This reminds me of the prologue to The Name of the Wind, where Patrick Rothfus describes a silence of three parts. Instead of talking about how totally quiet it is, he talks about the absence of things that, combined, builds the silence. When we think metaphorically, not just literally, there are things other than the level of light that can build a pitch black darkness. Which is darker, a field at night or a city that has been totally abandoned? While they may have equal levels of light, the city is much darker for the light that has been lossed. Link to the Name of the Wind prologue on Kindle, which truly is a masterpiece of prose in my opinion: http://a.co/dtgI7Ja For paranormal darkness, I might describe it less as pitch black and more as a hole in the world.
As a little girl we lived in Bodmin, Cornwall up on the Moors. At night there were no street lights. I used to lay in bed and couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed. One night I was looking out the window and I saw this horse outside (knew it was a feral horse as I could hear it) it was just like a haze moving around. Like the darkness itself was moving. Very freaky. I could sense it's presence more than see it though. All my senses knew something was there and I actually felt panicky even though I knew it was a horse.
When I'm straining my eyes in pitch blackness it feels like the dark is physically pressing on my eyes, like my eyeballs are being ever so slightly compressed by all the darkness weighing on them.
"It was dark, dark, like someone had pulled a black blanket over the world with closed blinds and shut off the lights. It almost feels heavy, a hundred tons, a backpack of bricks. The darkness seemed - no, was - physical. The only reassurance that s/he still existed was his/her feet firmly planted on the ground.
BTDT. It's frightening to be honest. I was stuck in the Utah Salt Flats for two days and one night with no water, no food, nothing but what I had in my pockets and backpack. When dark falls in the Salt Flats during a new moon it's pitch black except for the starlight. Believe it or not that makes a difference. Everything is a shade of deep dark gray. The heat left with the sun so that was good but the strange noises, odors, with no sense of direction, that's spooky. Then as I was walking I'd see something ahead that I could vaguely make out against the rest of the nothingness. It was like seeing a hole in space. Depending on the shape I imagined all sorts of bad things: a mountain lion, the jerk who threw me out of the truck come back to get revenge for the knife wound in his cheek, a pile of vipers. As I got closer to the unknown object it began to resolve in the starlight and I could breathe a relieved sigh until the next vague shape popped up. What it was like. ...Like wandering in a strange abandoned house blindfolded, using only your ears, nose and hands to find your way around. Like looking at my worse nightmares, or my worst transgressions taken mass and come to deliver retribution. Fear. Cold, winding around your gut fear. I was also severely dehydrated so that probably had a lot to do with my perception. Hope that helps.
The Aether's eternal darkness consumed the land of the living. Long shadows stretched out like tar drenched arms clinging in their last despair. Suicidal thoughts entered my head as if the thick mist whispered to me.
I should've noted I got out of that one when a woman stopped and found me curled beneath a large shrub or small tree (a piñon I think.) I'd lain down in the shade and lost consciousness. She took me to town and I stayed with her for a couple of days. Nice woman.
Like a deeper tightly wound spool of darkness pressed flat and inky smooth behind all the worlds shadows.
