Hi Tomáš and Lenka,
sorry for replying a bit late, life in the light has swallowed me up a little 🙂
Thank you once again for everything, I look back on the whole week in the dark as an exceptionally powerful and beneficial experience.
I went into the dark with respect and as few expectations as possible.
Darkness affects everyone differently, and what I feared most was the very first moment after switching off the light.
I also couldn’t imagine how I would spend a whole week alone with myself, with nothing much to do.
I had four months to prepare. I used them to learn by heart a few sequences of yoga, qigong and the Five Tibetans, some breathing and meditation exercises and a few mantras.
I also read a few books, and the one that gave me the most was probably Tolle’s The Power of Now.
During those 4 months, while practising the different elements and waking up into the present, I sometimes felt that I didn’t even need the darkness any more, because that alone was helping me so much. But I knew these were only passing states and that I really ought to go.
So on 29 April, as agreed, I began my 7 nights in the dark.
When I switched off the light, the darkness overwhelmed me. It was so intense that I shut my eyes against it. I saw flickering specks everywhere and couldn’t find my bearings in the space.
It was that initial shock I had been so afraid of, and that’s probably exactly why it came.
But after a while I sat down on the bed and calmed down. I realised I was there of my own free will, that I actually wanted to be there, and that the darkness doesn’t bite.
Little by little I made friends with the darkness. I asked it to give me whatever it had to give, to reveal a little piece of my inner self. And the darkness was kind and gentle. It took me into its arms.
They say you sleep through the first two days.
I probably didn’t have much of a sleep deficit, because on the very first day I could hardly wait for Tomáš to come with the food.
I managed to keep to some kind of routine on all the days. When you go into the dark in spring, you have the advantage that the sounds of birds singing in the day and cicadas chirping to mark the night reach you in the cabin. I tried to go to sleep only once I heard the cicadas. In the middle of the day Tomáš or Lenka would come, so in the end the days went by quite nicely.
During the day I practised all the things I’d learnt beforehand and was glad to have something to fill the time. I could stretch out every exercise and relaxation element for ages, because I had loads of time.
In the dark I had lots of time…
So I learnt to slow down a little and savour every movement of my body. Everything took a bit longer in the dark, and the whole time I couldn’t see my body at all. Even though I don’t spend much time in front of the mirror in the light either, it was interesting to notice how it keeps working regardless of the fact that it’s dark everywhere. How the heart goes on beating inside it, the stomach goes on digesting, and so on. I couldn’t see whether I was dirty or dishevelled (rozcuchaná, as the Czechs say 🙂 and it didn’t matter in the slightest. I think since then I’ve had a slightly different relationship with my own body and I listen to it more.
My thoughts, on the other hand, didn’t quieten down at all the whole time. I understood that they probably really don’t belong to us, if they’re there even without any outside stimulus. In the dark everything was much more vivid, every memory, every human face appeared to me with its exact features. I could transport myself wherever I wanted, and at times I stopped noticing the darkness altogether. That’s how it was for the first three days.
On the fourth day my thoughts turned into images
It was no longer just something that crossed my mind. Now they were images appearing in front of my eyes in the dark, one after another without stopping, a bit like a dream with no beginning and no end, except that I wasn’t asleep.
They were all sorts of things I’m afraid of, from snakes to firearms, and I didn’t know the figures in those visions, but I saw them there very vividly, as if I had seen them once before and just didn’t consciously remember. Luckily I wasn’t very scared of those visions, because I saw that if I ignored them, others would take their place. So I just started to watch them, and they kept changing in front of me like film trailers. That’s when I felt that beneath those thoughts my true self is hiding. And because I couldn’t see my body at all, I was also able to believe that we are beings who reach far beyond our physical shells.
This is something I longed to experience, and I’m grateful for it.
I started seeing walls
On the fourth day I also started seeing walls. My brain probably needed to mark out the space around it, so it invented red brick walls, even though the cabin is wooden and brown.
Otherwise I didn’t notice any special effects, except once I saw a yellow tuft of light flying along the ceiling, and a few times I saw a line of light flash on the wall opposite the toilet.
It felt as if, in that deep darkness, I could see the electrical discharges in the wiring, which is probably built into the wall there, because a bit higher up there was a socket. I forgot to ask Tomáš about it afterwards 🙂
All week I had flickering specks in front of my eyes, sometimes fewer, sometimes more, or the darkness would brighten a little and then darken again. I rarely saw pitch-black darkness.
I also managed to find my way around in the dark without any trouble. I kept my things along one wall, so I could find them easily. Only walking across the room was a problem. It was better to walk parallel to the walls.
What did I take into the dark?
I brought a few stones into the dark, a Tibetan singing bowl, which I played now and then to accompany my mantras, and paper and crayons for writing and drawing. Every evening I wrote a diary, which is actually legible 🙂 and on the last day I tried to intuitively draw my own aura.
The food was great
Thank you, Lenka, for the wonderful food. Even before the dark, during a few one-day fasts, I had found that fasting doesn’t do me any good. According to Ayurveda I’m partly of an airy nature and I need a constant supply of calories, otherwise I get stomach cramps. So I decided to do the dark with vegetarian meals, without being told in advance what food was coming.
I realised that in the light I eat with expectations. I know in advance how each food tastes, and before I even put it in my mouth I sort of know what to expect, so in the end I don’t fully focus on the taste itself.
Here it was the other way round, and it was interesting to notice how melted chocolate or tomato soup tastes, for example. I had also never realised that steamed cauliflower (květák in Czech) and broccoli have a similar texture and taste similar.
Tomáš recommended…
Tomáš recommended that the best thing is to sit in the dark and do nothing and watch your thoughts. For me that worked best right after exercising, when my body was a bit tired. That’s when “meditating” came most easily.
At night, especially at the beginning, I sometimes had nightmares. In the dark I remembered every dream, because nothing distracted me after waking up. On Tomáš’s advice I simply breathed my way through a bad dream. That way the emotions from it dissolved.
I sorted out my thoughts
Overall, the darkness helped me sort out my thoughts and, through being present alone with myself, let all my past positive and negative experiences settle in my subconscious and stop picking them apart again and again.
I had also brought an MP3 player with recorded meditations into the cabin. I played them in the evenings for about the last three days, and Sri Mooji, who guides you into presence, worked especially well for me in the dark.
The last day
On the last day – on Saturday morning at four – the alarm clock rang and it gave me such a shock that I fell out of bed switching it off, and that night’s dream is the only one I don’t remember 🙂
I did the Five Tibetans one more time and went outside into the dark. To me, though, it already seemed like light. My first steps were like after a hangover. Short, unsteady, and I had a headache, especially behind my eyeballs, because I hadn’t had to move my eyes all week. That’s probably why blind people stare fixedly ahead, because their eye muscles have weakened. It took me over an hour to shake off a slight feeling of dizziness.
The birds were singing their hearts out, almost too loudly, it seemed to me. I went out beyond the village to watch the sunrise, but there was none to be seen because of the fog.
Even so, the morning atmosphere was magical and I was euphoric that I had made it.
The journey home
On the train back it dawned on me how beautiful it is to be able to see all the beauty of the world at all, and how everything we do is worth it. Life is the most important thing we have to express on this earth, in whatever way we wish.
I recommend a dark retreat to anyone who is thinking about it.
During the whole stay nothing “earth-shattering” happened to me, no serious trauma, no urge to run out of the cabin, and I wasn’t “enlightened” either 🙂
But it gave me lots of smaller realisations, it allowed me to close some things from the past, calm down, clear my head and learn something more about myself and my subconscious.
Thank you, Tomáš and Lenka, for giving people this way to dive into themselves and meet themselves.
I wish you a beautiful life!
Bára
