I sleep with the TV and a light on. I'm petrified I'm going to see something I don't want to see. I have seen shadows before, opaque black shadows that walk by my bed, and even block out the light, so I started sleeping with the light and TV on. I leave them on as well because I'm terrified of being broken in to, and they will at least know someone is home if they see those on. I grew up in a house that myself and others believe to be haunted, and by all accounts it was evil, and that messed me up so bad that I've been terrified of the dark since I was a little kid. Imagine going upstairs and hearing people talking, thinking it's the TV on in your mom and aunt's room, only to find no one in there when you open the door, and no TV on? Knocking, voices, things being thrown at you or off of the shelves/tables, toilets flushing, lights flickering, dark (darker than dark, darker than black even) shadows melting down the walls and darting past your line of vision, dogs and cats growling at thin air, hearing footsteps up and down the stairs, and worst of all, smelling something that smells like sulfur and rotting meat while you hear something coming down the stairs. I dreaded summer break when I would be left alone in that house while my mom and aunt worked. When they left at 7am, I was up and I absolutely refused to go out of the kitchen/dining room/TV area out into the living room. That's where the stairs were. My dogs would sit by me on the sofa and just stare out there and growl. You could feel whatever it was come downstairs and just stand right outside the TV area. The atmosphere of the room would totally change. So unlike my friends who slept in in the summer, I was up every weekday at 7. My aunt used to practice black magic in that house, and we had a psychic friend tell us that she had opened a portal to hell in her closet. It's funny because before she said that, we had always felt that it was centered around her closet. My friends wouldn't even come over. That's what it was like to live in that house, which I lived in from the time I was born until I was 18. That's why I sleep with the lights and TV on. My nightmares wake me up a lot and it's nice to have light when I wake up. So I totally understand about being afraid of the dark. I had the lights go out in my office building, which has no windows, and I about peed myself I was so scared.