Hi,
I was really, really looking forward to my dark retreat. I was looking forward to getting out of my ordinary life. To sitting alone with myself, in the dark, with nothing to disturb me, searching for my true self. There’d be nobody to interrupt my search, no outside stimulus to grab my attention.
Looking for inner peace in the dark
For the first few days that’s exactly how it was. There’s nothing else to do, so I withdrew into myself and looked for inner peace. It came several times, and I had nothing but positive experiences of the dark. Hand in hand with that came a desire for more spiritual practice, which was exactly why I had gone into the dark.
I think it was Monday morning. I had a dream, quite a pleasant one: we were shooting a funny advertising campaign. The first sequence was done, and then the director announced we’d run through it once more. At that moment I woke up.
My consciousness was awake, but my brain couldn’t let go of the dream. An inner battle broke out over what was real. I was sure that reality was the cabin, but my brain kept dragging me back into the dream. I tried to calm it down with exercise, food, a shower. Nothing helped, and I started to feel I was about to go mad. I needed something to see. I didn’t want to switch on the main light and throw away my dark retreat so far, so I turned my phone on for a moment and used its dim light. The instant I glimpsed the floor and the walls, everything calmed down. My eyes had something to anchor to and my brain finally understood that I was no longer dreaming.
It was a pretty unpleasant experience. Tomáš advised me to let it flow next time and not to fight it. I didn’t have to wait long to try that out: the very next night something similar happened. Fortunately it wasn’t as intense. After waking up I stayed lying down and tried not to focus on anything. After a while everything really did settle by itself.
At the same time, though, the “hallucinations” kicked in. Phantasmagoria kept running in front of my eyes: falling needles, waterfalls, people climbing, huge spinning discs. Every so often a bright green light flashed in my eyes. Constantly, over and over again. I could exercise, lie still, think, or not think at all. It just kept running and pulling my attention away. I couldn’t meditate, I couldn’t find the inner peace that had come during the first days. I felt like I was high and I was experiencing a lot of anxiety. Since I could no longer do what I’d gone into the dark for, and I felt very uncomfortable, I decided to end the retreat early.
I switched on the light
I switched on the light. It was dark outside, and I’d given my phone to Tomáš to charge. So I had no idea what time it was. The lights were on in the house, but I was scared to walk round the garden at night like that, with two Caucasian shepherd dogs guarding it.
I thought it was probably morning and I’d wait a little for the sunrise.
It wasn’t morning; sunrise came about 14 hours later 😀 But within a few hours the anxiety and the twitching stopped. After leaving the dark retreat cabin I felt huge relief and was overjoyed by the rediscovered world outside. I said goodbye to Tomáš and set off home on foot.
I ended my dark retreat early
I didn’t last the whole week in the dark, but I got what I went in for. I probably wouldn’t do darkness therapy again, but I definitely don’t regret it.
Thanks to Tomáš (Lenka happened to be away) for taking care of the basics, and maybe see you again some time 😉
Jakub
