online: 11 september 2006
modified: 11 september 2006

10 september 2006 fright comes of ignorance


18:44 in Sandy Wood... a warm evening... i found some of the few remaining blackberries... a low-flying jumbojet is filling the forest and the surrounding city with loud noise... i wonder how we are so adapted to it, neither fearing it nor noticing it very much...

19:18 West Heath looking west... the moment between daylight and dusk when shadow within trees darkens and one can imagine unknown influences, or presence - though i'd prefer to become familiar with darkness and night and not to fear it - or any other reality perceived as threat... to get used to it is always possible i think...

...would i have the nerve to stay in the forest all night? ...not if alone, or not until i'd gradually grown used to it...fright surely comes of ignorance... yesterday, when i was at the edge of this forest as dusk ended, i saw a fox and heard an owl... What would i see or hear if i stay here for say 20 mins longer than i normally would?

19:42 ...as dusk deepens i begin to notice my perceptual process inventing forms that are not there: what i read as a person in a white shirt is (i see on looking closer) the white bark of a birch tree... the trees are now becoming black, their leaves are ceasing to be visible... i move to another seat where i can see all the clearing about me and i do not have my back to it... yes, i can feel such fears decreasing as as i settle back into the seat to watch what happens...

19:55 a very slight wind begins to stir some nearby leaves - but not those further off... i can see bats flying against the clear sky ... palest blue... i hear an owl (or someone imitating one)...

...now bats are becoming more frequent, i'd say one every 10 to 20 seconds... there must be many thousands of them in the forest... i can still distinguish nearby leaves but not those at more than, say, 20 metres... city lights in the distance are visible through gaps in trees...

20:02 Twenty minutes have elapsed ... still dusk, more than darkness...

i walked back into the comforting artificial light of the roadway and of the inside of a bus

...the experiment is over!... and yes, i became slightly less fearful of darkness as i began to get familiar with seeing less, or differently, than i do in daylight...





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