Have you ever wondered why , in not a few cultures, fear of night had been considered serious? Beliefs that almost exist in a form of mythology extend through multiple societies, those could be a myth of an evil supernatural creature that appears at night like ghosts, bad spirits, demons, jinn… or a myth related to any object of a black colour such as animals as cats and dogs, clothes, or even shadows.

On the biological level, it could be assumed it is referred to the following explanation; our ancestors used to live in the forests for long period of time before the development of civilization; this made them vulnerable to certain threats on their lives; mostly due to various dangerous animals living near them, due to decreased acuity of vision of humans at night it was more probable they get attacked by those creatures at night knowing that some of those animals like wolves usually tend to keep wandering in the wild at night; so humans who developed less fear of night were more probable to be hurt by those creatures while those who developed more fear of night had more probability to survive, taking in consideration the aforementioned natural selection process; humans who had more fear were more able to breed and bring more offspring on the long term than those who were more vulnerable to be attacked; so basically, we might be the down generations of those who were afraid of nights. In addition, animals with black colour had more ability to not being seen at night by humans whom those animals found an easy prey.

Secondly, on the cultural level there might be multiple causes as an explanation for our fear of night. Due to absence of electricity human societies for thousands of years used to stay at homes or caves at night; this gave them a feeling of loneliness whenever someone tried to go out in the dark. In addition, for many centuries, actually unil the middle of the 19th century, it was believed that infections are caused by smelling a bad odor rather than being infected with certain microorganisms, this was called “Miasma Theory”; this theory was held responsible for explaining the cause of diseases that killed millions of humans; for example: in the 19th century many people in Britain suffered from cholera due to their bad sewage system and it was thought smelling the bad odor of human wastes was what caused the infections which killed many people then. In addition, it was believed that smelling this bad air at night would lead to more probabiliy of being infected; vulnerable people used to shut all windows and stay at home at night so they do not breathe night air. Later development of “Germ Theory” and invention of electricity decreased those feelings and beliefs.

This portrait of the 19th century represents how air was thought to be an evil cause of diseases such as cholera.

To sum up; these biological and cultural views might have contributed to the development of fear of night in the early times of human history which with long period made a base for many myths to spread throughout communities; through which fear transferred to a new form of irrational beliefs of anything related to night or black colour.