I had been thinking about a dark retreat as a way of getting to know myself for several years, and although I had found what looked like a sensible provider at first glance, it came to nothing in the end – I don’t really know why. Perhaps I wasn’t ready yet back then? Hard to say.
At the beginning of this year I signed up for a course in Integrated Psychotherapy, and at the end of it we had to devise and rehearse a closing sketch that was supposed to have some connection with what we had been doing on the course. My group chose the theme of various forms of therapy administered by a “mad” doctor, and during the discussion about therapies someone mentioned darkness therapy. And suddenly a light went on in my head! I knew that this was exactly what could move me forward at this stage of my life; it tempted me, it drew me in. Afterwards I talked to a girl who had had to cut her dark retreat short because of health complications, and she warned me about the possible consequences. That didn’t put me off, though; I knew I wanted to go for it and that, essentially, I wasn’t afraid of it.
Over the next few days I researched dark retreat providers online and registered on the website lecba-tmou.cz, because I liked the setting of a large garden at the edge of a village, the wooden cabins themselves and, not least, Tomáš and Lenka’s approach, which I find very likeable and trustworthy. Registration followed, along with a request to be put on the waiting list in case a date became free.
I signed up for the dark retreat as a stand-in
One day I check my inbox and see an unusual offer of a week in the dark without a guide and without meals, and I replied practically straight away that I was interested. I knew this could work out, even though I had replied with a certain delay. On top of that, I was tempted by the even harder, or more demanding, version of something that in itself fills some people with dread. It’s rather symbolic that I only noticed the offer of a week with a guide, which arrived the same day, afterwards – it was simply meant to be.
Although I was second in line, I believed it would work out and slowly started letting people know at work, among acquaintances, friends and loved ones. And sure enough – a few days later Lenka wrote to tell me that the man ahead of me had cancelled his retreat and asked whether I was still interested. There was nothing to think about; I sent the deposit and was delighted that it had worked out so unexpectedly smoothly.
Other people’s fears about my dark retreat
What really amused me in the days before I went in were people’s various reactions when I told them what I was about to do. One acquaintance replied that locking people in the dark used to be a method of torture; a female friend expressed horror at the thought that she would certainly meet a snake in there, and described exactly what it would look like. In general it seems to me that women are more frightened of a dark retreat than men? Or are they simply able to admit it, unlike the blokes?
Personally, I felt only one fear: that during the retreat I might be reminded of, or relive, the fortnight I spent in hospital in the first year of my life, which I spent there without my mum and which was strongly associated with unpleasant feelings of fear and anxiety, especially at night, in the dark. But in fact that was one of the reasons I went for it – to be able to come to terms with what keeps complicating my life, with what weighs on me.
I bought plenty of supplies
Preparing for the dark retreat was all about working out what food to take with me, so that it would keep and could be prepared easily. In the end I chose a very simple, low-effort option with no cooking required. For breakfast, baked muesli with nuts, and also couscous, which, as I discovered, softens even in cold water – you just have to give it time. Along with that, several kinds of nuts, roasted seeds, dates, figs, raisins, a banana, apples.
I also bought some very tasty roasted beans, a piece of hunter’s salami, a year-old Gouda, fish spreads and goose liver, both in small packs. For bread I took rye bread for the first few days and a delicious crispbread with dill from Ikea for the rest. And I mustn’t forget the tomatoes and radishes. It was quite a pile!
On the day I went in, I packed my clothes, food, writing things, a mobile with no SIM card and a battery that would last over a week, and above all a Koshi – a wonderful bamboo wind chime that I had bought only a few days before leaving.
Unfortunately I didn’t meet Tomáš and Lenka; the date of their flight on holiday had moved, so it was their son who showed me into the sanctuary. I just handed him my declaration and, after the basic instructions, said goodbye to him. I laid my food out along the wall so that I could find my way around it easily, put paper and a pen by the bed, switched off my phones and moved to the little bathroom, where I also got everything I needed ready.
And my dark retreat began
Once I had made sure I was ready for the retreat in practical terms, I reached out my hand towards the hidden switch, and at that moment my heart started pounding, because with that small movement I was about to start something I had only a vague idea of, based on the observations of those who had already been through it, but I really had no idea how I myself would experience it. I switched off one light, I switched off the second light and darkness fell.
The first evening was basically about finding my way around the space and preparing a little something for dinner, when I discovered what an enormous problem it is to spread something on bread in the dark, and before long I went to lie down. I essentially slept through the whole of the following day, or lay there feeling drowsy. The second day was very similar to the first, but the backache from all that constant lying down forced me to start moving a bit. I have suffered from back pain for quite a while – I have a desk job and rounded shoulders – so I try to do stretching and strengthening exercises regularly, focusing precisely on the muscles that support the back, which came in extremely handy in the dark because I already know the sequence of exercises very well. On the second day I did just one set; on the following days two a day, which was fairly demanding but necessary given the limited scope for movement in the sanctuary.
It was a very good idea to take a pencil and paper with me for notes, even though writing in the dark is a little harder than in the light. For one thing, I wrote down all my dreams, of which I had a great many over the whole retreat, and for another, I wrote down the key thoughts and ideas, of which a blessed abundance also sprang up in my head.
I took a wind chime into the dark with me
I am slowly getting to the most important thing – what the dark retreat was actually about for me. For one thing, I perceived the darkness itself very neutrally; it didn’t bother me, even though my eyes kept trying to make out at least something in that darkness, which left them quite tired. Then, I came to accept the space I was in as my own; it became my temporary home, it provided for my basic needs and, thanks to the wooden panelling, it felt very pleasant. The Koshi chime, which I hung under the light in the bedroom, became a close companion and a pleasant spreader of sonic harmony in the space I was in, and thanks to the height it was hanging at, also a pleasant diversion, as I tried to “hit” with my head the spot where I assumed its lower part was, so that it would play for me.
I spent my time sleeping, exercising, eating, washing and thinking, and the last of these was, thanks to the conditions, very different from usual. For one thing, I felt a great calm and relaxation, in which I was perhaps getting into a state close to meditation? Stories from various areas of my life began to unfold in my mind – now from work, now from the family, now with someone close to me. Sometimes they were stories that had happened, sometimes stories that might perhaps happen, and it was interesting to watch how they unfolded. As an example of one such fiction, I’ll mention a visit to a music club with a good friend of mine, where a fire broke out and we had great difficulty getting first out of the crush of the crowd and then out onto the street through a small side window. I saw all these stories as if on a cinema screen, very realistically, and they stirred the corresponding emotions in me, including physical signs such as a pounding heart and quickened breathing.
Thoughts came to me about what to do next
From time to time a thought would surface in my head that gave me some fundamental piece of information for my life, for my further direction in it, for what is important and essential. Again I’ll give an example of one such thought that I wrote down: “Everything that has ever happened to us is irretrievably gone, in the past. We may or may not let it influence us; we may or may not use it as an excuse for the life we live. The only real thing is here and now. In the present moment, let us decide according to our inner voice, as is intrinsically natural to us, in harmony with who we really are. The future is open; only knowing it will give us feedback. Let us not prejudge future things on the basis of the past – by doing so we limit the paths we can take”.
The second thing, which was very unusual for me, was how many dreams I had over the whole week, or rather how many of them I could recall on waking, and in what breadth and detail. It was very important to write them down as soon as possible, because even though on waking I felt it was obvious what I had dreamt, as time went on it lost that clarity because of its dreamlike strangeness. Perhaps the very process of writing them down helped their content to lodge better in my memory, so that afterwards I could make some attempt at interpreting what each dream might have been about.
Then I saw light in the dark
Probably the greatest “oddity” of the dark retreat happened to me on the morning after the third night and then repeated itself right up to the end. Although I hadn’t expected it at all, I was able, at least to a limited extent, to see in that absolute darkness. The first time I was fairly frightened by it and looked around in confusion for the source of the light, which lit up a radius of about one metre around me, and what’s more the whole thing looked as if it had been filmed with an infrared camera. I saw my body on the bed, the mattress, the duvet, and the visual impressions corresponded exactly to the movements I was making – it was not a trick of the senses.
The next morning I did a small experiment with a little cushion that I had taken into bed with me under the duvet for the night, so that it would warm up to body temperature. Immediately after waking, when I could see again, I threw the cushion on the floor and looked in that direction. When I couldn’t see it, I concluded that this ability had nothing to do with thermal radiation. The next night I tried to work out where the source of the light was, and it seemed to me as if a tiny light bulb were hanging on my forehead between my eyes. I didn’t find out anything more about this strange occurrence, or phenomenon, while I was there; only by asking Tomáš and Lenka afterwards, plus information from the Internet, did I discover that it has to do with the so-called third eye, which had probably been activated, or had manifested itself, in me.
Coming out of a dark retreat is not to be underestimated
About the actual end and coming out of the dark retreat, I would say that it is not to be underestimated. Personally I consider it the least pleasant part of the whole week, and it is probably connected with the disruption of the spatial orientation system that occurs in the dark and which, after finishing and returning to the light, has to stabilise again.
I would compare it to the feeling I had after a week spent on a boat and then stepping onto dry land – my head was spinning, I staggered now and then, I had a strange feeling in my mouth and my stomach felt as if it were at sea. On top of that, out in the daylight my eyes seemed to flit about, unable to stop at one spot and rest on it calmly, most likely as a result of constantly trying, throughout the whole week in the dark, to see something, to focus on something. This restlessness of the eyes then makes things like driving a car fairly complicated; I drove that morning from Lomec to Kutná Hora, where I then spent several hours “acclimatising”, during which not only my vision settled down but also my stomach and my head, which was once again overwhelmed by the flood of visual and other impressions.
The subsequent journey from Kutná Hora to Prague was then accompanied by complete ease and relaxation, as I savoured the awakening spring landscape, a calm drive along a road with minimal traffic, peace, and the awareness that nothing would be the same as before, that I was returning to Prague a different person.
The dark retreat changed me, and yet I’m still me
Several days on from the end of the dark retreat, I have also had feedback from several people who have noticed that I am different, not only in how I carry myself but also in my facial expression and in what I radiate. The truth is that I myself perceive the change that has taken place, which is subjectively very hard to describe, but which in my view is unequivocally positive as far as my life and its further direction are concerned.
To the question of whether I would recommend a dark retreat to someone, I answer an unequivocal yes, but only on the condition that the person wants it and feels that it is the right thing for them to do and go through. It is without doubt a very powerful and effective tool for self-knowledge and inner healing, one of many forms of therapy, but one that is certainly not for everyone.
It has helped me a great deal at this point in my life, for which I thank Lenka and Tomáš once again!
