Negative energy. I can see how these energies come out to play when darkness covers the face of the earth. When the bustle of life leaves you and you get engulfed by the stillness and dreary of the night, negative thoughts run free reign, screaming, begging to be released and unburdened. As you lay your body to rest, you think about all the goals you have yet to accomplish, your inadequacies, the pains you have endured and the anxiety and uncertainties of the future that is yet to come—they will hunt you. Perhaps this is exactly how one will feel seconds before you least expect to die; regrets, thoughts of your loved ones, your unfulfilled hopes and promises. That, right before eternal darkness consumes you, you would have wished for one more day. Perhaps that's why death is always a sad, dark, solemn affair.
In tandem, I always see sleeping as a simulation of the moments you get before death; it evokes a certain kind of sadness as the day comes to an end. You, lying on your bed to rest, ironically thinking of the unrest and waiting for the same kind of darkness to consume you. Do you actually despair? Darkness, though strangely induces melatonin needed for a proper rest, actually has a way with playing around with our weaknesses, making us feel vulnerable and restless; a cause for negative emotions to overwhelm us.
Maybe that is the reason why bad deeds and sins are often done in the dark. It is in the cover of darkness, consumed by feelings of despair and negativity, people do things they shouldn't or wouldn't normally do in the day. They kill, lie, steal, commit immoral sexual sins, and get drunk and wasted to overcome their pain, anxiety and unrest in life. So much have gone on in the dead of the night isn't it?
Then it dwelt on me as the rays of the morning sun seeped in through my little window and brought warmth to my skin as I lay on my bed—we are NOT meant to stay awake in darkness! God made darkness to induce melatonin, to make you rest, to sleep so that you can skip all these negativity and dreary of the night and wake up to another day in the ray of hope. That, moments before we sleep, unlike in the face of death, we have tomorrow to look forward to, to hope and to live; where a brand new day will always begin and we will have the energy to try again. That is why we must sleep in the dark so that we can wake up in the light.
Written, 15 June 2012