How Complete Darkness Can Reveal What We Keep Avoiding

We talk with Scott Berman, founder of Sky Cave Retreats, about what extended time in complete darkness actually does to the body and mind when distractions, orientation, and performance all fall away. 

Sky Cave Retreats: https://www.skycaveretreats.com/

We focus on nervous system safety, permission to feel what is here, and why the “right” darkness retreat is less about endurance and more about how you relate to yourself. 

• What a darkness retreat is and how Sky Cave cabins are designed for total blackout and near silence
• Why the retreat container and expectations can shape what people allow themselves to feel
• Disorientation, survival responses, and how fight flight freeze can show up in the dark
• Using the body as an anchor when visual cues disappear
• The difference between techniques used for connection versus strategies used to manage experience
• Softening as allowing and being with, not forcing a “soft” persona or positivity filter
• How the program is structured with preparation, touch-ins, and integration support
• The ancient roots of darkness practice across cultures and lineages
• Scott’s personal journey and how Sky Cave evolved with a nervous system lens
• Who tends to benefit most, including curiosity, availability, and willingness not to know

I encourage people to check out skykaveretreats.com.

BECOME A CERTIFIED MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHER 

Teach mindfulness with confidence and skill — without self-doubt, fear of judgment, or imposter syndrome. Our internationally accredited certification is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, educators, and helping professionals. Accredited by the IMMA and CPD; endorsed by Gabor Maté and Rick Hanson. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/certification/

NEW HERE? START FREE 

Explore 3,000+ free guided meditations, scripts, and worksheets — for your own practice or to share with the people you teach. → https://mindfulnessexercises.com/free-mindfulness-exercises/

ENJOYING THE PODCAST? Follow the show in your favorite app and leave a quick rating or review. It takes a moment, and it genuinely helps more teachers and practitioners find these conversations.

———————————————————————————

ABOUT THE SHOW

Mindfulness Exercises with Sean Fargo is a practical, grounded mindfulness podcast for people who want meditation to actually help in real life.

Hosted by Sean Fargo — a former Buddhist monk, mindfulness teacher, and founder of MindfulnessExercises.com — the show explores how mindfulness can support mental health, emotional regulation, trauma sensitivity, chronic pain, leadership, creativity, and meaningful work.

Each episode offers a mix o...

Transcript

Welcome And Sky Cave Overview

0:00

Welcome everyone to the Mindfulness Exercises Podcast. My name is Sean Fargo. Today I'm speaking with Scott Berman, founder of Sky Cave Retreats, a darkness retreat center nestled in the wilderness of southern Oregon. At Sky Cave, people enter private earth-sheltered cabins where they spend several days in complete darkness without phones, screens, books, work, or the usual ways we distract ourselves from what's happening on the inside. And what makes Scott's work especially interesting to me is that this isn't presented as a heroic endurance test or a spiritual achievement to collect. The invitation seems much quieter than that to soften to listen to the body to be with what's here and to discover what remains when so much of the outside world disappears. Scott's own journey into this work includes long periods of solitude, time in remote wilderness, and many days spent in darkness himself. Through Sky Cave, he has supported hundreds of people in this practice. Sounds like maybe around 700 people, bringing together elements of ancient contemplative tradition, somatic awareness, deep rest, and careful preparation and integration. So in today's conversation, I want to explore Sky Cave retreats, how it's helpful to people, his own experience, who it may not be appropriate for, and hear about his journey just with retreats in general. Scott Berman, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, Sean. Appreciate

What A Darkness Retreat Is

1:53

it. For people who have never heard of a darkness retreat before, how would you describe what that is? In short, it's where someone goes into a completely dark space for extended periods of time. It can be misleading where people see a lot of our videos where people have masks on and they're taking them off. Our spaces are purpose built and so they are completely blacked out. We only have people use the eye mask when we're transitioning them from inside the dark space to the outside. So they put a mask on, we walk them outside, and then they kind of come back into the light when they're outside. Our spaces are built into the hillside, and so they are mostly 99% of the time soundproof. So you're getting the element of both the darkness and also no sound. There's a double pass-through door where we put food through so that no light comes in when the food's brought in. There's no one that has to go into your space to bring in the food. There is a zero-gravity chair, there's a weighted blanket, there's a bathtub for hot baths. There's a few other elements in the room that bring more simple, nurtureful senses of connectivity, engagement, and nurture. Obviously, it is an austere experience going into the dark for extended periods of time. There is elements within it that stimulate different people in different ways, like isolation, the length of time, the darkness, the stillness of not doing, the silence. Some of those elements are nurturing and enjoyable for some people. And other of those elements are super stimulating. What we've witnessed over the years as we've taken more of a kind of lighter approach where we're not trying to guide somebody into any kind of experience. We don't orient to a healing, transformational kind of awakening experience. We're not here to fix change or heal people. The way we orient with people is supporting people in attuning to connecting with where they're at right now. The darkness can reveal us to ourselves. And so we begin to see the backdrop of ourself, what's actually happening that we never really get to touch because of how busy we are, because of how engaged we are in doing, in form, how engaged we are with achieving and accomplishing, how engaged we are, even in many ways with our spiritual practices that are this way for many of us of moving towards this ideal of how we think we should be. And it can tend to cover how we actually are. And so the darkness can really reveal and expose and have a confront what's actually here. And that element of it is very uncomfortable. There are other elements of it that are initially uncomfortable. Like it is not comfortable to not have an orientation point. We are used to naturally orienting in time and place. We tend to know what time it is. When somebody wakes up in the middle of the night and it's totally dark, it can be disorienting of not knowing what time it is. And imagining that you're in that all the time is initially disorienting for our system. So there's a level of disorientation. There's also a level of survival. Being in the dark alone is not good for survival. So there's parts of our autonomic nervous system that come online that feel stimulated and threatened because it's alone, it's in the dark, it's disorienting. So where one does a dark retreat and the container that it's held within and the way that the support staff holds it with them really determines the type of experience someone has. Like a little child that is in a situation where they're relying on other people for survival. There's so much that's put on the container and the way that it's held. And so if somebody's going to a place to do dark retreat where it's presented to them in this way that this is a really healing experience, it regulates your nervous system, it's really awakening and all of these things. When somebody goes in, they have this idea and this container of expectations of how they're supposed to be. And the parts of them that don't meet that, they will unconsciously bury, avoid, and turn away from. And we obviously all do that. We are habituated to not showing weakness, fear, anger, sadness. All of us have a range within that that we look away from because it doesn't fit and it may not be safe to really let those things come forward. And so the container in which and where someone does a dark retreat and how it's held, we find to be incredibly important. And another element of that is due to how we are as humans and how we are even as infants and little children, is we look to our caregivers, our peer groups, our culture for a sense of what's good and right, because belonging is essential for survival. And belonging within the scope of survival is more important than being authentic. And so when someone goes into the darkness and everything's stripped away and we're habituated to look to the external to get a sense if we're doing it good and right. When someone goes into the dark, they look to the container and how the support staff holds it with them. And so how it's presented really deeply affects how someone has access to what is actually happening for them. And so we do our best to present and hold in a way that just opens the scope for unlimited permission. And we really do our best to normalize these different kinds of threat responses that come on so that people can begin to not feel like there's a certain way that they need to be. Although people carry that regardless, but there's this real invitation of being as we are and not quickly moving towards how we feel like we should be or want to be, or how we feel like somebody else feels like we should be or they want us to be. That's really cool. I was maybe a little surprised or intrigued that you said that you didn't have a specific set of teachings per se, or that you're not aligned with a certain tradition. But as you spoke around the container and the invitations that you have for people to meet whatever's here with authenticity, that in and of itself is a beautiful teaching or invitation and kind of strips away some of these structures that we might aspire to or expect to go down a certain path. You worked at a meditation center for five years. The common advice that we had for people was to expect the unexpected. But I had never heard it articulated much more than that. And I thought the way that you shared that was really beautiful and affirming we're gonna have all these or potentially have all these different expectations or reactions, and that's part of the experience is to meet whatever's here. And it sounds fascinating. I was gonna ask about like how do people know what time of day it is or how long they've been in there. How do people make a bubble bath? Do they have a little bit of light? I'm just kind of curious about some of these experiences that people have in a Sky Cave region.

Daily Rhythm Food Silence Support

9:44

Sure. I don't know how much fun a bubble bath would be if you can't see the bubbles. Maybe they're still there and they're playing. So well, I don't know if we've ever had anybody make a bubble bath, but certainly bath like bath salts and essential oils, and it's completely dark to where your eyes don't adjust to see your hand in front of your face. There are touch-ins twice a day. So I'm coming up there every morning and every evening. And so to maybe back up and give a little bit more of a scope, right now the offering is five days, six nights in the dark. So somebody comes, they arrive in the afternoon. That night they go into the dark and then they come out the next day morning. So they just start to get a taste for it, to start to feel a little bit more acclimated in the space, to kind of step down from the pace that we exist at to a bit slower of a one. So somebody's not going from a zero to a hundred. And then that next day, there is a 90-minute session with my other teammate, Adrian, that really begins to prepare them more deeply for their time in the dark. And before that, there's a couple hours of talks that they have that they listen to that really, in a sense, like distills down what we've come to see and notice and discover over the last few years in our movement to normalize the threat response, to kind of talk about the different nervous system reactions that happen. It kind of goes deeper in a one-on-one session with Adrian. And then that night, which is their second night here, they go fully into the dark. Three days, four nights in the dark. They emerge in the morning, and then they have 24 hours to really integrate, along with another 90-minute session with Adrian to really digest any kind of pieces, parts that may still be stimulated in the system, deepen into what somebody maybe newly came to know or feel or touch. And then I'm up there every morning and evening. We have a conversation through the door while they're in the dark. And so there is a sense of time. Granted, you may wake up at two in the morning, think you slept through the night, and it's seven hours later that I come up for the first touch point. So, like you'd get lost in time and it's disorienting.

Disorientation Threat And The Container

11:58

Everyone has a different strategy in life of what they do when they're disoriented, when they're uncomfortable, when they feel threatened. And these are some of the things that we explore with people before they go in because our defenses, our strategies follow us into the dark. Because those strategies and defenses are pretty much our personality. It's like we're not separate from them in a sense, and we live them so they're hard to see because we are inside of them and moving as them all the time. And so when we go into the dark, it is difficult for people to on their own recognize their defenses, their strategies, their mechanisms and patterns that they use when they feel uncomfortable, when there's a threat, the different things that someone does to feel safe, different than somebody discovering a felt sense of safety in their body compared to doing something to feel safe. That may even be a certain kind of meditation or visualization or prayer or breath work or something. And those things can work to regulate the nervous system. But when you're still face to face with the thing that's threatening, it comes back again. And so in the world when we're under pressure and we maybe have some regulatory techniques or we dissociate for a bit, after that situation passes, our system can come back to its kind of common ground, if you will. But in the dark, when we use strategies to feel safe, they maybe work a bit, they insulate us from the threat and they wore work seemingly for that little period of time, but there's still a background threat and a background contraction and anxiety. We've covered it with something. But since the darkness is the perceived threat, once we're exhausted from engaging in that way, it's right back. And so that's not to say we don't discourage people from doing their strategies, techniques, meditations, anything. Like all of that is welcome in the space and to also include something new and to also notice that movement in you to engage in that way. Is it because I'm uncomfortable and this is going to help me turn in a different direction? Or is it like this is a movement of nurture and connectivity and it's going to help me move into a deeper contact with what is naturally here? Or am I trying to replace what's here and manage what's here? And so those are some one of the nuances that we begin to explore here as we start to recognize and see our patterning and then discover new ways of being with what's here. It's not to say that the dark is perpetually this threat, but it is on a nervous system level threatening. If somebody's engaged in different tactics and strategies, they can be engaged in them the entire time and kind of hover above what's happening. But once someone starts to really come into contact, and that's why we really do our best to normalize what's happening on a nervous system level and not really dismiss it or even give strategies to transcend it. We do have different explorations rooted more in a curiosity of meeting what's here. Like a scared little child, you could talk to that child till you're blue in the face of convincing them that there's no monster under the bed or there's nothing to be afraid of. That child may stop telling you it's afraid because it's realized that if it keeps telling you it's afraid, it starts to lose connection because it's told that's not what's really happening, you're fine. But if you pick up and hold that child, for those of us who have been around kids, that child usually calms down and regulates very quickly. And so that's kind of the invitation here, as opposed to trying to convince ourselves that we're safe, just holding the parts of us in a sense that don't feel safe. And like, what if it's actually okay to be afraid? What happens from there? What if it's actually okay to be sad, to be angry, to be uncomfortable? And again, not overlaying like, hey, it's okay to be that way, because that could be another strategy. It's more like this, what if? And then one gets to kind of see the different ways of like, whoa, there's me that's uncomfortable, and then there's me that's contracted around the part of me that's uncomfortable, trying to fix and change it because I unconsciously believe that's not okay. And then if you have a container and the way that the dark retreats presented to you, that it's supposed to be transformational and healing and regulating, then you've already got a layer on top that says it's not okay to be this way. This isn't the right way to be. And so we're more in this kind of the uncovering and the allowing, and more in this really receptive, connective, listening approach. And then what emerges from that? But it can be stimulating because we're so used to doing and achieving and accomplishing. And how do you mark your progress? It can initially feel like a big nothing because you're not necessarily the one making it happen. It's more this invitation to just so tenderly be with the different parts. And maybe in that one discovers a really simple sense of comfort or safety, like just exploring laying on the bed or laying on the ground or sitting in a chair and the parts of you that are held and supported. These really subtle, simple parts of us may actually feel held that we never really attuned to because we're so oriented towards the biggest, the brightest, and the loudest. And especially in a spiritual context, we're oriented to the big transformation and the peak experiences. And that tends to not be what the darkness really brings forth. It's more in the subtleties, more in a quite softer way of orienting and navigating. And one more piece on that is people are not locked in the dark. We really explore with people and de-shame coming out of the dark early, taking a pause. Like we actually have plenty of people come who maybe light a candle for a little bit. They turn on the light, they step out and they see the stars at night. Like there's an invitation to really make it your own. There is no right way to be in the dark. It's actually easier for the people who come here and the type of audience that does a dark retreat, for almost all of them, it's easier to stay in the dark for three days, four nights than it is to step out and take a pause, than it is to light a candle, to turn on the light, to come out and see the stars. And that seems crazy, but it's really easy to follow directions and do a thing when you feel like that's the successful way to do it. But when there's this invitation to make it your own and there's no feedback that that's successful, like coming out to see the stars or turning on the candle, feels like a failure. And so if somebody's to lean into that, there's a real way that you leave this sense of getting external validation and the sense of belonging, and you start to honor your own true movement. And so you begin to have to listen to yourself in a way that we almost never do because you're not going to get the positive feedback because it seems like a failure. And so I won't go into all the details of that, but that's something that we've really evolved over the years of supporting people and making it their own. And we've seen people have incredibly transformational, life-changing experiences who weave in and out of the dark and what they discover of their actual genuine, authentic capacity, what their edge is, and then what happens when they turn towards nurture for no other reason than it is just a movement that brings them closer to where they naturally are, and not necessarily to where they feel like they should be, where they want to be, or where someone else would want them to

Making It Your Own In Darkness

19:56

be. Beautiful. Sign me up. That sounds really transformative. You talk about softening, and this word soft kind of comes up when I learn more about your offering. And to me, that's a big part of my practice is softening. When I talk about softening, a lot of people don't know what I mean by that. You said something earlier that kind of reminded me of the soft approach by asking the question, what if? What if it's okay to feel this way? What if it's okay to feel angry? What if it's okay to feel uncomfortable, confined, constricted, all of these things that we all feel to varying degrees on different kinds of qualities. We all have an unconscious belief that it's not okay to feel this way. Right. And then the layers that that adds where we don't actually have access to it, where people might be like, I never feel anxious or afraid or sad. And there is a truth to that, but it may be because there is this thick membrane that says it's not okay to feel this way, and then we actually never have access to that thing, even though we may exhibit those qualities and appear to other people like we're that way, we may not actually be able to sense it because we're actually not allowed to actually sense it. Tony Robbins uses this technique of encouraging people to think to themselves like, if I could feel sad or if I could forgive just even like one percent, what might that feel like? And it's kind of like a keto move of playing with what I could feel if I allowed myself to feel it just a little bit. What if it's okay to feel this? It's such a powerful question and kind of like a playful question, almost kind of like a soft invitation. But I'm wondering if you could talk about the role of softness or. Softening in this practice? Like, what do you think it is that we're softening? You talked about membranes and walls and allowances and beliefs. Can you talk more about softening maybe mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually? In our approach, we would tend to not necessarily encourage anyone to soften mentally, emotionally, because then we would be overlaying another idea of how they should be. So less of this invitation, or as best as we can, no invitation to soften mentally, to soften emotionally. We actually want to bring forward the hard emotions. We want like, let's let anger come all the way through. We have these somatic explorations that we do to support people in discharging the anger and to really let that move through as opposed to putting something nice on top. And within the spiritual framework, a lot of people come with positivity filters because most people don't get into spirituality to confront discomfort. They get into spirituality to feel good or to have peak experiences. And so there's already this overlay on top that eclipses, if you will, what's here really from the surface to the backdrop. That invitation to soften would maybe be a little bit more where we explore expectations, like to soften expectations, to really start to support people in orienting to what matters most to them and how that may soften their orientation. Is the orientation to have a certain kind of experience, to have a certain kind of thought and emotion and experience, or is it more important to be with? And so that softening is more gently being with whatever's here. So it's less about the surface or the experience and more about how one is with. So that softening, we tend to invite in the quality of being with whatever's here. If one has a little bit of a softening, like a little bit more of an allowing. And that's where we really do our best to create this field of permission that allows it all to be here, which tends to be a little bit more softer as opposed to like this. And there's this softer invitation, then maybe anger can actually come through, which obviously isn't a softer emotion, but it was the softening that allowed what's here to really bubble up. What can happen, what we find. I myself, maybe historically in that category as well, is the softening and the positivity and spirituality can just fill somebody's personality, but it can just kind of cover all these other elements because in that anger's not allowed and judgment's not allowed, and all these things that are actually there, but get covered by how we feel like we should be. There can then also be this background numbness that happens. There are people, lots of people who come who are pretty numb and they may present in whatever ways, but there's just not much contact because if there was contact underneath that, and sometimes people's numbness membranes crack here, and then all of a sudden there's this welling forth of discomfort and anger and contraction. But the persona or the personality is soft, and not that it's fabricated or fake, it is real in them as a strategy that was formed so many years ago. When that cracks, all of a sudden there's something else there, and so less about expressing softness or really even having a soft experience. It's more from the inside, it's really that allowance. And from that, it can create softer thoughts, softer emotions, a full softer experience, but that wouldn't necessarily be the goal. It's more that softer being with that can really allow for what's really here to come forth. Those are really great distinctions and nuance. The term mindfulness is defined or described in different ways. Some people call it gentle awareness, some others might call it loving awareness or just presence. And as you're talking about softness, it reminds me of that phrase gentle awareness. And so I'm just wondering out loud whether some people might get the false impression that the outcome or the raw energy should be, let's say gentle or soft or not wild or not angry or intense. And so I'm curious if you could talk about maybe some ways that you talk about that being with whatever's here, if there's certain words you use like presence or meeting it or full awareness, or if you could just kind of talk about this question around how we talk about being with

Safety Through Somatic Anchors

27:23

something. We use the body a lot as an anchor in there. That's something we call using the body as an anchor, because we're also used to anchoring into the moment through our visual field that's the easiest. It keeps us engaged in what we're doing. Most of us live in our minds while we're kind of anchored to the moment with our actions and what we see. All that gets taken away in the dark. And so initially, for many, there's just living in the mind and our strategies to kind of have some semblance of control and orientation and okayness, although it tends to be rooted in more of a strategy and a mechanism of control. And so, in that invitation of meeting and being with what's here, we use the body. And so, just one of the things we may explore, and it's kind of a typical somatic exploration and exercise, is we use a pillow a lot where we have people pretty much hug and hold a pillow. And there's so many things that that creates that one could even break down from like when the front of our body's protected, we actually feel a bit safer, how we all know what a hug feels like and how comforting that is. A pillow can be soft, it can then create a sense of warmth. And so we start to discover what a felt sense of safety is. How does somebody actually know they're safe? What's happening in your physical, sensational, tactile experience that has you knowing you're safe? And so these are one of the things that we may explore is using a pillow, leaning against the wall, not being in a meditative stance where you're holding yourself up, actually leaning against the wall, having your head supported, holding the pillow where you can begin to feel what it feels like to not have to hold yourself up, to not have to hold a certain posture, to be held, to be supported, to feel warmth and beginning to explore what's it like. Holding that pillow brings a sense of comfort, especially in a stark environment where there's nothing else. These really basic, simple contact points that bring comforting or even neutral sensations begin to become all that matters. And so, especially in a world where achieving, accomplishing, validation, none of that matters. You can't do anything enough in the dark that'll just help you move along. There have been people who have come through and have had incredible peak experiences and have seen them three hours later, right back to where they were before they had that peak experience, grasping, reaching for the next peak experience. You know, it's not enough. There are some people who have peak experiences in there and they're able to let the experience go and they're able to be in the knowledge and the wisdom that came through it, and they're able to be in that subtle, subtle, simple thread of what they came to know and let go of trying to replicate the experience. So both can happen, but there's really not an experience that carries anyone through. It's in the simple meeting of what's here. And so that gentle awareness, the loving awareness, the meeting, the contact, we kind of begin to source through our body. And as one begins to establish a felt sense of safety and intimacy with what's happening in their body, there's membranes and veils that can come down that allow other waves. Then maybe comes anger and fear and sadness and discomfort or bliss and joy. And all of a sudden, the body, which stores so much and the levels of what we are, can begin to on their own come through when we're in contact. It's not like we need to create all that, it's maybe a bit more of a tuning to all that. And so as one begins to really discover and settle into a felt sense of safety, then from that, someone may be able to gently be with discomfort. So it helps to first be able to be gently with something that's comfortable. And so that's where we may use the pillow, that kind of sense of what it's like to be held and supported when you lay back on the chair or the floor against the wall, and what it's like to so simply, so gently with no goal, no purpose, just gently with something that feels very lightly comfortable. And then that tends to build a capacity to be with gently the things that aren't comfortable. And then there's also this pendulating where you can touch back into something that's neutral and comfortable in your body and then move to something that's not. And you can kind of see that opposites, conflicting impulses, experiences can exist at the same time. And so it really builds on itself. For example, when somebody's afraid, it's like, how do you know you're afraid? What's happening in you that has you knowing I am afraid? And for some people, it's like their throat's tight, their chest is tight, their belly's clenching. And when we can actually get into an actual sensation, then it's like, whoa, what if it's okay that your belly's clenching? And then all of a sudden there's a little bit of space to actually be with that, or we attune to a part of our body that feels safe and comfortable. And then when we feel resourced, we can go back into that clenched belly in a different way. There's different ways that we can begin to explore all that.

Why It Is Called Sky Cave

32:43

Why do you call it Sky Cave? I get the cave part. Yeah, the cave part, and then the sky being a representation of the infinite, the endless, the open expanse and the dark. I mean, not floating in the endless expanse doesn't necessarily mean it's comforting, but those qualities of eternal, open, vast, endless are the qualities of the dark. Really cool. One of my colleagues, Gillian, some of our um community knows her. She did a few darkness retreats in Italy. I think each one was about five days, give or take. Her first one was four or five years ago, and I had never heard of them before.

Ancient Roots Of Darkness Practice

33:33

Is this kind of a new thing or is this an ancient tradition? Did you make this up? What's happening? It definitely didn't make up going into the dark. The particular orientation and the way that we hold the container is something that's definitely evolved here over the years from more of a nervous system orientation and not like an overlaid cultural spiritual approach orientation. There are cultures and traditions throughout the ages, from the Kogis in Colombia, in Tibetan Buddhism, in Zoogchen, there's a dark retreat practice. The natives in Australia had a dark retreat practice all throughout India and China, in Greece and the catacombs, the Egyptians, like going into the dark is nothing new. I'm just realizing that I've done a darkness retreat, but I never thought of it that way. I lived in the back of a cave, like a really deep cave for a few days, meditating. It was really scary, but I didn't think of it as a darkness retreat for some reason. But yeah, I'm just kind of connecting it with the tradition I was a monk in, and just like, oh, maybe that was all a tradition that they've done many times before. I was just thinking it was a one-off for some reason. It's rooted through so many cultures, so many traditions. Montak Chia, who has a center in Thailand, he was really one of the first ones to bring it more into the general new age, more spirituality circuit. That would have been Montak Chia, Jazz Moheen, who did dark retreats there. Then there was a branch that went off in the late 70s, early 80s. There was a study done in Canada at a university. They called it rest chambers. I can't remember the acronym of what it's for right now. And then that really drew a lot of interest in the Czech. So in the Czech in Europe, there was a lot of dark retreats, like per capita per people, the Czech have the most dark retreats. And that emerged more as this kind of unplugging this sensory deprivation kind of experience. And so many different traditions all through the world. And so we certainly didn't make it up. But the way that we hold it here, because it's not rooted in a tradition, in a spiritual practice, and it's more initially nervous system-based, it's kind of evolved uniquely here. In the different traditions that people are in, it is and can be supportive to also go forward into a dark retreat within the container of that tradition or lineage. Like in Tibetan Buddhism in Zogchen, there are very specific practices. There's initiations, there's a whole process to actually doing a dark retreat in that type of container with the type of practices that someone goes into it with. There's a different trajectory within that.

Scott’s Journey Into The Dark

36:27

I don't know if you're open to sharing, but could you talk a little bit about your own journey with this and maybe some milestones that you've discovered in doing them yourself? In my early 20s, there was an experience that kind of cracked me and where I kind of went a different direction from the track that I was on. That crack was coupled with psychedelics at the time and a breakup. And so there was this sense of there's more. There's more to this life experience than how culture presents it. That went through me. There was that sincere thread of there's more, but then I took that through my very Western filter of I need to go work really hard to accomplish and achieve the more. And so I think that what I've witnessed in myself and many others who have come, that a lot of Westerners who like set off on the spiritual path, there is this force of accomplishing and achieving and kind of mimicking and mirroring the ideal of how we feel like spirituality is and how we're supposed to be. And we build a whole persona around that, which is held together. And so that was me for maybe the next 20 years of moving into that in so many different techniques and so many different practices. And there was a sincere thread woven through it. And yet the way that it moved through me was definitely like the classic in Choyam Trump's cutting through spiritual materialism, like the classic kind of way that many get into it, where there's this way that we wear the spirituality and it becomes a thing that we do and that we like pride ourselves on. And again, not that there's anything wrong with that, but the little traps of how we take how we move in a Western culture, and then we like insert spirituality and it kind of mirrors all of those same things. And so at that time, maybe those 10 years in my 20s into my early mid-30s, I spent over the course of that two and a half years in solitude. I would spend three to six months in southern Baja in Mexico, up in the mountains alone in Northern California in Mount Shasta, meditating, dancing, singing, chanting, fasting. Are we with um couple who lives there who does a lot of that stuff? There's singers who host retreats in Mount Shasta? Yeah. Nope. I was more solo, up on the mountains, and got really good at singing myself into ecstatic bliss. Like I got quite proficient at using the spiritual techniques to move myself into ecstatic blissful states, creating this spiritual persona that felt totally real to me. And the peak experiences through the chanting were maybe a little bit easy to come by after a while. It took me a really long time to actually see what exactly I was doing. In a sense, it was an avoidance strategy and how it built an entire structure on top of lots of fear, sadness, discomfort, anxiety, all of those things. In 2012, somebody mentioned a dark retreat to me, which was right up my alley of the way that I was interested in exploring at the time. And so my wife and I at that time blacked out our house. We went into the dark for five days together. And I was quite moved by the experience and then wanted to do one alone. And so went back down to Southern Baja, built a little earthbag dome, and I went into the dark there by myself for 10 days in 2013. I was shocked by how hard it was because I'd spent years in solitude. I knew what it was like to be alone. The year before I'd spent 40 days up in the mountains, didn't see anyone. I had somebody drop me food further up the mountain. I would sit on the same rock 12, 14 hours a day. And so I was shocked by how hard it was to be in the dark alone. That sincere thread in me was like, whoa, there's something here that I'm missing. And then that other enculturated thread in me was like, whoa, there's a lot of work I got to do. I want to go build a dark retreat so I could sit more in the dark and get into this. Five years later, we ended up in Southern Oregon and we built our first dark retreat. We started using it in 2020. Starting then, I would go into the dark every year. In those first couple of years, all I had was my experience, which was a very masculine approach to spirituality and the way that I had held the container. And so in those first couple of years, there was a lot of people that came through. And if you asked me, are people afraid when they go into the dark? I would say, no, everyone's having an amazing time. It's so transformational, it's really powerful. And that's what everyone was telling me. And that's how the container was held. I feel like there's a lot of grace in what we've come to discover here is because we've held the container in these polar opposite ways from a very male-oriented achieve, accomplish, transform, awaken, you do it on your own kind of thing, to how we're at now. And so those first two years, that's what everyone was telling me. That's what I was seeing. And then my longtime friend and now partner here, Adrian, came in and joined me, who's incredibly perceptive and lives at really subtle levels of reality. She was started doing sessions with people, and I would give her updates of what it was like. It was amazing. They came out, it was so emotional. They had such an amazing experience. And Adrian would have the session with them, and she would be like, Whoa, their whole nervous system was in fight, flight, or freeze. There was so much built-up charge in their system. They were incredibly uncomfortable the whole entire time. And that would be person after person after person. And I was like, Whoa, I'm missing something a lot. And she was like, I don't think it's good for people to go in the dark. And so that went on for a little bit, but she had so much access to people because of what was happening that through their sessions, they were able to go into places in themselves that they never had access to before, that they never were able to meet because it was so right in their face that it was all right there. And one of the really unique things about the dark that we find is one sees the backdrop of them and the things that they don't see because we're all able to hold ourselves together in the ways that we do in life. But when you're in the dark, those things can come down if you have the support and the container to actually begin to discover and be with them. And so it's unique to be in this container where these things come up that feel threatening, but you're not actually under threat. And you have the time and the space to be with them without quickly needing to rearrange them for when you're actually under threat. And so Adrian started to begin mapping out what was happening for people on a nervous system level when they were in the dark, what their defenses were like, the different strategies, the way people covered them, and then what was happening underneath all that. And so the experience started to change for people, the way that we held it started to shift. That was four years ago, and we've continually discovering, evolving, understanding more and more through each person that comes through here, because everyone has a different nervous system, different defenses, strategies, survival patterns, and how that manifests and comes up in the dark and how to support people in seeing that, coming into contact with that, and touching what else is here. So the approach has really evolved as we've been with more and more people, and as we've been able to map out from a nervous system standpoint, what is happening. That's not to say it's all rooted in the nervous system. I mean, that is primary. And then as somebody starts to genuinely from the inside out, without a strategy or technique, more From intimacy, contact, and connectivity relax and open into the space, then one can genuinely be in a connective relational field with the dark. And when somebody is truly from the inside out, relaxed and rested and in contact with the dark, which is this infinite, vast, eternal substance presence, they really get drawn into different levels of themselves, and it can become a spiritual experience as one starts to settle in. Mm-hmm. As you talk about connecting with the dark and sensing in your relationship with the dark, I don't know. I'm guessing most of the universe is dark in a way. Probably more than it is light, right? Yeah. And my personal sense is that the universe is dark and vast, and imbued with what I sense as like a benevolent energy. And I'm wondering, is there an energy like imbued for you in the dark, vast universe? For me, there's maybe different qualities of it that may stand out to me at different times, be it like a warmth or spaciousness or softness or gentleness or directness and like an all-encompassing and so different kind of qualities within it. And we notice that when people here from the inside out settle, rested, relaxed, connected, are in a relational field with the dark, they attune to different qualities in the dark that then they attune to in themselves. And so that can be one of the levels of the magic of the dark, is bringing us into these different qualities once we have that level of openness and transparency to really be in a relational field with something like that. Because initially it is disorienting. If somebody imagined floating in space with no orientation point, it's a bit unsettling. And so there is a process, if you will, when someone's in the dark of really anchoring in their body to the point where they, on their own, feel safe to open up and be with the dark in more of a natural way. That's not like I should be in a relational field with the dark. It just emerges on its own through a field of connectivity. Yeah. Thank you for sharing

Adrian’s Insight And Nervous System Mapping

46:31

that. You talked about the moment when Adrian came in and picked up on a lot of this nuance. And it sounded like there was this question of like, what if it's not okay to be in dark retreats? And then there's this evolution that you're talking about, this question that's come up a couple of times, like, what if it's okay to feel this way? So out of Adrian's insights, and then you needing to evolve this to learn. Is this question like, what if it's okay to feel this way? Is this a major unlock for both of you feeling darkness retreats are helpful for a lot of people? Or is that shift? I mean, the shift, it was over time. Like it was definitely more really a question for Adrian in that year. Like she could see the impact and the benefit in the sessions that she was having with people because of the access and what people were able to come into contact with. At that time, I was not able to navigate in that way with people, of bringing them into contact with that while they were in the dark. But through being with her and really getting the learning and the schooling with her, that's changed now. So there's more like it's happening while people are in the dark. They're actually in more contact with what's actually happening, as opposed to in an avoidance strategy and overlaying it with positivity, with going into freeze and just being numb and being kind of relaxed, but it's really because they've gone numb or being in a fight or a flight and then covering it and coming out with so much built-up charge. We're moving into that now while people are actually in the dark. So there's not charge building up the entire time unknowingly. Most people don't know it's happening. That's the nature of the unconscious strategy. It works, and that's why it's reflexive and it's hard to see. And so as Adrian started mapping out those survival patterns, the typical defenses, it started to cut it a little more. So it wasn't like people were at the whole time because now she was bringing me into it. I was able to be with people while they were in it. We were able to talk with people about it more. And there started to be a much more integrated, more holistic, more nurtureful experience in the dark. And now it's framed more that way. We prep people before they come. And so it's become kind of woven in to the whole experience. From that, we've really crafted this unique experience where we meet everyone where they're at. And for some people, being in the dark for three days, four nights is not going to be the most beneficial experience. You could stay in there that whole time and you'll still have insights and you'll have a powerful experience, but you may build a lot of charge. It may be something you'd never want to do again. And so we've really come to craft each person's experience unique to where they're at. We have some people come who go into the dark for two hours a day. They may be going for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, or they go in for two hours, three times a day, and they come out. We meet everyone where they're at. The longer you're in the dark does not equal more of an impactful experience. It doesn't matter at all how long you're in the dark. It's how you're in the dark, what in you is in the dark. We really meet everyone where they're at and craft it uniquely so that it can be as nurtureful, as impactful, and as meaningful of the time as it can be for that unique person. And there's nothing about how long you're in the dark that has nothing to do with the level of impact and meaning. It's fascinating. I'm surprised, but it makes sense that it matters like how you're in the dark. I don't know if this is just a play on words or if there's like truth to this. Do shadows come out in the dark? That's what I would be pointing to, like the backdrop of us, our defenses, our strategies. You could even say our persona is a strategy, is a shadow. One of the unique things to explore is why somebody maybe got on the path of healing or transformation or awakening or spirituality. Like, was it a movement towards more intimacy with what's here, or was it a strategy to try to control in a unique way, which I would have said it was for me, although there was a sincere thread, those shadows that create our persona, our personality, our strategies, the backdrop of us that is actually doing all that because it's uncomfortable, it's lonely, it's scared, it's angry, all the different things, the dark can really bring us into that if we're willing and wanting to see what's here and not to create what we want to have or what we think we should have or how we think it should be. If we're going in because we want to have a certain kind of experience, but if we're able to hold that a little bit lightly and our weight is actually a bit more on just being with what's here, then all of a sudden those, to use your word, those shadows, those things that aren't quite seen, can begin to come forward.

Who Is A Good Candidate

51:32

Who would be a good candidate for a darkness retreat? And what would you like people to know about Sky K retreats? That's definitely evolved for me over the years of my understanding of a good candidate. We've had people who come who are 20, 30 year, longtime practicing Zogten Tibetan Buddhists who have some of the hardest times here in the dark. And I would say maybe weren't the best candidates in terms of the level of availability and openness. There was a fixation on there was a lot of struggle in there because, like I experienced the first time that I went solo into the dark, because of the strategies that are employed, you get exhausted after a little bit, and there's an insulating from just the simplicity of nothing special. A good candidate, maybe I won't talk about what's not a good candidate, because we've also had longtime meditators come here and have really sunk in and have really meaningful experiences. I would use that example to say it doesn't matter, longtime meditator or somebody who hates meditating. We've had people come here who are like, I don't like meditating, and they've had life-changing, incredibly meaningful experiences. We've had people come here who are like, I've never done breath work, never done meditation, never done plant medicine, never done therapy, and had completely meaningful and impactful experiences and been great candidates for coming here. We have found that none of that matters. And that sometimes those things add more levels of complexity because those people have, myself included, more strategies for holding themselves together, for keeping negative things at bay. But if somebody doesn't have that, they're more cracked open and there's more contact with what's really happening because they don't have strategies to manage it. That's not to say people who have those strategies aren't fit for a dark retreat. They very well could be. It's more that flavor, that quality of curiosity, of availability, of receptivity, of being willing not to know, not using the strategies that keep someone held together and someone who's really willing to be uncomfortable, who's curious about it. Those are the qualities we have found that set the foundation for somebody to have a meaningful and impactful experience here. Beautiful. So for everyone listening, if you have many of those qualities. Even if you're curious about having those qualities, there's people who maybe don't have those qualities, but there's just a tiny thread in them that wants to explore that way. If there's just a thread of curiosity, as I've said, we've had people who don't have necessarily those aren't part of their personality and their go-to qualities, but there is a sincere thread, and the dark can create for some people enough pressure that their strategies no longer work to keep themselves together in the way that they present to be, and in the way that they present themselves to be, it cracks them. And then there's this welling forth of sincerity that was always right there that carries them into something new. There was somebody who came some months ago. She had had a lot of spirituality, she leads retreats, she was like, I've got this. There wasn't outwardly at that time much receptivity. It was almost like we were kind of pushed back. And at that point, we're like, you could just, you know, as you wish. And she cracked in there. The pressure broke her. And then all of a sudden, she was incredibly receptive. And what she touched into the space changed her life. She said, you know, I always knew that I had a persona that I put on for other people, but I never realized that I had a persona that I put on for myself. I never realized how incredibly judgmental I was and how I always thought I was better than everyone else. I'm actually just really scared and anxious. And I never ever knew that. Those are the types of experiences that can change someone's life, and they're not the type of peak experiences that someone goes out to look for that they all of a sudden didn't realize that they're incredibly judgmental and they're scared and anxious. But those are the things that can emerge in the dark from people's different experiences. Even though she maybe wouldn't have initially fit into some of those qualities, underneath all that, there was a real threat of sincerity. That thread of sincerity probably also drew her here, too. If somebody has the tiniest thread of sincerity, of really wanting to just be with what's here, that's enough that in the right container, someone can really begin to highlight that with that person to like that becomes the thing that begins to be the orientation point that has them begin to touch these things that they've never really touched before.

Where To Learn More Closing

56:22

Beautiful. Scott Berman, thank you for doing the work that you're doing and being a dedicated, sincere practitioner of it to a level where you're able to communicate all this and hold safe open container for people. I encourage people to check out skykaveretreats.com. I'm not getting paid for this or anything, but I just think it's a cool thing. There's videos and pictures on the website that give a lot more context. And it's a beautiful landscape and out there in the forest of Oregon with a running creek and a lot of beauty outside the caves. The little huts you have. Scott, thank you so much for sharing your story, how beneficial this can be for the people who are sincere leading these transformations for the world. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me, Sean.