A long, dark night...

There are moments, usually around 4am for me, when anything that can be imagined could be real, when the shadows hold many secrets, when out of sight is not out of mind and when there really could be monsters beneath the bed...

These are the times when logic and rational thinking abandon us, when instinct and imagination hold court in the chaos of our minds and that is why I lay awake forty-five minutes ago wondering if all the fears of our ancestors were coming to pass; that the longest night of the year would never pass, leaving us forever plunged in darkness; that the Mayan prophecy predicted the end of the sun...

With all the lights on and my rational brain stomping around cranky and tired, pointing occasionally and laughing like Brian Blessed at my dinosaur mind as it huddles in the corner, whimpering and muttering something about eternal darkness being the start of the end... It's hard to pin point where imaginative possibility and common sense departed, but certainly somewhere during a failure to sleep there was a parting of minds.

Logic dictates that the likelihood of the sun failing to rise later this morning is incredibly unlikely. Admittedly there's a chance that the weather could be so crappy that we might not really be that aware of the sun being there, but daylight would grey the edges and we could certainly scientifically prove that the sun rise had occurred.

But the feral mind, the part that tells us when fight or flight are the best options... it's not so big with the thinky-think. The unchanging darkness represents all of our worst fears from every age of man, right from 'there are things in the dark waiting to kill me' and 'I will never be warm again' right up to, 'there is no God' and 'if it's forever night the energy will eventually run out and how the hell will I get on twitter?'

This morning at 4am, I realised how easy it must have been for people to fear that the sun would fail to rise. Just because it has always done so, it doesn't mean it always will... And before the world was known, it's shape and travels, when the gods were around us and petitioned for luck, love and harvests... When superstition was rife and cunning men and women lived in every village offering genuine cures for much and reassurance and advice on the rest... these were times when you could easily believe that the sun had failed us, or that we had failed the sun...

How far we've come... After all, we no longer believe the words of soothsayers or oracles, we're unhindered by outdated calendar systems, unshocked by meteor showers and superstition holds no power over us... :)

Did the Mayan 2012 prophecy have traction because it spoke to the parts of our brain that are instinctual and key to our survival when things don't go as our rational minds plan? And if so, isn't it a little reassuring that that part is still there and that the engine is still ticking over, enough to make me pause in the middle of the night and say 'Hold on a minute...?'

And hasn't the idea of an endless night or a never ending season become time and time again the seed for some incredible stories, not mentioning 30 Days of Night or A Song of Ice and Fire...?

Do some of the best ideas come from our tiny, survival obsessed dinosaur brains?

Well, there's at least two more hours before dawn, if it comes, so I'm going to lure my dinosaur brain out of the corner with a plate of bread and milk, pat it on the head for persevering and then crawl back under the duvet until the alarm goes off. I may have that momentary fear that the sun isn't going to come up, but at least I'm rational enough to realise there's bugger all I can do about it... Right? Right?

Ah, damn it. I'll just go and light a candle and burn some incense before bed...