- Thousands of adults admit to having lived with childhood fears, including the dark.
- Almost half of those surveyed stated that they do not like spending a night alone at home
According to a survey, a quarter of adults still sleep with the light on.
Meanwhile, about 18 percent are afraid of sleeping with their feet dangling from the duvet and a similar percentage run upstairs if it’s dark.
The findings come from a survey of more than 2,000 adults, which also revealed that half of adults are still afraid of the dark.
Psychologists said it was proof that “our inner child remains with us throughout life.”
Half of adults are afraid of the dark and a quarter sleep with the light on, according to a survey of 2,000 adults
Jo Hemmings, a member of the British Psychological Society, said: “Unfortunately, this can mean that the irrational fears and anxieties we had as children manifest themselves later in life.”
“Fear of the dark is common in childhood because it is a primitive behavioral instinct that instills fear and anxiety when there are no calming sights or calming sounds to make sense of the world.
“It usually decreases with age, as children understand that, while it may be dark, they are not really alone and that their caring adults have not disappeared.
‘Adults may associate darkness with the inability to be in control; If we cannot see, we may fear that bad things will happen to us during the night, for which we are not prepared and our fear becomes a defense mechanism, where our brain during the night waking period is on high alert and our imagination can be accelerated.
The research was commissioned by Netflix ahead of the release of Orion and the Dark, an animated film about a boy terrorized by the dark.
Forty-one percent admitted that they do not like spending a night alone in their own home.
If there’s an unusual noise downstairs, many will persuade their partner to take a look (13 percent), and many believe the creaking pipes are ghosts in the night.
But the average Briton not only fears the dark, they also experience around five nightmares a month, with many waking up with a start three times a month.
Four in ten say they often wake up in a cold sweat after a nightmare, and 16 percent regularly wake up their partner screaming.
One in ten (10 per cent) have even lashed out at their sleeping other half while experiencing a bad dream.
The nightmares people reported included being chased (28 percent), falling from a great height (26 percent) and teeth falling out (15 percent).