History Main / DayHurtsDarkAdjustedEyes

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* One comic has ''ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}'' dryly wonder to himself [[SarcasmMode whatever shall he do]] when he's being pursued by mercenaries wearing night-vision goggles in his darkened apartment... as he's reaching for the light switch.

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': In this ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'' fanfiction, Vivienne suffers a variation when she's first reborn into an artificially-lit room after months gestating inside San's old head, in Chapter 2. Thor experiences a straighter variation when he emerges onto the surface after centuries spent underground, in Chapter 7.
* ''Fanfic/BlueSky''. The first thing Wheatley does after stepping outside for the first time in his life is scream because of the sun shining in his eyes. He calms down a little after realizing the world is ''not'' on fire.

* In Limyaael's "Know Your Enemies", Melkor hates the trees because his eyes are sensitive after so long in Mandos.
* In ''Fanfic/TheFifthAct'' when Cloud wakes up [[spoiler: after being freed from Jenova's possession and Hojo's experiments]] the light of day gives him a splitting headache.
* Several ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' fanfics show Levi and his two friends Isabel and Farlan -- raised in the underground -- struggling to adapt when they're brought to the surface.

* In the end of ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'', Esmeralda turns away from the cheering crowd to offer her hand to Quasimodo, who was staying in the shadows of the cathedral. The moment he is exposed to the light, his pupils shrink in protest as he flinches.

* ''Film/Aquaman2018''. Mera and Arthur Curry only survive TheSwarm of FishPeople in the Trench by carrying flares with them when they dive overboard.
* ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''. As Bane explains:
-->'''Bane''': Oh, you think darkness is your ally. You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t see the light until I was already a man. By then, it was nothing to me but blinding!
* ''Film/TheMatrix''. Neo has spent his whole life up to this point inside the Matrix, which meant that he was sealed inside a tube. Morpheus' crew releases him into the real world.
-->'''Neo''': Why do my eyes hurt?\\
'''Morpheus''': You've never used them before.
* The vampires in ''Film/TheBreed2001'' were this way. They wore sunglasses during the day and in their world, it was the eye sensitivity that gave way to the idea of vampires being allergic to sunlight.
* ''Franchise/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'': Richard B. Riddick suffered from this as a [[BlessedWithSuck side effect]] of his eyes having been modified to let him see in the dark. He normally wears [[CoolShades welding goggles]] to compensate.

* In ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'', Holmes has been vegetating in a dark room with the curtains drawn for weeks; Watson comes in and tears the curtains aside to let in the sunlight, eliciting a yell of pain from Holmes.
* Justified in ''Film/{{Daybreakers}}'', when Willem Dafoe's vampire character is exposed to the sun.
* In the backstory of ''Film/PansLabyrinth'', when the princess left her fairy kingdom to visit the mortal world, the sun blinded her and caused her to forget how to return home.
* In ''Film/ImNotScared'', the young Filippo, who has been kept captive underground for an undetermined length of time, experiences this trope when he is visited by another boy from a nearby village and opens his eyes to get a good look at him.
* In ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'', Andy is obviously suffering from this when Warden Norton opens the door to talk to him after Andy's spent a month in the hole.
* Butch from prison film ''Film/TheBigHouse'' is squinting in obvious distress after being released from solitary confinement in "the dungeon".
* In ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett need a pilot and find Jim Backus sleeping off a drunk. The room has the blinds drawn and when he gets up he thinks he's blind and staggers to the window. When a steward opens the blinds, the blinding daylight sends him flying backward, [[HangoverSensitivity screaming in pain.]]

* ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom''. The kidnapped children have this reaction after escaping from the tunnels where they've been held prisoner.

* ''Film/StarTrekNemesis:'' When Shinzon invites the ''Enterprise'' crew over to his impossibly beweaponed spaceship, they arrive in a dark room. He apologizes, explaining that having grown up working in a mine, his eyes are pretty sensitive to light. He gradually raises them, revealing he looks like a younger Picard.

[[folder:{{Literature}}]]
* In Creator/{{Plato}}'s ''Literature/TheRepublic'', in describing how someone forcibly made to stand would find the direct light painful, and then forcibly brought outside would find the lights painful, having to adjust first to nighttime, then to day.
* Gollum in Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' can barely even stand the Moon, let alone the Sun. It's implied that at least some orcs also suffer from this; the ones from the Misty Mountain caves and mines of Moria, for instance, are unable to run in the sunlight.
* Relg (and most of the Ulgos) have trouble with this during ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', with a side order of agoraphobia as well. Some of the Ulgos are at least used to nights on the surface, as their work involves "hunting wild game and harvesting wild plants" (their leader suspects they've long since taken up farming and herding in the safest mountain valleys).
* Lori uses this to her advantage in ''[[Literature/AuntDimity Aunt Dimity: Snowbound]]''. When a chipper Catchpole brings her breakfast in bed (thinking she's ill), Lori plays up the reaction when he opens the curtains in order to make her illness seem real.

* In the first book of Megan Whalen Turner's ''Literature/TheQueensThief'' series ''The Thief'', we are introduced to the titular thief's... ahem... [[ObfuscatingStupidity dramatic nature]] when, at his first glimpse of sunlight after several months in prison, he falls on the ground howling and swearing at the top of his lungs.
* In Creator/SarahAHoyt's ''Literature/DarkshipThieves'', Thena, after the radiation burns, first thinks her vision has suffered when she removed the goggles. In reality, she's just not seen the light for long. It takes her many blinks to actually see.
* In Creator/JohnCWright's ''Literature/CountToTheEschaton'', Menelaus coming out of a cryogenic chamber, once.
* This trope is alluded to in the title ''A Dark-Adapted Eye'' by Creator/RuthRendell (under the pen name of Barbara Vine). The story involves a bitter custody battle between two sisters that ends in murder and is told from the point of view of a surviving niece who, after several years, is finally able to piece together the events that led to her family's tragedy.
* In ''Literature/AClashOfKings'', Catelyn goes to question Jaime Lannister, who's being kept chained up in a dark cell in the bowels of Riverrun. He hangs onto his dignity as well as he can under the circumstances but has to ask her for a few minutes to get used to the light before he can look at her.
* In the novel ''Literature/{{Metro 2033}}'', the young Artyom and his friends went to a neighboring uninhabited station and opened a hatch to sneak a brief peek at the sky. It is mentioned that they were lucky that it was night at the time as their eyes were used to only dim, red emergency lights and firelight so daylight would have blinded them. Stalkers, whose job it is to brave the surface in search of supplies, wear tinted goggles.
* In Creator/SeananMcGuire's ''Literature/InCryptid'' novel ''Discount Armageddon'', Verity warns Dominic to close his eyes before she turns on the light, but he's not quick enough.
* In Creator/SeananMcGuire's ''Literature/OctoberDaye'' novel ''An Artificial Night'', the Luidaeg tells Toby to close her eyes and immediately turns on the lights. Toby has to get over the after-images.
* In Creator/GeorgeMacDonald's fairy tale ''The Day-Boy and the Night-Girl'', [[MeaningfulName Nycteris]], who has lived her whole life in a cave, is temporarily blinded when she goes outside and sees the Sun for the first time.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/{{Catseye|1961}}'', Troy is blinking after the blindfold is ripped off.
* In the first ''Literature/CircleOfMagic'' book, Sandry has been locked in an underground room for weeks, and someone swings a lantern right in her face. It blinds her for quite a while.
* In Creator/AndreNorton's ''Literature/StormOverWarlock'', after the Throg attack traps them in a cave, turning on his light to the lowest level makes Shann's eyes water.

* In the ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'' novels, members of the underground community Peter discovers in the third novel have to wear dark wraparound sunglasses even in dimly-lit ''indoor'' environments, never mind broad daylight.
* In the ''Literature/{{Newsflesh}}'' universe, people who have a reservoir condition known to most as "retinal Kellis-Amberlee", such as Georgia or Emily, cannot tolerate normal lighting, since their irises will not contract in response. Too much light can damage their eyes severely enough to impair vision. Emily mentions reduced vision sensitivity (she was an early case, and suffered damage before doctors figured out her condition), while Georgia comments on having small blind spots caused by retinal damage. Both spend most of their lives behind sunglasses or in low-light rooms.
* ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'': During an enemy ambush, Vimes lights up a cigar while surrounded by bandits before they're dispatched by him and Assassin/clerk Inigo Skimmer. When Inigo later chides him for this grandstanding, Vimes points out that it boiled down to him turning on a bright light in the darkness.
* [[AllTrollsAreDifferent Trolls]] in the ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'' series are naturally subterranean creatures with senses adapted to low-light conditions, and shining a bright light directly into their eyes activates enough of the pain receptors in their brains to knock them unconscious. In the first book, Holly defeats a troll by shining a helmet-mounted flashlight into its face at point-blank range, and in ''The Opal Deception'' she weaponizes a portable television screen against a pack of trolls that are trying to eat her and Artemis.

* ''Literature/MartinDressler'': At the end of the novel, when it's become clear that the Grand Cosmo (Martin's hotel) is a failure that will bankrupt Martin, he leaves the hotel to go for a walk.
-->"He walked through the lobby to the heavy glass entrance doors, and when he pushed one open, he stopped: the light was so bright that he had to shut his eyes....Suns danced in the red of his closed eyes. He hadn't left the Grand Cosmo for a long time."

* ''Series/ForeverKnight'' had a version with a person who was fed on by a vampire, but survived and ended up becoming like the classic dhampyr almost, human but with enhanced senses and usually they ended up as vampire hunters. 'Bad Blood' was the episode.

* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' [[ColdOpen opens one]] episode with the boys peacefully sleeping and then Lois barging in and ripping open the curtains. We get a close up on Malcolm's pupils as they shrink in response and as the boys writhe in agony, Lois just rips their bedding off to wash while yelling they have five minutes to get breakfast before she starts putting the food away. Malcolm turns to the camera:
-->'''Malcolm:''' [AsideGlance] I know this kid, his mom wakes him up with a kiss on the forehead.
* ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'' tested this to see if smugglers can drive on a dark road at night without using any light and relying only on their eyes acclimated to the darkness. They discovered it was barely possible, but if any light passed by them, such as a car with its headlights on, they would immediately run off the road or crash if they couldn't stop in time.
** On a similar note during the Pirate Special they tested the myth that pirates kept one eye patched on purpose to keep it adjusted to darkness, not because it hid an unsightly wound. Adam and Jamie perform much better navigating an obstacle course meant to simulate the darker conditions below decks using an eye pre-adjusted to darkness when compared to an eye that was coming in from daylight. The myth was declared plausible because even though it worked they could not find any documentation that any real pirate tried this.

* The Visitors in the miniseries ''Series/{{V 1983}}'' have to wear sunglasses because they're unaccustomed to bright lights. It later turns out that this is because they're actually humanoid reptilians.
* In an episode of ''Series/{{Psych}}'', Shawn invoked this for dramatic/silly effect while coming out of a bank he had been in for a few hours.
* On ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'', Venus liked to do his radio show in a darkened studio, lit by candles. Too often, someone would come in and turn on the lights on him, giving him this.

* "Lost Boys" by ''The 69 Eyes'' starts with lines "Morning light // Hurts your eyes." The boys in question are [[Film/TheLostBoys vampires]].

-->''It's good to see you, I must go, I know I look a fright''\\
''Anyway, my eyes are not accustomed to this light''\\
''And my shoes are not accustomed to this hard concrete''\\
''So I must go back to my room and make my day complete.''\\

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': Sunlight Sensitivity is a racial trait shared by many evil humanoids in early editions- depending on the edition it ranges from being outright blinded for a short time or taking a penalty to attacks. As the game went on, this trait was formalized into mostly subterranean races like dark elves, kobolds, Kuo-Toa, and grey dwarves. Orcs also have it, despite not being portrayed as living underground or being nocturnal. [[HybridPower Half-orcs and half-elves of dark elf heritage lack this trait, however]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Varanae}}'' generic RPG supplement ''Monstrum 1'': Albino Apes [[WeakenedByTheLight can't see in daylight and are driven off by intense light]] because of the centuries they have spent living underground.

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'': Night Goblins are adapted for life in dark underground places, and as such find direct sunlight to be unpleasant and often painful. When they must travel on the surface, they used deep hoods and cloaks to shield themselves from the light.

* In ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', your character, who has lived in an underground Vault their entire life, seems to be affected by this for a few seconds upon entering the wasteland. Afterward, they recover, adjust and see in daylight with no ill effects. The same effect happens in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' and ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' when the Courier leaves Doc Mitchel's house after being nursed to health and Sole Survivor exits Vault 111 respectively. ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' opened with an instructional film explicitly (and humorously) highlighting the need for protective eyewear; and the Vault door opened rather sensibly at night time.
* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'' (based on ''Dungeons & Dragons'' 3.5e) gives [[OurElvesAreDifferent Drow]] and [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Gray Dwarves]] Light Sensitivity - a penalty to rolls when in broad daylight. Both are Underdark-dwelling races. Averted in the case of Deep Gnomes, which do not suffer the same penalty despite being native to the Underdark. (Oddly enough, [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Gray Orcs]] receive a similar (but lesser) penalty despite living on the surface.)
* The dwarves of ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' will get unhappy thoughts about being "irritated by the sun" if they've been underground too long. If they've been underground even longer, they'll get unhappy thoughts about being "nauseated by the sun" and puke all over the entrance to your fortress.
** Which may become a problem when you spend years training a military squad in your underground barracks, and when your legendary overpowered steel-clad warriors finally get to the surface to battle a goblin siege they are blinded by the brightness and collapse to the ground, vomiting violently and unable to fight. It's important to either [[CityInABottle move all your activity underground]] or make your dwarves spend at least part of their time above the surface, to prevent complete cave adaptation. Like everything in Dwarf Fortress, this can quickly become a problem as well.
*** Or just build enough of a roof to allow battles to take place shaded from the sun.
* This is probably why ''VideoGame/MegaMan4's'' Pharaoh Man is affected by the Flash Stopper. As he's supposed to emulate long-dead Pharaohs and explore dark pyramids, it could be similarly deduced that he's designed for dark environments and freezes when exposed to bright flashes.
* ''VideoGame/TraumaCenter'''s CR-S01 experiences this trope after being released from his cell for the first time in years.
* The D'ni people in the ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' games have very light-sensitive eyes, due to living underground for a long time. It's why Atrus is shown wearing sun-filtering goggles [[spoiler:at the end of ''VideoGame/{{Riven}}''.]]
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' does this at the beginning. Once Link, who had been asleep in the [[HealingVat Shrine of Resurrection]] for a hundred years, is able to open the door separating the Shrine from the Great Plateau, a brief cutscene plays where he steps into the light spilling from outside and squints while raising his hand in front of his face.

* A minor graphical effect in ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' washes Orb Vallis' outdoors in a blinding white light for a short while after leaving the caves.

* At the beginning of ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', if you choose to turn on the light in your room, the narration states how painful this is ("you can practically feel the photons burning a hole in your brain") and advises you to turn off the lights ''immediately''. If you choose not to, you take a point of health damage, and if you allocated your stats in such a way that you started as a OneHitPointWonder, you immediately die of a heart attack.

* By the end of ''VisualNovel/SpiritHunterNG'' , Akira and company have spent so long hunting spirits during the night that the daytime sun hurts their eyes.

* In ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'' [[http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0222.html Angelika gets it emerging from the cave, and overdramatizes it.]]

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', when Pandora makes a surprise appearance in Sarah's bedroom in the middle of the night, accompanied by a flash of light, Sarah [[UnfazedEveryman does not react to the sudden appearance of a powerful immortal,]] but [[http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=288 instead complains about the light hurting her eyes.]]

* PlayedForLaughs in the ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' episode "D&DD"; Mom enters the room where Dexter and his friends are playing ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Mazes and Monsters]]'', says "Gracious! It's as dark as a dungeon in here!", and opens the blinds. Dex recoils, shielding his eyes and hissing like a vampire.

* PlayedForDrama in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Underdwellers". The Sewer King punishes his child slaves by locking them in a room with painfully (to them) bright lights. Batman finds him so contemptible that he admits to being sorely tempted to break [[ThouShaltNotKill his one inflexible rule]].

* PlayedForLaughs on ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}''. Any time someone puts on NightVisionGoggles, it's a guarantee they're going to be blasted in the face with bright lights.
-->'''Archer''': ''My retinas! Seared... like tuna steaks!''
* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': In "Astro B.O.Y.D.!", when Dr. Akita emerges from his underground lair after 20 years, he immediately recoils in pain from the sunlight. Later, when he's fighting Gyro, he suffers a BlindWithoutEm moment when his sunglasses get knocked off.
-->'''Dr. Akita:''' Now... the moment of reckoning shall be mi-[[FailedAttemptAtDrama AAAAAHHHHH!!]] Has the sun gotten brighter in the last twenty years?!
* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Toy Store of Doom", [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick are locked in the dark toy store overnight. When the store opens the next morning, [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick run outside into the daylight and their eyes burn while they scream in pain.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': After Quagmire discovers Tinder, he gets obsessed with it to the point of neglecting all else, turning into a [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Gollum]]-like figure. When Peter tries to open the shades, Quagmire screams and yells, “The yellow face! It burns my Tinder!”

* ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'': In "Test Pilot", Mr. Spacely takes some cash from his safe to offer George as a bonus if George agrees to become the titular pilot. The bills were inside the safe for so long that the man pictured at the top bill puts on sunglasses.
* ''WesternAnimation/FiftyFiftyHeroes'': Sam's father spends so much time indoors that, when he steps outside, sunlight hurts his eyes.
* ''WesternAnimation/DennisTheMenace (1986)'': "Journey to the Center of Uncle Charlie's Farm" features Fred, a young boy who lives in a subterranean civilization near the well of Uncle Charlie's farm and only visits the surface world at night. [[LearntEnglishFromWatchingTelevision He is able to speak English due to watching late night television]], allowing him to communicate with Dennis and Joey. Near the end of the episode, the three are brought to the surface world after dislodging some boulders holding the water back. Fred puts on some sunglasses to protect his eyes, as he's not used to sunlight due to spending most of his time underground. When Joey tells him to come back and visit him and Dennis so they can go to the zoo or the amusement park together, Fred tells them he'd rather do those things at night, and asks him and Dennis how they can stand the sun.

--> [[AsideGlance '''Malcolm:''' I know this kid, his mom wakes him up with a kiss on the forehead.]]

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': The Moriondor cannot watch at all at the son without burning their retinas. Adar is the only Orc who has no problem staying in the son and watching the sunset.

* At the beginning of ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', if you choose to turn on the light in your room, the narration states how painful this is ("you can practically feel the photons burning a hole in your brain") and advises you to turn off the lights ''immediately''. If you choose not to, you take a point of health damage, and if you chose to start as a OneHitPointWonder, you immediately die of a heart attack.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons'': In "Test Pilot", Mr. Spacely takes some cash from his safe to offer George as a bonus if George agrees to become the titular pilot. the bills were inside the safe for so long that the man pictured at the top bill puts on sunglasses.

The trope namer is the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato's allegory of the cave, which is about people chained underground in a deep cave, so deep that no sunlight reaches them. At the mid-part of the cave, a shadow-play is created by firelight on the wall of the cave. The chained prisoners' only visual input is the dim shadow play on the wall. If the prisoners, used to the dark cave, were to be freed, if they left the dark cave, the light of the sun (an allegory for reality) would blind them.

* ''Varanae'' generic RPG supplement ''Monstrum 1''. Albino Apes [[WeakenedByTheLight can't see in daylight and are driven off by intense light]] because of the centuries they have spent living underground.

* The Visitors in the miniseries ''Series/{{V 1983}}'' have to wear sunglasses because they're unaccustomed to bright lights. It later turns out that this is because they're actually humanoid reptilians.

* ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' reveals that humans from the MirrorUniverse are naturally photosensitive and don't easily adjust to bright lights. This fact leads to TheReveal that [[spoiler:[[TheCaptain Captain Gabriel Lorca]] is actually from the MirrorUniverse]].
* ''Series/TheDefenders2017'': Jessica Jones is introduced passed out in a bar. She gets rudely awakened by the bartender, who tells her to get going. Jessica is clearly hung over, based on the fact that she winces as the bartender reveals it's already after 9:00 AM.
* ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'' tested this to see if smugglers can drive on a dark road at night without using any light and relying only on their eyes acclimated to the darkness. They discovered it was barely possible, but if any light passed by them, such as a car with its headlights on, they would immediately run off the road or crash if they couldn't stop in time.

* In ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett need a pilot and find Jim Backus sleeping off a drunk. The room has the blinds drawn and when he gets up he thinks he's blind and staggers to the window. When he opens the blinds, the blinding daylight sends him flying backward, [[HangoverSensitivity screaming in pain.]]

The trope namer is the Ancient Greek philosophy er Plato's allegory of the cave, which is about people chained underground in a deep cave, so deep that no sunlight reaches them. At the mid-part of the cave, a shadow-play is created by firelight on the wall of the cave. The chained prisoners' only visual input is the dim shadow play on the wall. If the prisoners, used to the dark cave, were to be freed, if they left the dark cave, the light of the sun (an allegory for reality) would blind them.

The trope namer is Plato's allegory of the cave, which is about people chained underground in a deep cave. At the mid-part of the cave, a shadow-play is created by firelight on the wall of the cave. The chained prisoners' only visual input is the dim shadow play on the wall. If the prisoners, used to the dark cave, were to be freed, if they left the dark cave, the light of the sun (an allegory for reality) would blind them.

The trope namer is Plato's allegory of the cave, which is about people chained underground in a deep cave. At the mid-part of the cave, a shadow-play is created by firelight on the wall of the cave. The chained prisoners only visual input is the shadow play on the wall. If the prisoners, used to the datk cave, were to be freed, if they left the dark cave the light of the sun (an allegory for reality) would blind them.