Healing with the Night: Investigations into Experiences of Natural Darkness in Overnight Recollective Practices

Brief historical context of illumination

The world has never been so bright. We live in a time when the darkness of night is declining rapidly from the human experience (Davies & Smyth, 2018). Decreasing darkness at night began with the use of fire, and has progressively continued by various means—from lighting oil lanterns to the development of light emitting diodes (Davies & Smyth, 2018). It was not until the 17th century that public light projects started in Europe, and in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the introduction of gas and electric lighting, that urban spaces have attempted to turn “night into day,” normalizing the presence of artificial nighttime illumination (Stone, 2018, p. 612).

Historian Roger Elkirch (2005) attributes the increase in nighttime light to humans' attempt to reduce the ancient fear of darkness: “man's first necessary evil, our oldest and most haunting terror” (p. 152). Elkirch believes this fear evolved from histories of injuries and death caused by crossing difficult terrain at night, and nighttime attacks by other humans and animals. Before light offered protection, towns in Europe would employ alternative ways of keeping safe through town watchmen, protective city gates, and linkboys, ^‡‡ who helped navigate nocturnal terrain (Edensor, 2015). Nighttime illumination in the Western world has since been diligently used to reduce nocturnal fears.

Impacts of artificial light at night

About 80% of the human population now lives under light-polluted skies. Light at night is primarily used to enhance social, safety, and security functions, including reducing motor vehicle accidents (Preston & Schoenecker, 1999), increasing productivity (Konstantzos, Sadeghi, Kim, Xiong, & Tzempelikos, 2020), and preventing crime (Davies & Farrington, 2020; Welsh, Farrington, & Douglas, 2022). Bogard (2013) notes that humans acclimate to increased light levels, and, therefore, constantly desire more light at night, which is also reflected in the global increase of brightness of outdoor urban nights.

Artificial light infiltrating the nighttime sphere can have significant and devastating ecological impact. Light pollution alters migration patterns of birds that use stellar navigation, and endangered baby sea turtles that depend on darkness for orientation (Gallaway, 2010). Artificial light also compromises numerous other plant species and animals, including bats, marsupials, rodents, fish, moths, and crustaceans, with regard to feeding, foraging, predatory behavior, ability to camouflage, sexual communication, reproduction, and growth (Benfeld et al., 2018; Davies & Smyth, 2018).

Indoor artificial light at night impacts human health and well-being. Numerous studies draw correlations between increases in artificial light at night, including indoor electrical lights, computer screens, and cell phones, with a rise in human health problems, such as sleeping disorders, obesity rates, depression symptoms, and cancer (Davies & Smyth, 2018; Gallaway, 2010; Koo et al., 2016). We have not found studies that propose psychological or health benefits of artificial light at night.

Reviewing the ecological and health consequences of ND reveals the current relationship of light and dark at night is out of balance. Although this study does not focus on the effects of artificial light at night, we see the global issue of light pollution as a symptom of a declining relationship with the dark. We further wonder what is lost in this effort, and what aspects of the human experience are missing in having a less intimate relationship with ND?

Data collection

The phenomena studied in this research are the subjectively reported experiences of individuals' relationships with ND, specifically focused on their descriptions of experiences during solo overnight recollective practices. The study was approved by the human research ethics board at the University of Victoria (#20-0582).

We recruited eight adult individuals who participated in overnight recollective practices within the past 4 years in North America. Participants were recruited through personal and professional contacts. Racial, gender, age, and class diversity were sought.

As this research did not seek universal truths, but rather subjective descriptions of ND experiences from interviewees, we provide participant demographic information for context to the voices represented in this study. The eight participants living on Vancouver Island, Canada, are predominantly white (except for one woman with part-Indigenous ancestry), and between the ages of 32 and 68 years. Participants expressed high levels of comfort in wilderness settings and half have lived in environments with little to no light pollution. Half the participants identified as female, half as male. Participants have various occupations: counsellors/coaches (n = 4), public health workers (n = 3), and business operations (n = 1). Of note, four participants had previously worked in the field of outdoor recreation.

All but one participant spoke about their experience in a 3-to-4-day solo recollective practice in rural areas. Participants' narratives were all within the context of Animas Valley Institute programs (Plotkin, 2021) (n = 3), or recollective practices facilitated by guides who adopted a psychological framework from the School of Lost Borders (Foster, 1987) (n = 5). These psychological frameworks offer various ceremonies to support human development in relationship with the natural world (Foster, 1987; Plotkin, 2021). It is to be noted that participants did not consume food or take any psychoactive substances during their recollective practice. Lastly, though the quality of ND likely varied among participants, narratives were shared based on participants' unique identifications of ND.

Hermeneutic phenomenological interview

The first author conducted semistructured interviews with the eight interviewees based on hermeneutic phenomenological interview methods (Vandermause & Fleming, 2011). In a hermeneutic interview, the interviewer seeks to understand the interviewee's experience of being, through the sharing of stories (Vandermause & Fleming, 2011).

The researcher works to interpret the interviewee's meaning and understanding of their experience. The interviewer's knowledge and experiences are not bracketed, allowing the interview to be cocreated. Interviews lasted between 35 and 60 minutes, and were conducted, recorded, and transcribed with the videoconference technology Zoom. Interviews were focused on the context of the overnight recollective practice, and participant's personal stories involving ND during the recollective practice.

Data analysis

After transcribing the audio generated by the Zoom video interview verbatim, interpretive data analysis methods based on Attride-Sterling's (2001) proposal of thematic networks were employed. These networks offer a “web-like network as an organizing principle and a representational means in going from text to interpretation” (Attride-Sterling, 2001, p. 388). Throughout the process of repeatedly listening to the audio recordings, as well as reading the interview transcriptions, the first author organized the data to create meaning from the interviewee's experiences with ND. Data analysis went as follows: coding material; identifying themes; constructing thematic networks; and finally, describing, exploring, and interpreting patterns.

From Doing to Being

From Doing to Being represents participants' experiences of states of being in ND that contrasted to the active doing associated with daytime. Included in this theme are participants' experiences of spaciousness, as well as how ND influenced participants to enter restful, present, and embodied states of being.

Many participants shared that Western society's value on states of active doing and production can be unhealthy. Happy Dancer expressed his response to the busyness of his life: “Our society is fucking crazy! This is a time of madness!” Joanne expressed her dissatisfaction with “our capitalistic culture of just doing, doing, doing, and occupying your time!”

Contrary to that of daytime, Bill and Jack described their experiences of spaciousness in relation to ND. Bill says, “the feelings of darkness were just like of space; of void. Just that thing of, ‘okay, well I guess I'm just sitting here’…that kind of feeling.” Jack commented on a similar experience with ND:

It was very calm and quiet…the stars were out. There was a lot of space. Even though there was all this space, it was like I was just focussed on the small area around me that felt accessible because of the lack of light. Everything had kind of shrunken down to this space I was sitting in and the small area around it. (Jack)

The stimulation of daytime activity seemed to activate states of mental stimulation, while ND, at times, offered a sense of connection, of just “being.” Dale described the embodied experience of darkness in the following passage:

In the dark I feel much more a friend to myself. You know? Or contained within myself, or with myself. Not that I necessarily wouldn't in the day, but the sight and the perceptual faculty are not going out as far. They were much closer in, and so that sense of myself (with ND) is much stronger, as well as that sort of thicker feeling around. So, there's more sense of one's self, or awareness of one's self. The perceptual sense doesn't go out as far, which is really important. So important! I would say that it's extremely necessary! (Dale)

Bill also spoke about how ND's reduced stimulation shifted his experience of being, “With less stimulation you kind of slow down. You have to slow down. You have to be more observant of how it feels.” Similar to the narratives of other participants, Bill's quote alludes to experiencing a different sense of being with the presence of ND.

Connecting to something greater

Connecting to Something Greater includes reports of participants' experiences of relating to a much larger source or intelligence with ND; some called this God, mystery, or earth's natural cycles. Participants expressed a stronger sense of belonging in the world or in the cosmos from these connections. Dale spoke about the spiritual (and psychological) experience of seeing herself as part of earth's natural cycles:

I know that for myself I crave the dark time, the rest time, being in the other realm. I think that connecting with the wholeness of the earth, the wholeness of the seasons as a part of that, and the cyclical changes. I think that connecting with the dark is a part of acknowledging ourselves as part of the earth, and the cyclical changes that occur and the depth of that…. It's spiritual in one sense. (Dale)

Jaxon further described a feeling of interconnection and belonging to the cosmos during her experience in a recollective practice:

Being held in the arms of mystery, the divine, and just more acutely aware that I belong to the web of light. And I'm a part of that, you know? Someone said, “We are stardust.” It's like, yeah, I am… I am that, and that is… just the interconnection… undeniable interconnection. (Jaxon).

Jaxon's comment not only alludes to the feeling of connection to something greater, but also speaks of a shift in identity; whereas Jaxon viewed herself, also, as something greater.

In the following passage, Bear highlights a numinous experience of darkness in being with the night sky:

You're so small but you're still part of this vastness. It's like my little life is a speck of dust; sand blowing in the wind, but I'm still a sand blowing in the wind in this greatness… I'm part of this greatness. I think the darkness and mystery really go hand in hand, and I think when we hold on to the value of mystery and how much it actually is a gift. (Bear)

Bear alludes to the “value” of experiencing the self as belonging to a vaster system, disrupting ego identification of separateness. He highlights the paradox of how feeling small within a larger mysterious entity can also make one feel immensely large and connected.

Processing self

Subtheme Processing Self refers to acknowledging, connecting with, and integrating psychological material. This subtheme includes narratives about confronting relationships, past traumas, and perceptions of self. In this section, we include participants' narratives of confronting and overcoming psychological challenges with ND.

As noted in the first subtheme, the majority of interviewees noted that with less stimulation in ND, their attention shifted inward, toward their body, emotional states, as well as challenging psychological material. Jack said that, “the darkness allowed me to go deeper inside … that even in the darkness it feels like there are less places to hide.” Bill articulates the relationship between reduced stimulation and healing of the body and psyche in the following passage: “Our body is constantly regenerating and we have the capacity to heal within ourselves, and to be able to be in a space of healing. I feel like that a lot of the time that's in reduced stimulation.”

Half of participants noted that when one's attention moved from external to internal, there was a requirement to “face yourself” (Bear) or to “face the darkness” (Jack). This shift in focus was, at times, initially met with resistance. Some participants spoke about the desire to just “go to sleep, and sleep throughout the night” (Bear) as a means of avoidance. Naani Aqusupe noted the futility of avoidance with ND:

It's not like you can close your eyes and it (psychological material) goes away, because it doesn't matter if your eyes are open or closed. It only goes away when you fall asleep. So as long as you're awake, this is what you're with. And I was with my (deceased) sisters … So, thank goodness it was something really nice cause it also could be something not very nice, and you're still stuck with it (laughs). (Naani Aqusupe).

It was consistently noted that the inward focus brought up unprocessed psychological material. This is evident in Bill's experience: “Things, like repressed feelings that I had during tough times, just like being a young teenager and that, all bubbled up, and it was the step that I've been avoiding feeling so much.”

In confronting the challenging material that emerged in ND, participants noted shifts in their relationships. Jack, who had a challenging dynamic with his brother, spoke about a changing relationship due to working through issues in ND:

I had a very profound experience in relationship with a brother of mine on that night that was very important to life after. What happened after the [recollective practice]: there was a letting go of responsibility, and a giving of permission to live or die as my brother pleased. (Jack)

Naani Aqusupe spoke about the unprocessed family grief regarding the deaths of her two sisters. “There was no ceremony. There was no acknowledgement. There was nothing. So, [my mother] also left having lost her daughter… and she has a hole because of how it was handled.” The presence of Naani Aqusupe's sisters and the unprocessed family grief was reported to be more concentrated with ND. Naani Aqusupe was able to acknowledge and confront these difficult emotions, and to process them through ceremony:

I drummed my drum, and I sang terribly because I was crying, but you know it doesn't matter. It was a gift because when my middle sister died…a lot of my energy went into her children for years. They were five-years-old down to four months old. They were just babies so a lot of … yeah. So again, not a lot of time for me to do my grieving, and that kind of thing. So, this was just a beautiful reconnection. (Naani Aqusupe)

In the following passage, Bill shares his interpretations of why psychological material emerges with ND. He also proposes that the natural world teaches about the physical body in the daytime, and the subconscious in ND:

The darkness, is more instead of in the body, it's more around being a reflection of subconscious. Like that darkness, those parts that we can't see in ourselves., when we see these reflections in the dark, we are able to look into it… and just by the nature of that—like the idea of repressed thoughts or something… they start to bubble up. We start seeing those reflections in that void. (Bill)

Lastly, many participants shared feelings of self-affirmation and confidence from experiencing and integrating challenging psychological material:

Here was a sense of being alive; vulnerable, exposed, present, and resilient… and as I kind of opened my eyes, I saw the first light of the morning. And there was a greater sense of accomplishment that I had made it through the entire night. (Jack)

Bill also connected to a feeling of vitality after confronting challenging psychological material on his third night:

And then on the fourth night, I remember kind of being excited for the night. And remembering, like when the sun was going down, of like letting out a huge yell! Like the loudest yell I can make! And being like, “I love this shit! I'm ready! I like it!” (Bill)

Participants believed that ND's lack of external stimulation increased their connection to themselves, as well as provided the space for unprocessed psychological material to emerge. Participants also mentioned that there was an increase in confidence and well-being through overcoming challenges made more concentrated by ND.

Temenos

Conditions of ND provided a “cocoon of healing” or temenos for many participants in this research. The metaphor of cocoon is derived from Happy Dancer's quote that being in ND was like “being in a cocoon… kind of being in this healing space” (Frey, 2022). Temenos is traditionally referred to as a sacred piece of land, dedicated to serve a god. Jung (2014) used this term to describe “a magic circle” (p. 167) or the “womb of the mother” (p. 171) in which mental or transformational work can occur. We extend the term temenos here to describe a sense of containment, or the necessary conditions for healing.

Participants spoke about transforming psychological material within their recollective practice at night. There were many factors that may have led to these experiences: specific ceremonial practices, fasting, psychological readiness of participants, and qualities of ND. This discussion focuses on how participants viewed ND's role in providing conditions for this healing. ND was at times referred to with affection; “beloved darkness,” “darkness is my friend,” “I love darkness” (Frey, 2022). These remarks suggest that ND was experienced by many as having a presence that one can relate with.

In other words, ND was not always understood to be a lack or a void, but rather, it was related to as an animate entity. There was also consistency across participants in how the quality of ND was described: “enveloped,” “embracing presence,” “wrapped up,” and “cocoon-like.” These descriptions suggest an experience of being held and allude to feeling safe containment within this presence of ND.

Participants consistently drew a connection between ND's lack of stimulation and the processing of unconscious psychological material. It is to be noted that reduced stimulation did not necessarily equate to “lack of environment.” Instead, participants described ND as “everything” and “not just black” (Frey, 2022). They also spoke about “reduced stimulation” as differently stimulating: Dale and Bear described ND as having weight that impacted their bodies in space.

For participants, the processing of the psyche in reduced stimulation seemed to follow a specific sequence of stages: (1) experience of spaciousness, (2) attention moves inward, (3) confrontation with self, (4) memories and relationships are processed through four aspects of self (body, emotions, mind, and spirit), and (5) an expanded feeling of empowerment through integration of experiences.

Some participants claimed that ND's spaciousness directed their attention inward. With interior attention, participants noted that psychological material began to “bubble up,” (Bill) and that interviewees were required to face themselves. Once these situations were confronted, participants spoke about experiencing deep emotional states. Bear says, “it was really emotional.” Bill continues, “I felt some tears, and almost astonishment.” Naani Aqusupe also said, “I was crying” when she spoke of confronting unprocessed grief. As noted earlier, interviewees spoke about feeling a sense of empowerment and more vitality after processing challenging psychological material.

Participants accredited ND as facilitating a process of interiority, involving the requirement to “face yourself,” to “face the darkness,” and to not “hide” from the self. Their engagements with the unconscious aspects of themselves seemed, at times, painful processes that fostered a more fully integrated sense of self. Engaging in such processes are well-understood aspects of psychotherapeutic processes. What is unique about participants' experiences are that these processes emerged, not in an office or with a human therapist, but rather from engagement with the nonhuman phenomenon of ND. This opens up the question as to the links between our “interior” sense of self and the broader environment and how the relationship with the natural world might facilitate healing (Harper, Rose, & Segal, 2019).

Otto (1958) proposes that in encountering the numinous, which is the combined experience of terror and fascination, one will commune with the divine. Numinosity seemed to be a part of Bear's experience of feeling paradoxically small and helpless among the vastness of a starry sky. He spoke about how this overwhelming experience was a “gift” that brought depth and mystery to his life. Happy Dancer and Jaxon also spoke about feeling rapture, awe, and “undeniable interconnection” (Jaxon) when witnessing starry skies. Participants seemed to think that their numinous experiences of interconnection were healing in their own right.

In modern Western society, psychotherapeutic practice at night occurs primarily indoors under artificial light. Understanding that ND inspired spiritual connection, and that participants found this to be an aspect of their “wholing” process, we see an opportunity for therapists to consider the possibilities of collaborating with ND to support spiritual development with their clients.

Contribution of fear

In proposing that ND contributed to participants' experiences of healing, we do not make assumptions that ND always provides such a temenos. In the original study (Frey, 2022), ND was additionally linked to experiences of fear by nearly all participants. Though the majority of interviewees did not experience fear with ND, it was alluded to in most interviews. It is important to note the increase in vulnerability to predators at night. Humans, as sight-dominant creatures, rely on sight to orient in self-protection. Losing access to this sense can elicit activated states and vigilant orientation toward one's exterior.

States of self-protection will offer a different experience than the internal processing that participants described. It is possible that participants were able to benefit from ND's embracing temenos because they were predominantly without fear of predators at night.

Interview participants have likely had more exposure to ND than most Canadians in urban centers. Their familiarity and relationship with the natural world may have created more ease in ND. In addition, most participants did not recount having previous traumatic experiences in ND. Jack, in contrast, experienced an overwhelming event with a bear at night, which has had a lasting impact. For Jack, it is possible that ND became coupled with threat and danger, amplifying his awareness of the dangerous aspects of ND.

Bill warns that it is not psychologically useful to be in terror at night: “[When in] fight/flight brain states you wouldn't actually be exploring the dark anymore. You'd just be feeling shut down.” This suggests that when certain kinds of fear are present, ND may not provide such a temenos, but rather evoke states of overwhelm instead.

The variety of experiences of ND reveal that this phenomenon cannot be considered essentially good or bad; healthy or unhealthy. For some, ND provided conditions for psychological healing. For others it induces fear; fear that can be overwhelming, as well as fear that contributes to interconnection (i.e., numinous). More research is required to determine what conditions lead to beneficial experiences and how fear is experienced, understood, and can be processed therapeutically. The differences in participant experiences highlight the possible importance of the role of the guide in recollective practices.

In child development, Winnicott (2018) suggests that the environment facilitates the process of maturation. In this research, we wonder how much ND offered the necessary facilitating environment for healing, or how much specific guides or ceremonies provided the appropriate conditions for ND to support healing rather than increase fear. Bodnar et al. (2022) expand this question further by investigating the role that ecosystems play in psychological development.

This research focused on investigating peoples lived experiences of darkness in nature-based contexts. These findings suggest that the natural phenomena of ND influenced participants to process psychological material, enter a different state of being, and supported spiritual connection. Nearly all participants identified these experiences as healing. As we have not discovered any literature pertaining to the role of ND in overnight recollective practices, this research fills a considerable gap within the field of ecotherapy and ecopsychology.

It is our hope that this research will support individuals to engage in relationships with ND, and that practitioners in therapeutic professions consider engagement with ND—recognizing the need for training and experience to do so. As noted by the participants, ND contributed to states of being that are distinct from daytime states of thinking and doing. On a planet flooded with light, we believe that humans need to restore a healthier relationship with ND so that, at the very least, we allow space for the planet to rest at night, and for the protection and restoration of earth's species and cycles.

Furthermore, in this time of ecological and political uncertainty, we wonder whether ND could help us learn to navigate and tolerate the unknown. Even after this study, ND continues to represent the unknowable and unnameable, and with this, an unquenched desire to continue to explore this phenomenon. Perhaps we could say that staying open and curious about the unknown is an ethical orientation that ND has helped us embody.

Limitations

This research explores the narratives of eight predominantly white adults who live on Vancouver Island, Canada. This study is localized and findings cannot be generalized. This is a common limitation in hermeneutic phenomenological methodology. Generalizability is further limited due to the influence of the recollective practices on participants' experiences, the varied contexts of each reported recollective practice, as well as this sample's unique level of self-reported comfort in wilderness settings. Furthermore, research participants shared stories about experiences up to 4 years before interviews, creating potential for recall bias.

In addition, the contexts of described experiences involved fasting in the wilderness for days. This would have significant impact on the physiological and psychological functioning of the participants' perception and recall. Lastly, because meaning is cocreated between researcher and participant, it is recommended that findings be validated by participants within the analysis process. This stage was not enacted that heightens the probability that our phenomenological subjective position may have influenced the findings.

Recommendations for further research include investigating the impacts of light pollution on overnight experiences using quantifiable terms for darkness like the Bortle Scale (2001). We also recommend research in a more controlled group context (i.e., participants of the same recollective practice), as well as research on individuals' experiences of ND not in recollective practices.