One of my life-long interests has been the literary field of science fiction. (Films too, although it is unusual for a quality SF movie to be made -- a rare exception was the year 2009, when not one, but two thoughtful and well made SF movies appeared, those being District 9, and Moon). Growing up as I did in the 1960s-70s, part of the 'Golden Age' of SF, I was exposed to the usual suspects: Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Bradbury, van Vogt, Ellison, Sturgeon, Knight, Pohl, etc. Back then SF seemed to represent to me some of the best of the marriage between science and sheer possibility. It was all brimming with hope, and endless enthusiasm for the limitlessness of human creativity (both imaginary, and scientific). I enjoyed the genre of fantasy too (mostly Tolkien), but SF in particular represented that brazen courage that envisioned a future of dynamic change and endless strange experiences brought about by the interface between reason and imagination.
Some of what I read back then still stands out in memory, but in particular, Isaac Asimov's short story Nightfall. As I recall he wrote this when very young, around 20 years old. John Campbell published it in his iconic magazine Astounding back in the early 1940s. The premise of the story was relatively straightforward, but very clever. It centered on an alien solar system that had several suns (as opposed to our own system, which has only one star). In that solar system was a planet, populated with intelligent humanoid life (foreshadowing the Star Trek ethos, which is based on the cheerfully anthropocentric idea that intelligent life in the galaxy, if there is such, would be very much like us). Asimov took this to absurd lengths, calling the stars by such names as 'Alpha', 'Beta', 'Gamma', and giving rather ridiculous names to the main characters (but, how many 20-year-olds can actually write, let alone realistically).
The idea of the short story is that this alien planet, with its several suns, is bathed in perpetual sunlight, and never knows the night -- except for once every several thousand years, when a very rare eclipse and solar configuration occurs that results in an actual night. There are myths and legends about this nightfall, which include the (preposterous to the denizens) idea that with nightfall appear all these stars in the sky. They have of course never seen stars, which only show at night (something they have not known in their lifetime), and so the existence of these 'stars' is considered by them to be pure myth.
The basic premise of the story is that the people of this planet will not be able to handle the psychological effects of nightfall, and civilization will collapse in an orgy of panic and chaos. (The idea is accentuated by the results found by an archaeologist who shows that there have been periodic intervals in the history of the planet, corresponding to the rare nightfall occurrences, when civilization has collapsed into disorder and barbarity). When the eclipse occurs, and the nightfall descends, many of the inhabitants of the planet do in fact go insane.
The psycho-spiritual symbolism of a story like this is rich indeed. According to Buddhist legend, when the Buddha became enlightened under his famous tree, it occurred with the rising of the 'morning star' (Venus, the brightest 'star' -- though of course it is a planet -- in the sky). I always took this to mean that the Light of our true nature outshines the lesser light of our conventional self (perspective). Venus appears brightest shortly after sunrise or sunset (which is why it is also called the 'evening star'). It is the 'light in the sky' most closely associated with the primary light (the Sun). As such, it is a very good symbol for our intention to wake up.
The stars at night drove many of the inhabitants of Asimov's world mad because they represented the full force of the unknown. There is little in life that terrifies us more than the unknown. People will commonly choose the known hell over the unknown (which is why negative patterns are so utterly repetitive, as in the Buddhist Wheel of Samsara). And yet, the essence of waking up to higher possibility and the vast potential of our deeper nature lies in embracing the unknown.
Sooner or later we all need to face the searing light of the 'stars at night', all the more so if we have never allowed for the possibility that they, just like our higher potential, even exist. In doing so, we may indeed go insane, but given that we live in an insane civilization, that could be a good thing.
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