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Fear of the dark
Additional recommended knowledgeThe fear of the dark is heightened by imagination: a stuffed toy may appear a monster in the dark. Nightmares contribute to the fear of the dark as well: after waking up because of nightmare the child may refuse to go to bed without lights on. Fear of dark is a phase of child development.[1] Most observers report that fear of the dark seldom appears before the age of 2 years.[2] Fear of the dark is not fear of the absence of light, but fear of possible or imagined dangers concealed by the darkness.[3] Some researchers, beginning with Sigmund Freud [4] consider the fear of the dark as a manifestation of separation anxiety.[citation needed] In 1960s scientists conducted experiments to discover molecules responsible for memory. In one experiment rats, normally nocturnal animals, were conditioned to fear the dark and a substance, called scotophobin that was apparently responsible for remembering this fear was extracted from rats' brains. Subsequently these findings were debunked. [5] References
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Fear_of_the_dark". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |