🙂 Several days in the dark. Silence, calm, no distractions. One of our clients decided to share what he went through during his dark retreat. In his account he describes how his body rested, how his mind slowed down and how he gradually began to sink deeper into himself. His experience shows that darkness therapy can lead not only to calm, but also to quiet yet important realisations.
The first night, he says, came with a lot of thoughts. “My head was a total mess, because I wanted to think about loads and loads of stuff.” But then he fell asleep and intense dreams began to appear. “Sort of sci-fi, childlike, or just really completely crazy dreams. People from my life turned up in those dreams. A dream that could never happen, but there was a real person in it.”
Over the following nights his state changed. “Whenever I wanted to think about something, my head was completely empty.” He describes how any deliberate thinking was interrupted by other, unrelated thoughts: “I’d try to focus on something, but another, unrelated thought would jump straight in.”
At one point he decided to give up trying to control his thoughts: “So I just didn’t think, I just lay around.” Only then did a chance come to turn his attention elsewhere – to his own story. “I gradually started recalling my whole life – from childhood up to now. And that I could do.”
For him, the experience of darkness therapy didn’t lead to planning, but to a deep slowing down and a return to himself. It is not a space for performance, but for calm. The client’s words show that a dark retreat can bring exactly what is so often missing in the everyday world – time simply to be, without having to achieve anything.
We have put together the most frequently asked questions that clients ask before a dark retreat.
Follow our YouTube channel too, where you will find videos about retreats and experiences of darkness therapy. 🔔
