The short answer to that question: I don’t personally believe that ghosts are only subject to “coming out” at night, however the irony is that this question has been asked several times in conversations (almost to the point of being a universal calling) from all sorts of different people of various cultures, ages and walks of life, that I figure I might as well put fingers to keyboard and tap away my thoughts and opinions as to why this is a generally accepted part of the paranormal lore.
If you happen to fall into this category, then that’s ok. Many people believe that dark and ominous surroundings are the recipe for paranormal activity, but is there any truth to those ideas, or is it simply a product of human perception and cultural influence?
Fear of the dark, or more so, fear of that which we cannot see, is the biggest psychological influence. In the dark, our senses are dulled, our vision impaired, sounds are more pronounced, and that good ol’ chunk of grey matter leaves it up to our imagination to fill in the blanks. Where creaking floorboards or careless whispers may not be of any concern during the day (unless you’re against saxophone solos 
), something of the same nature may be quite the opposite at night.
The human brain is wired to suspect potential threats during low-light conditions as a survival instinct. This opens us up more to general visual and auditory patterns such as pareidolia and convinces us to perceive them as something supernatural.
Then, there’s social influence – What’s portrayed in books, movies, and television (both fiction and reality). Many of these stories depict paranormal activity not as being more active at night but also that the paranormal entity is potentially a threat during the hours of low visibility where the protagonists only hope is to endure the experience until the safety of the morning sun which can often be the unspoken rule of supernatural cleansing (for some reason) in these forms of storytelling – so whether we like it or not, what we consume and learn from what we read or view on our tv screens is certainly going to form our opinions of supernatural lore which can spill out into the “real world” if we let it.
And then, of course, it could be us – we’re often presenting ourselves as only investigating at night. And while this is mostly true (we’re open to and have investigated during the day) the main reasons for this are usually because A) we’re normal people with daytime jobs during the week and Friday / Saturday nights are the best time to get together and B) Most venues are usually closed to the public at night which gives us better accessibility to the location without external noise or distraction from people, animals or traffic. This way, with less “living” activity, we can try and filter out the natural building noises compared to noises that could potentially be “something else”. I believe that if ghosts are to exist, they are detectable and have energy; therefore, unless the sun or the moon is an influence, then the time of day shouldn’t matter.
For me personally, I like to believe in “As in life – so in death”. To me, ghosts aren’t the Ill-intending threats that are often portrayed in the media, and I’d like to believe that if they belong to or are attached to certain buildings for any reason, that they’d only want to go about their normal day in their normal timely fashion, and for all we know any of the knocks or creaks heard by us during nightly investigations could simply be a polite way of asking us to wrap it up as it’s likely to be well past bedtime.
Contrary to my own opinion however there are theories such as the “Witching hour” the time between 3 – 4am where the vail between life and death is thinner and the two worlds can more easily interact. As the famous line from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” states “Tis now the very witching time of night, when Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaks out Contagion to this world”. Many believe that in spite of literary depictions there is actual weight to these theories and will often choose this time to investigate and often attribute alleged activity to this specific time zone.
While there is still not enough concrete evidence to support for or against ghost appearing only at night, the idea does open up some interesting ideas and discussions whether it is cultural, psychological or based on personal or investigative experience. There is no denying that the darkness of night plays into our fears and apprehensions which can influence the experience.
So what do you think? Does time matter when is comes to the paranormal?
Let us know in the comments