If you’ve ever been startled by an ominous figure following you home at night, or a silhouette that lingers on your wall after you turn off the downstairs lights and run into your bedroom, you know the fear of shadows. Despite being an entirely everyday occurrence, shadows can conjure up the most ominous visions of what lies beyond the mortal realm.
In reality, shadows are nothing more than scientific light work at play; An opaque object blocks a light source and the surrounding rays create an outline of the object. Why do shadows still feel so spooky and menacing? Even scarier is the thought that you caught a shadow of something when there was nothing in the physical world to cast it.
Throughout humanity, darkness was perceived as a sign of risk and danger. It makes sense since people used to have to be afraid of enemies attacking after the sun went down. As our species has evolved, we have continued to carry this fear of the dark into our lives, even into the comfort of our own homes. We have our brain’s amygdala to thank for triggering these fearful responses; In the dark, this region is even more prone to go into fight-or-flight mode, sensing that danger is around every corner. As such, we tend to feel even more visceral anxiety when we see an irregular shape in the dark, as opposed to a five-headed monster in full light in front of us. Perhaps it’s the fear of the unknown that really increases our anxiety.
In honor of the dark and eerie months ahead, we’ve found a selection of shadow tattoos to adorn to take you one step closer to becoming friends with these daunting creatures of the night. And remember, if you think you’ve seen a shadow when there really wasn’t anything there, it’s probably all just in your head.