Dark Matter/ energy Can anyone shed some light?

I have been reading sone books lately and I don't understand something. The scientists say that about 94+% of our universe is made up of "Dark Matter/ energy" (Can't remember which one, it was a library book that I read a few months ago) , but they can't explain exactly what it is or what it does other than producing a constant repulsive force throughout the cosmos. Can anyone shed some light on this for me? I would like to know more about this because I find this fasinating.

Please keep in mind that I am not a scientist and word your answers accordingly.

Thanks to all.

Here's a few ATS threads for ya. The first few are from this year.

Hubble Reveals Ghostly Ring of Dark Matter

Anybody... please help! Dark Matter?

Double BULL'S-EYE for Einstein

New map lets scientists 'see' dark matter

THE Question on Matter, Dark Matter, etc.

Dark matter/energy was born from mathematics, Einsteins field equations didn't add up, they needed a + something or other to account for the mass to make their equations hold up.
That + something or other just happened to be a whopping 96%. After billions of dollars and decades of searching you'd think they might entertain the thought that maybe, just maybe the equations are wrong.

Dark matter is probably normal matter that exists in other dimensions parallel to our own , this also accounts for dark matters apparent gravitational interaction with matter in our dimesion ,as gravity acts on all dimensions.
Also i thought the only way to have a working unified field theory was to base it on a multidimentional universe? , but unfortunatly letting the common man have access to this "Universe field manual" puts a sweat on the brow of the "im better than you" luddites out there who think they know whats best for mankind
Hence the reason for multiverse being snubbed in mainstream science, sorry if im ranting a bit , but i consider petrol busting science to be a knowledge that every human being on earth has a right to

So dark matter is matter that just doesn't emit light? Does it emit other types of radiation? (x-ray, gamma, infrared, ultravilot (sp), radio, etc..)

If you theoretically hit a "patch" of dark matter in space would your ship react to it like water or something?

Is it a anti-type of regular matter? (Does that make regular matter, light matter?)

I'm sorry for all these questions but I read all the threads and about googled myself silly on the subject "Dark matter" and all I come up with is more questions.

the reason it doesnt emit light is because the speed of light is either higher in other dimentions or has different properties , it does probably emit something but you still wouldnt be able to detect it using instruments configured for our spacial dimention , energy in our dimention is probably at much lower frequencys than the one dark matter resides in.
Dark matter and anti matter are different , antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles, just with an oppisite charge to normal matter, contact between positive and negative matter results in massive amounts of energy released in the form of gamma radiation,
you couldnt hit a patch of dark matter as it exists outside our space , all it would look like is a void as you passed through it , you could possibly encounter gravitational effects from it though

So dark matter is "multi-dementional" (sp)? Like gravity?
do they have a theory about what causes it to cross dementions?
Could this be the "anti-" to gravity?

The only way we can currently detect dark matter is by it's gravitational field. They think that it may be made of WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, however they haven't discovered any of them yet. My personal thoughts are that if they can determine it's not WIMPs, then it's matter in the other dimensions. I think that the different universes generally have galaxies in the same spots, and this would lead to a massive concentration of mass. However, if there is a multiverse, it would be practically infinite, so maybe gravity is strongly reduced when it crosses, or maybe the gravitational constant in our universe is unusually low or something.

Dark matter and dark energy are more-or-less arbitrary place-holder names for concepts and phenomena that are not really understood through current physics.