"You still wake up sometimes, don't you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs."

When I was a child I would wake in the night and be afraid of the darkness. I was afraid of what I saw in my imagination. Afraid of what was in my mind. I've been acutely aware recently that society as it is today and in recorded history have been fascinated with darkness and all that is in the dark. I heard a story on the radio the other day about a man who obsessed with "Freddy Cougar" from nightmare on Elm st. made a razor sharp claw like "Freddies" in the film and slashed a sleeping man. In ancient time they made legends and myths about evil creatures that killed and destroyed and sacrificed animals, even humans to the gods to protect them from these beings. We today make movies and write books about horror and grotesque beings and spirits. Millions, maybe billions, of men and women every year flock to theaters and bookstores to feed this fascination of the dark. We as a society analyze, study, and sometimes even honor criminals and psychopaths. Is there an effect of this fasicnation on society? What is this force that drives society to seek out the darkness? To seek out the dark places of the mind? Growing up in a superstitious religious community that believed that Satan, a fallen angelic being, was the force behind this eclipse of darkness in our society. Personally I tend to believe that in the ongoing search of man finding himself and who he is the dark is a reflection of our minds and desires. This assumption though presupposes that man is basically evil and is himself a fallen being. This point is widely debated among philosophers and theologians with whom my thoughts are of no consequense. Even so if man is basically evil why does he find satisfaction in seeking out the darkness? Is it affirmation of himself; the foundation of his being? Are we really just looking at the darkness in our imaginations? In our minds?