Pitch Darkness

created: 2020.05.17. 15:00 · modified: 2021.12.18. 18:18 ·  · license

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This might be the weirdest thing I've ever posted.

One thing that had been on my bucket list for a long time was to experience complete darkness. Whether I was in my dorm room at KAIST or my bedroom at home, whenever I lay still in bed, there was always light coming from somewhere. Right after I turned off the lights, I couldn't see anything. But a little light would creep in through the gap under the door, between the blackout curtains, or from my laptop charger's LED. My eyes would eventually adjust, and I could make out the objects in the room. I'm not so sensitive that it kept me from sleeping, but it always made me wonder what it would feel like to be somewhere so dark that I still couldn't see anything after my eyes adjusted. I could have tried sitting in a windowless bathroom with the door closed, but spending ages alone in there waiting to see whether I could make out anything around me didn't really appeal to me. The more I write, the weirder this sounds.

Anyway, while I was thinking about this, I discovered that the blinds in my SUPAERO dorm room blocked out light completely when lowered. You turned a handle and they came down like shutters. Thinking back, maybe they were necessary because the region is farther north than Korea and the summer days get so long (I have no evidence for this). At night, with the hallway lights off, I lowered the blinds and even unplugged the power strip and microwave. That shut out not only all the little LEDs but also the light from the streetlamps. The room was quite literally pitch-black. After feeling my way past the desk and mattress and somehow getting into bed, I still couldn't see anything, even minutes later.

When I lay there with my eyes open, staring blankly, it felt as though my field of vision was being sucked into an empty void. My hearing and sense of touch grew much sharper, as if trying to make up for my lost sight. But at night, there was no one around making much noise, so all I could really feel was touch. My brain seemed to get sucked away along with my vision, and I lost all sense of my stray thoughts and the passage of time. Doing this too often would probably be a good way to go mad, but as an occasional experiment, it was fascinating.

Exchange Student in France, Ep. 3

Originally posted on Instagram on May 18, 2020