scared of the dark

I have discovered in the last couple of days that my little monkey, Isaac, is afraid of the dark. 3 nights ago he indicated to me that he didn't want to go to bed because he was afraid something would crawl up the wall at the top of his bed. So I told him that his Teddy would keep him safe, Jeremiah was in the room with him, and that his toy puppy loved to eat bugs and would eat anything that tried to climb anywhere near him. That seemed to settle him for that night.

Then 2 nights ago he ended up in my bed with me at some point. I had not closed my closet door when I went to bed, which is something that I usually have to do... I have a thing about closet, bathroom, and sometimes bedroom doors being open anywhere in the house when I am sleeping. Anyway, Isaac indicated to me that the closet was open and told me that it needed to be closed, then he proceeded to get down and close it himself, before he finally went back to sleep.

Finally, last night, he was being playful and not staying in his bed. After several attempts to tuck him in I finally did the tuck and run thing, hoping that if I got the light turned off and the door shut before he got out of bed he wouldn't move again. It usually works, but not that time. He got right down, I could hear him laughing. Then his laughs became sounds of concern, "Oh oh, Oh oh mommy!" So I went in and searched for him in the dark. When I couldn't find him, I turned the light on to see Jeremiah pointing under his bed. I looked and sure enough there was Isaac. He said, "I'm locked in!" Apparently, in playing around, he got down and hid under Jeremiah's bed in an attempt to trick me, but once there discovered that he didn't dare get out again.

I don't know if it is the dark he is scared of, or what might be in the dark that he can't see, or maybe even what he can see in the dark. And I started to wonder today if maybe he doesn't think that Monsters Inc. is a documentary, after all, what is reality to a 2 year old?