Darkfield Toronto might be the most fun you can have with your eyes closed. Or open. It actually doesn’t matter much which way you try it, because most of this supremely spooky experience takes place in total darkness.

And I do mean total. There’s no emergency exit sign, no light creeping in from the edge of the doorway. Once the staff seals you and your fellow patrons inside the event space and the lights go down, it is Vantablack. (Or pitch black if you’re old-fashioned.)

When I first heard that Darkfield was coming to Toronto — it had already visited Dallas, Denver, and Montreal — my first thought was: Is this a VR experience? It’s not, though you will be wearing headphones for the “360-degree binaural sound” experience. Think of it as virtual reality for your ears.

There are two separate experiences, Séance and Flight. Each is set up inside a modified shipping container, which makes Stackt — a public market made out of 120 such containers — the perfect place for their Toronto run. They fit right in.

Séance was my first on media preview day. The narrow container holds about 40 people in two rows, one on each side of a long wooden table covered in what looks like muslin, and lit (until you’re seated) by low-wattage bulbs. The atmosphere is late Victorian.

I don’t want to say too much and spoil it so ”¦ well, it’s a séance. Terrifying, but not in a cinematic jump-scare kind of way; more a gradual creeping dread that builds up over the roughly 16 minutes the event lasts, until you’re about ready to crawl out of your skin.

We were told to put our hands on the table. I did, though no one could see me. I was freaking out leaving them there, but I was also too afraid to pull them back. I was literally scared stiff.

Flight offers a more impressive interior design. It’s an aircraft, or at least a portion of one, the edges draped in the kind of curtains they use to separate you from First Class. Everything matches the experience you’ve had — overhead bins, tight space, floppy little seatbelt, tray table, even a card covered with emergency-instruction pictograms.

The headphones capture the “room tone” of a passenger jet, while something else (I know not what) mimics the shaky moving-not-moving sense of an aircraft in flight. This might be enough to unnerve anyone already at odds with flying, but be warned — there are going to be more jumps and jolts than the average Toronto-to-Vancouver run.

It starts with a chorus of crying babies (many a traveller’s ultimate nightmare) but doesn’t end there. The Darkfield website promises: “Flight explores the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which proposes all possible outcomes that could occur are occurring in countless worlds of varying similarity.”

Or to put it another way: You know the thought experiment where a caged cat is both alive and dead until an observer opens the box? Well, this might be what it feels like to be the cat.

It all makes for a deliciously unnerving experience, especially if you like to let raw fear run its icy fingers up and down your psyche. (Admission is restricted to those 13 and up, with anyone 15 and under needing a responsible adult to accompany them.)

It’s also got a fairly tight run, with time slots Tuesdays through Saturdays until Nov. 9, so go soon if you’re curious.

Tickets are about $25 each, and I’d recommend springing for both. Hysteria loves company. More information at darkfield.live .