In the dark?

I worked at the OpSci center of the UofA many years ago. The staff photographer had his facilities in the building, and was gregarious at sharing things about himself. One thing he did, I found out, was that he asked people if they had any idea of what his life was like. Of course, many of us said no. If anyone inquired as to what it might be like, his response was the same in each case. He conducted them to his dark room, told them to go in, said he'd be right back, and locked them in with the lights off. 

When it came my turn to be in the dark, I found myself in a state of curiosity. I looked at my many optic sensations, listened hard to fans and vague through-the-wall sounds, and payed attention to information from my nose. I experimented with the difference between looking at trying to see with my eyes, and seeing as one does when off riding a thought train. It was altogether interesting, a sort of sensory deprivation chamber, and many varieties of thoughts and sensations came up. It was a sort of involuntary meditation, if you will. In any case, I found nothing disturbing about being there, even found a kind of confidence. 

When the door opened, it was the photographer who seemed upset. "What's with you?" he asked. "Almost everyone I do that to is pounding on the door in a few minutes at the most!" What seemed a brief time to me had been about 25 minutes on the clock. He actually had gotten worried that I had fainted, or something. In fact, I was just comfortable with being with myself, and found no threat in darkness, at least knowing that I wasn't in a jungle I had no skills for.

But I came to realize that many people do find that they are unskilled in the jungle that must be, I speculate, made from the suggestions of their mind, if they are alone in the dark, or alonein a room without media, or if there is just silence when others are around. There is a disturbing, to me, lack of comfort that people have about themselves, and what might happen if they were left alone with what their mind puts up for consideration. It is, it seems like a chemical dependency to have a constant stream of stimulation. And perhaps some do very extreme sports to break into a space where there is enough focus required that the wide band stimulation narrowed to the moment where a single movement stands between life and death.

That seems like a temporary version of the single movement away from identifying with personal self. It certainly must have benefits, but seems to rely on physical and somato-chemical conditions. Perhaps actual dependency addicts have this in common with extreme sporters in a way. I don't know. But I do know that the precious moments of alone silence are jewels in my lap. And those don't seem capable of being shared in telling, save to someone who has their own.