😊 When someone enters the darkness for seven days for the first time, they usually have no idea how much their inner world is about to change. That was the case for our participant, too, who shared his experience of darkness therapy. He went into the dark for personal growth, because he felt he needed to switch his mind off and catch his breath again. His mum gave him a voucher for the retreat for Christmas, and he was curious about what would happen, especially in the second half of the week.
🌙 From the very first hours, he described how his perception grew quieter and slower. The darkness gave him something he had long been missing – full attention turned inwards. He was surprised how quickly thoughts began to surface that never get a chance to come up in everyday life. Some were ordinary, others powerful, so powerful in fact that he felt he could easily lose them.
🎙️ And this is where something essential became clear. He had taken a voice recorder into the dark with him. Whenever something important came to him, he simply recorded it. Not in order to “work” or create, but because he knew how quickly a thought can dissolve in the silence. And he was right — some sentences would have lost their power within minutes if he hadn’t recorded them. Thanks to the recorder, he captured a stream of inner images, feelings and realisations that he would otherwise never have got back to after returning.
✨ He said that recording was the key moment of the whole retreat for him. After coming back, he could go through what had happened inside him in the dark all over again. Something kept resonating in him long afterwards, and the recordings helped him understand how his inner dialogue had been changing. He would recommend it to anyone getting ready for the dark — thoughts in such a deep environment have a completely different quality: raw, true and precise.
😊 During the retreat he learned to listen to himself. The darkness opened up a space for him without disturbance, without interruptions and without light to draw his attention away. Often he just sat, breathed and felt something coming together inside him. It wasn’t dramatic, more gentle, calm and gradual. And thanks to the recorder, he was able to keep it.
🌱 After seven days, when he came out, he felt that something had naturally shifted. Some thoughts stayed, others took on new meaning. Above all, he understood how important it is to create space for yourself, whether in the dark or in everyday life.
We have put together the most frequently asked questions that people ask before a dark retreat.
Follow our YouTube channel too, where you will find videos about the retreats and experiences of darkness therapy. 🔔
