Secret of Achluophobia

Everyone has their own unique compilation of fears and phobias. Maybe you're afraid of pancakes. Or maybe, it's visions of creepy, murderous clowns that keep you up late at night. If your worst nightmares include something a little more common, like, you know, having a damn heart attack every time you're forced to venture into the darkness, you're not alone. Fear of darkness, known as nyctophobia (or achluophobia in extreme forms), is actually a pretty common condition that many people can't seem to shake, even as adults. In fact, a survey found that nearly 40 percent of respondents were afraid to wander around their houses with the lights off, and 10 percent of the survey participants admitted they were so fearful of the dark, they wouldn't even leave the safety of their beds to use the bathroom at night.

I've been afraid of the dark ever since I was a little kid, and even at the age of 24, I still leave the hallway lights on when I go to sleep because the thought of total darkness seriously scares the shit out of me. She also make her boyfriend check the closet for monsters and serial killers on occasion because — let's be real — you can never take too many precautions to ensure that your house doesn't have any creatures lurking around under the cover of darkness. So basically, creative people with wild imaginations find the dark to be especially frightening because they're really good at coming up with all sorts of scary shit that could potentially be lurking in the shadowy unknown.