we know that this is not reality. This is, in actuality nothing more than ego at the opposite end of the spectrum, simply because there is no outward display of chest beating does not remove the fact that it is still a stroking of one'self-image. The seeing of yourself as superior is still present and without the balance of duality it represents an imbalance which will eventually manifests itself in the psyche.
Ironically, the term Psyche (Greek for breath blow) was used in classic Greek as a synonym for the word soul. The ideology of an inner awareness or consciousness was not an original Greek concept and was strictly Egyptian. The cosmologies of the ancients were designed to show us the cycles of duality and just because creation was a good thing does not mean that the opposition to that cycle (in death) was a bad thing.

This is the fundamental flaw which has occurred in modern thinking, it is the thing which keeps men from actually obtaining higher states of consciousness because they remain unbalanced without realizing it.
Luckily it is also the key to understanding and correcting it. This understanding and application is "the path" and it is the only path to the soul, the spirit within... true spiritualism is the active practice of balance.

The Dark:

That cool, quiet place of comfort where my mind seeks solace.

That place where everything is renewed.

A tabula rasa.

Severus... nice.

To me, it's a part of me.

as a manic depressive, it's a side that Needs to be balanced, accepted... or, understood.

What about the knowledge of the 'Dark'? I would consider all esoteric knowledge the Dark. Would this be a curse or a blessing then?

Again LordessRubi,

"the dark" is a perception. We hear terms like esoteric, or pagan and we think of dark, evil, forbidden things... but that is not the case. When the catholic church wanted to weed out pantheistic and esoteric ideologies and practices in the dark ages they simply labeled them as evil. They told the people that it was wrong and a sin against God and anything to do with ancient symbols of worship or practice was seen as heresy. Even animals that were worshiped in ancient times were labeled as evil. Snakes and dragons are easily noticeable in modern religions as being associated with dark and evil.

Just because knowledge or a particular practice is old and not well understood doesn't mean it is dark.

used to go out with a witch [not one of the fiancee's] and, as she taught me stuff, one thing was glaring... there maybe a dark and a light, a left and right hand path if you will' but we rarely see the path we choose to walk, until we look back...

For me the dark is many different things. I learned a long time ago that not everything that seems "light" is good and not everything "dark" is bad. I see physical darkness as a type of blanket. When standing in the light everything is always visible and what you see can tear you apart sometimes. Living "in the dark" can save someone's sanity from time to time.

can save someone from time to time... yes.
it can be a suitable self-defense mechanism.

"The dark" to me means peace. I feel more at home in the dark. I don't feel I have to hide the real me, my senses are better at night and more hightened than from the day simply because it's more peaceful, calm and quiet. I feel more calm in the dark. I feel there is more energy around me that I can feel when it's dark.

It can also mean the dark within. There are some people in this world that are filled with a lot of darkness. Not a day goes by that you don't see it in the paper, the news casts, the internet, etc. It's everywhere. It's sad really.

Darkness is just a word that is used to keep people from being who they were intended to be. Darkness is used as a bad thing, yes there are people out there that commit crimes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are full of "darkness within", it just means that they took a wrong turn or made a bad decision somewhere.

I used to do drugs, does that mean that I'm full of darkness? I made a very bad decision at a very horrible time in my life, I admit that it was wrong, I admit that it was bad, but it also helped me learn and gain knowledge, and from that knowledge I grew stronger and am now who I am because of it.

In a way, I feel that darkness helps heal the world, after all the sun of the daylight burns up everything, the coolness of the dark helps heal. I am at home in the dark, it heals me, it helps me think clearly to where I can make hard decisions. In one word, the Darkness helps heal.

the dark is the peaceful place inside me where no one can enter
its the mood inother people i dont interfere with
the time of relaxation

angel ~ one could just as easily talk of the yin to the yang
black and white... the dark the light. all, polar opposites.

Very true, Angelus. I was referring to it as some people are saying that darkness is evil, I was just trying to show that it is not necessarily evil, just wrong choices or bad decisions.

misdirections, mayhap?
it could be said, there are no bad decisions; just a decision made, that leads to another series of actions...

That is very, very true, Angelus.

Misdirections that lead to the wrong path that some people take and get lost on or in...

I believe that the "dark" is simply a metaphor for what is considered beyond societal boundaries. Society meaning the most common way of living- 9 to 5 jobs, kids, disney, God to name a few things on the far end of the "accepted" spectrum. Things like blood-drinking, dominance and what not are not a factor in all of that; they are, for the most part, unexplored and unadvertised, making them dark.

The definition of the dark to me..it is endless zillions times better than the mainstream, and the darkness is what beats all.

oooh, the mainstream, the normal, who feel they walk in the light. 'bout says it, dunnit?


Angel - that misdirected path can lead to good, or bad.

Very true, Angelus. Although some people make the decisions that keep them on the bad side of things, just because that is how they were raised or what have you.

aye, but with teaching, that misdirection can be... directed.

Very true, but even with teaching, people still can be led astray and be misdirected and make poor choices

which brings me to the ultimate answer, for me: it's all very well knowing of the answers. the thing is, placed in the situation where they're needed, one must employ them.

that applies to that one finds in the dark, as much as anything else...

People put things in today's world into to many categories every thing does not always have to make sense or be put into classification. The darkness that befalls on the world after the sun and its light have set is a natural occurrence of nature. Just because the black of night has shadows and only the shine of the moon and stars on clear nights does not mean that because its dark that evil things stalk the night and that shadows are a sign of evil beings.


To much of today's society is centered around one point of logic people always have to have an easy explanation for things in life. I have accepted the fact that there are things in this world that can't be explained or that there are things like sunlight and darkness in the every day world.


Because they are what starts the beginning of the day and the completion of that day. To dwell in the pit of complication is to live a life of despair but learning the wisdom of acceptance and understanding is the joy of living in peace and happiness.

that's well said... and, a lesson few understand: which in part led to the question.

That said, it was an open question with several interpretations.

I have a new one ~ Pain.

I find it hard to find 'the light' as it were, when my shoulder and back ache as they can... then, for me, ALL is dark.

Light does not mean good and dark does not mean evil, night is not evil and the day is not good. It is all just nature.
Killing and cruelty is nature too but the buzzkillers known as society likes to put labels on things. Goths, emos and vampire wannabes are sometimes worse, they usually think the darkness is sort of evil entity. No, the dark itself is not evil, only those that use it for evil i.e a serial killer skulking in the shadows to avoid being seen.

To me the darkness is something which is not to be feared but accepted as a form of light so we walk in the darkness of light, although some see it as the darkside and think it evil when in fact its sometimes a comfort.

and, there is also 'the dark' of the soul, which I intimated.

It could also be a form of sickness... like leukemia or some incurable other cancer. The darkness is the bad cells that run through a person's body, killing everything in it's path, denying even the simplest of treatments.

a physical manifestation of a malaise. good one.
whereas I see the dark of the psyche, you saw something so very different. I liked that Angel.

::smiles::
Thank you.

I'm sorta speaking from current experience about that part, and that is how I perceive it right now. It is a darkness spreading through his body, that won't even admit the slightest attempt at treatment, except the blood transfusions, but I feel the only reason it accepts that is it is more to feed off of.

that can be said of the mind as well Angel.

This is very true, Angelus.

The mind is a very dark place indeed. Nobody really knows what is in their minds, except that it is there and sometimes it tells us to do things we would not normal do... Yes, I am speaking of hearing voices inside your head, that is not your own voice or thought.

Nobody knows where this comes from, just that it happens. It could be the darkness trying to pull us further in, it could be something else entirely.

or, the gestalt entity that we are a part of? that all of this is a part of. the dark, the light; wrong, right? is it possible that these man made concepts explain a greater something?

It very well could be just that. Some being, some where, trying to dictate what we do, where we go, how to act... It is all a part of something bigger than we are, than we can even imagine.

..it was once suggested to me, that god was a spaceman.
it's an idea, but then... how did many multiverse spring from The Dark.

Bacteria, virus or whatever splits itself apart to make more of themselves, life's existence could have been this on a more larger scale, though through mutation each split became different. In the end it matters not, you live, you die and life goes on. Lifeforms are insignificant, your death's do not hurt the world or nature in the slightest, in fact it may make it better. Evolution can be ruthless and rightly so, sometime in order to create, destruction must happen, if creation demands your destruction then fighting back is futile and wrong. There is no evil darkness, there is no good light. there is only life and death....or there should be, mankind's fear of mortality and their goal to slow it down has made things very gray instead of black and white. Dark and light are trivial things constantly used as metaphors or used by religious/superstitious nuts as something more than it really is.

insignificant. good word.
as is perceive and, to stay on topic, it's what I referred to at the start... how does one perceive it... Angel was kinda literal... [do excuse me if I got that wrong lass] I saw it as something to do with perception itself... All subjective.

No Angelus, your fine. I was being literal, and at the moment that is how I perceive it, a sickness that just won't do what we want it to do, but does what it wants to do. Forgive me if some think I'm totally off the deep end here, but if you only knew half of what I've been dealing with and continue to deal with, you would understand where I'm coming from and talking about.

Fear factors into it as well, in the pitch black, one cannot see anything and so they begin to feel fear. Its not just darkness either, mankind always fears what it does not understand and they use metaphors for their fears but yes, everyone has their own perception on "the dark", first one needs to ask themselves, what is the dark? are they talking about the night? the shadows? something malevolent? or is it just something they cannot understand and they then simply apply labels to it.
My perception of the dark is simple, its nothing, just shadows and the curtain that is night.

fear is intrinsic to one's nature, much as the dark is...

well i believe we all have drakness in us but if we believe in God he gives us his light . and that burns the darkness away . He takes our sins far from us . by showing us what we do wrong first by giving us laws and rules . the darkness we say has no rules but o yes it does . in dark there is a void a nothing ness but in light a fullness and joy . darkness can also give us a false hope that we cant be seen but we can . for there are things that also have night eyes and see in the dark . and like other have said to some and i believe this applies to all things when we die the darkness takes on a different face . one not only seen but one of power and of might but still not as strong as the light .

I've enjoyed reading the responses to this.

Dark to me is many things...there is literal darkness, when the lights are off...there being in the dark, as in being ignorant...and a frame of mind, as in thinking dark thoughts.

a place of saftey for myself

a place of safety? for some

a place of harm/self harm to others.

it is why this threads so interesting.

'The Dark' is perceived in is so-many different ways.

That's because everybody perceives things differently, no two people will perceive things the same, they may say they do, but if you look at it closely enough, there will always be slight differences, if you just listen and pay attention.

...and, isn't that part of it, few do pay attention, leaving others "in the dark."

That is very true, Angelus, and when it does happen and people are left in the dark, they start to look around to find the reason, but there is no reason, other than they didn't listen...

I perceive the dark as another good reason to get more sleep. I won't even comment on the dramatic garbage attached to the subject when it comes to good and evil.

well, the question was about perception and you offered yours. Me? What makes us US.

The dark is percieved as pitch black by most however that would required the complete abscence of light. In the modern world this is impossible as light reaches everywhere. Even in the cases of a black hole you still have light it is just moving at such a speed into the hole that it appears absent. (sorry about spelling.)

Funny I see this post now. Two responses. The first is just last night I took a drive up to the top of a hill where there are a number of chairs that one can sit and look down on the town below. It's was great because it's in the dark and you can sit quietly and just watch and listen to the teeming life below without being IN it. I then went for a longer drive around the back roads in the woods. I loved it - just sitting in the dim glow of the car listening to music. I found myself irritated whenever I encountered other cars since, as you might expect, their headlights intruded on my darkness. I think you can infer my response to your question from this, Angelus.

The second response has to do with a "haunted house" event in NYC that I consider going to every year but can never find anyone who will join me. Just google "blackout haunted house new york". I think you'll find that's a pretty hardcore flipside view of darkness. ;-)

two sides of the same coin.
well.
it would seem so.
yet, I'll bet...

for many, the view is skewed
by the perceptions gained on the way
to ... where they are Now.

AS a partner to Light to create balance and artism, creativity and souldful uplift.

a safe havan from those who wish me harm

I like that Master Mel. Pretty well says it... one can immerse onesself in the Dark; but, to seek self, I do feel one Needs balance and, that is the Light.

The dark is the absence of light. I would believe that is obvious. To me darkness has a meaning because some feel a sense of safety in the light being able to see what is coming, while in the dark you can't. You can't see everything that is around you so easily. Darkness brings a sense of mystery and fear to most. But in my eyes, it makes me feel safe because I can be someone different in the dark, some more confident and you wouldn't know who it is, which is the mysterious part.

so the dark creates the opportunity to deceive?

Yjay wjocj is partner to Light to create balance and art

If you want to deceive someone then yes. It would probably be easier done in the dark

The dark to me is where I like to hide and retreat into myself. I find the answers to the questions I have. And as stated by others it is the opposite of light.

When we talk of those in The Dark, we talk of those who Need illumination and, their lives… Need to be Enlightened – to see The Light

tho... excuse the metaphor, but the eyes of many seem to be under some sort of sunglasses, allowing them to see little of The Light.

To be "enlightened" is all a matter of perception.

One person's truth may just be another's myth.

Well said zombie, not everyone shares the same beliefs and that is what separates the wolf from the sheep.
I live my life in the dark both literally ( I like to skulk in shadows) and metaphorically ( I am quite a dark person as in malevolent, not goth/emo.) and I say I don't need enlightening, I don't need nor want to see the light or be benevolent. I enjoy being what I am, a hollow being with a hunger for cruelty and mayhem, so not everybody needs to see the light as one would say because not everyone belongs in the same spectrum of light or dark or sees the same things.
We all have our place in the world and we all see things differently, I see the dark as just the absence of light and nothing more than a tool to aid me in hiding my presence.

Both dark and Light can be used us eqaul partners or equally separate entities to create whatever is desired.

Not "deep" enough for you Angelus? You're coming across a bit self-righteous.

Of course, that is my perception. Maybe I just worded it incorrectly...

One person's enlightenment is probably just another person's common sense.

There is only enlightenment.
IT cannot be one persons perception... it is what it is.

IF you believe I sound one way or another, THAT is your perception. I ask, I look for answers. some I can agree with ... while others, don't appear common-sense, to me.

Again... Perception: Fair comment.