Have you tried those little plug-lights? Basically it's a transparent plug with a little orange light in it you put straight in the socket and it gives a faint glow barely enough to illuminate anything but enough to know it's there. Good if you have guests in your house who don't know their way around in the dark. Hardly uses any energy. Like one of these:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-NIGHT-LIGHT-...d=p3286.c0.m14 Actually that looks quite bright compared to the one I've got.
I used to be afraid of pitch darkness because I had this fear that I wouldn't know if I'd gone blind. It's hard to describe, maybe its just fear of the unknown but absolute darkness does sort of
scream at you and sometimes its more reassuring to actually close your eyes in the face of it. Where I sleep every night, there's a streetlight just outside so I rarely experience darkness these days so I couldn't actually tell you how it affects me now I'm all old and mostly afraid of things that are inevitable.
I remember camping out in the sticks with a pal when we was 16 and it was the first time we'd really been outside at night out of the urban glow and we both admitted feeling a strange animal-like fear of the darkness under the canopy of the trees out there that would have been unbearable were it not for the reassurance of the other's company and the torches and the matches. There's a terrifying short-story called 'A walk in the dark' (by I can't remember who) that describes this feeling exactly. It's there for a reason and seriously, a huge chunk of the population experience it just like you do. Cetainly loads I've met of all genders and ages.