On some of the 757's in our company we have strips along both sides of the aisle which does appear to be 'glow in the dark'. it might be on all of our 757's but it is more noticeable on some of them. when the cabin lights are switched off completely during TO and landing in the hours of darkness you can see it very clearly.
however, nothing is ever mentioned to us about the lights having to be on to charge it. i'm a senior as well, and you would have thought that if this was the case it would have been mentioned to us or even maybe written in our procedures manual - but nothing!!