It’s Saturday evening – or Wednesday, or Tuesday, depending on what you booked. You’ve unpacked, you know where the bed is and where the kettle stands. Your finger is on the switch. In a second it will be darker than anything you’ve known: darker than a hotel room with the curtains drawn, darker than a moonless night in the countryside. So what really happens on the first night of a dark retreat? Lenka and I have been with more than 3,000 people through that moment since 2013, so we can tell you fairly well. Not exactly – everyone is different – but well enough that very little will surprise you.
The last hour with the light on
Before you switch anything off, take a slow walk around your cabin. It doesn’t take long. There’s a wooden bed, 200 × 90 cm, with a slatted base, a foam mattress, a pillow, a duvet and clean linen. A shower with warm water, a deep tray and a little seat. A washbasin, a toilet, hooks for your things, a shelf by the bed and space underneath it. A mat and a meditation cushion. In the entrance hall there’s a shelf for food and your thermos.
Now do the route a few times with your eyes closed: bed – toilet – shower – kettle – bed. And give everything you own one fixed place. In the dark, “I’ll just put it here for a moment” turns into a ten-minute treasure hunt on your knees.
Click. And then nothing – well, almost
The darkness in our cabins is complete. You can’t see your hand in front of your eyes, and no amount of waiting changes that. For a while your eyes keep searching for a crack of light anyway. They won’t find one.
Then your ears take over. With the ventilation switched off, it’s around 24 decibels in the cabin at night – roughly the level of leaves rustling. With the ventilation on its lower setting you’ll hear a soft, even hum. And then the countryside joins in: one of our two dogs, a rooster in the morning, now and then a Gripen jet from the air base in Čáslav, 12 km away. The rooster has no idea you’re on a retreat 🙂 If sounds bother you, we lend earplugs or ear defenders.
The mind throws a small tantrum
This is the part people rarely expect. The body lies down, and the head switches to full volume. Shopping lists. That email you didn’t answer. A conversation from three years ago. And sooner or later a little voice: “What am I even doing here?”
That voice is completely normal. I spent a week in the dark myself, so I know it well, and almost everyone who comes to us meets it at some point. It isn’t a sign that something’s going wrong. It’s simply what a mind does when, for once, nothing comes in from the outside. What to do about it? Nothing much. Breathe, let it talk, and don’t argue. Its attempts to convince you the whole thing is pointless can be cheerfully ignored.
Let’s call her Marieke
Picture a participant – let’s call her Marieke, from Utrecht. She takes the train to Prague, then on to Kutná Hora, we pick her up, she settles in. Lights off. For the first hour her head runs like an airport departure board. She wonders why on earth she paid for this. She turns over, then turns back. And then she’s asleep without noticing the moment it happened.
She wakes up and has no idea whether it’s two in the morning or noon. She sleeps again. Somewhere in there, food appears in the entrance hall. When she tells us about that first night later, the sentence we hear from so many people comes out: “It was easier than I imagined.”
Marieke is made up. The pattern isn’t.
The first days of a dark retreat: sleep, and a lot of it
In a dark room retreat, the beginning is mostly sleep. Many people tell us they finally sleep properly, sometimes for the first time in months. Others doze, wake, doze again, and lose track completely. Was that twenty minutes or five hours? You won’t know, and that’s fine. Your phone stays off, so there’s no clock to argue with. Time melts, and on the first night that can feel strange. Later most people find it a relief.
Colours, images and other night visitors
Some people see colours or images in front of their eyes, even though there’s nothing to see. Patterns, flashes, sometimes whole scenes. It isn’t a rule, but it happens, and it can start on the very first night. No need to chase it and no need to fear it. It comes, it goes, and plenty of people never see anything at all.
What if you want out?
Then you switch the light on. Or you open the door and walk out into the garden. Nobody locks you in, and nobody keeps score. Lenka and I live in the log house 50 metres away, one of us comes by with the food every day, and if something is really wrong you can let us know. About one in ten people end their stay early. That number isn’t marketing – it’s simply what happens, and it’s fine.
A dark retreat isn’t for everyone. If you’re unsure because of your health – strong anxiety or panic attacks, marked claustrophobia, psychiatric medication – read our page on safety and who this isn’t for and write to us before you book. In case of doubt, a shorter stay first is a good idea.
Breakfast that doesn’t know what time it is
If you booked food, a vegetarian meal for the whole day arrives in the entrance hall of your cabin. The entrance hall is there so food can be passed in without letting any light into your room. You go and get it whenever you feel like it. If you came without food, you have your own supplies and the kettle. Eating in the dark is an experience of its own: there’s nothing to look at, so all that’s left is the taste. Some people also find out for the first time exactly where their mouth is 😉
Small things that help on night one
- One place for every object – so you spend the night resting, not searching.
- Earplugs within reach – so a barking dog at 3 a.m. stays a small event.
- Ventilation on the lower setting (the switch is by the entrance) – fresh air without the extra hum.
- Phone off and out of reach – the urge to check the time is strongest on the first night, and it passes faster if you can’t.
- Low expectations – the first night doesn’t need to be special. It just needs to happen.
Want to know how the following days unfold? Have a look at how a dark retreat works with us, or at the five cabins.
See you in the dark – Tom & Lenka
P.S. Don’t worry if you can’t tell whether you slept two hours or ten. Nobody can – and in the dark, nobody needs to 🙂
