Where we live the sun currently doesn’t set until about 8:40. But sure enough, at around 5:30 or 6:00 my wife and I both feel that we must turn on the lights, because it somehow just seems darker, like the shades of night are descending upon us. This only happens in late spring and early summer. At the opposite end of the year, when the sun sets befire 5:00, we don’t experience the same motivation to turn the lights on at, say 3:15. To be clear, in both situations I’m referring to days that are clear and bright, with no overcast.
I wonder if it has to do with the direction of the light coming through your home’s windows? The sun is in a different direction while setting in the winter versus in the summer, and that may be the whole difference. Also in the winter, the sun never gets that high in the sky, so your experience of sunset might be more gradual than in the summer when the sun is coming down from quite high in the sky.
Some folks also never quite adapt to DST and although they don’t consciously notice being discomfited by it after a few days, they still maintain some habits tied to standard time.
The intensity of sunlight changes pretty dramatically throughout the day, from about 1000 lux at sunup/sundown to 100,000+ at noon. Or more, latitude dependent of course. Our eyes and brains adjust but this is why you can burn in no time at noon and not burn at all after 6pm, even though you have no problem seeing in either situation.
The difference between noon lux and dusk lux in winter is less dramatic, so you don’t get the same sense of “where has all the light gone”.
Why not. It can’t hurt anything and might increase safety. The amount of additional fuel you consume due to the extra load on the alternator is probably negligible. Does anyone want to do the math on this. Not me. One of the neighbors is serving bratwursts and queso in courtyard for everyone in just a few minutes. That beats doing math by far.
That’s my guess too. At first I was going down the same line of reasoning as @steronz, but the fact that they don’t do it in the winter made me think maybe it’s not a physiological thing.
The title is fully ambiguous. The OP itself is pretty darn clear it’s about at home.
Many people reply to the thread title without really reading the OP or the intervening posts. Speaking only for myself, don’t be that guy. I read the title (and preview) to decide whether to open or ignore the thread. Having opened it, I ignore the title and read only the OP and following posts.
Many, many posters cannot write a title that matches their OP.
I was so convinced the OP was about car headlights that when Andy_L said in a reply “… I wonder if it has to do with the direction of the light coming through your home’s windows? …” I thought he was the one getting off topic.
I live in a flat that can seem quite dark because it ‘s in a converted warehouse and daylight only comes in from one side, and no direct sunlight after noon. So yes, I can identify with the OP.
But also, might the hibernation instinct be activating a bit early?
It could be that I’m somehow still not used to living 10° farther north. It’s been seven years since we came here but before that I grew up in SoCal and lived most of my life there.