Is It Better To Meditate In Darkness? – complete guide In 2024

Is It Better To Meditate In Darkness or light?

Meditation in the dark can be a great way to reduce stress and be good for your health. Today, darkness meditation is a lovely technique to adopt when we live in a highly busy, noisy world that may make us feel quite blasted in our daily lives.

Meditating in the light can be beneficial. It may not offer as many benefits as dark meditation, but it is still helpful. Some people are afraid of the dark and find it uncomfortable. So meditating in the light will likely make you feel more at ease.

However, Meditation in darkness is the ideal setting for seeing and listening carefully to your reality and gaining access to your inner knowledge.

First, we will know what “darkness meditation” is. A “darkness meditation” technique is designed to help you feel more connected to your existence and creation.

The goal is to reduce the anxiety of the unknown and darkness. You must first focus on developing a mindset that does not fear darkness before you can begin to practice.

Also, you’ll need to take simple precautions like selecting a suitable location and wearing comfortable clothing. It should take 25 minutes to complete the workout, which demands complete focus. You could need a few months to get a grasp of darkness meditation.

What Is The Dark Meditation History?

This technique is believed to have its roots in the Taoist philosophy of China. While most individuals now meditate in low-light places, Taoists used to do it in caves.

They would spend their time in these gloomy depths attempting to achieve higher mental states and honoring Yin, the divine feminine part of existence.

” Dark meditation is beneficial.”

Yet there is no longer any darkness in cities. Go then to a rural area without power, A Tantric sutra says, “Enter into meditation on a foggy, moonless night, and permit darkness to engulf you.”

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Are there benefits to sitting & meditating in the dark?

Dark meditation has a wide range of positive effects on the body, mind, and emotions, making it an excellent practice for modern life. Melatonin is secreted in reaction to darkness.

It is created in the pineal gland, a pea-sized gland located directly above the center of the brain, which is located in the brain. The hormone melatonin is created in your brain and may offer health advantages.

1. Keep Cancer Cells From Growing Rapidly

According to a 2017 scientific study published online, this hormone might be used to prevent and cure various diseases, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, gastric cancer, and colorectal cancer. It shrinks these cancerous tumors, which increases patient survival rates.

2. Improve Your Sleep

A review of several scientific research published in 2013 recommended using this hormone in cancer patients experiencing sleep-wake and mood problems since they found that these patients had minimal levels of harm.

3. Therapy For Irritable Bowel Syndrome

The large intestine is affected by this condition. It results in symptoms including cramping, stomach discomfort, bloating, gas, and either diarrhea or constipation.

According to one study, melatonin can treat IBS because It regulates digestive system sensation and movement, which may help IBS patients’ bowel habits and reduce discomfort or abdominal swelling in the belly.

It can help these people with sleep disturbances. Possesses advantages for mood management and anti-stress properties that could aid in lessening the aberrant psychological parameters seen in IBS patients.

4. Helps To Lose Weight

Researchers from the Universities of Granada, Madrid, and Texas discovered that this hormone might aid in weight loss in a study on rats. The findings show that melatonin achieves this by boosting the body’s brown adipose tissue (BAT), also known as “healthy fat.”

Brown adipose tissue (BAT), in contrast to bad fat, burns energy rather than retaining it. It burns calories for thermogenesis, boosting metabolism and reducing unhealthy fat mass that contributes to weight gain, particularly around the belly.

5. Constant Back Pain

Melatonin has been shown in a trial of 178 individuals aged 40 to 65 to help reduce pain levels when moving and while lying still. They had less pain, reduced worry and despair, improved sleep, and less discomfort.

6. Help With Migraine

According to research involving 34 individuals, consuming 3 mg of melatonin before bed each night can help migraine sufferers experience less frequent, more intense, and longer-lasting pain.

7. Helps To Reduce Anxiety

Regular meditation can help ease anxiety and enhance recovery mechanisms and stress reactivity.

8. Helps Ro Reduce Depression

Certain types of meditation can reduce negative thoughts and help with depression. Moreover, it could reduce inflammatory cytokine levels, which could increase depression.

9. May Improve Memory Loss Brought On By Ageing

A review showed early evidence that different meditation practices can improve elderly participants’ attention, memory, and mental agility.

Meditation can at least partially enhance memory in people with dementia and prevent typical age-related memory decline. Also, it helps enhance coping and reduce stress in people taking care of relatives with dementia.

10. Able To Reduce Blood Pressure

Not only does blood pressure drop during meditation, but it also drops over time in people who practice it consistently. Easing the pressure on the heart and arteries can aid in preventing heart disease.

How To Practice Meditation In The Dark

1. Your Feelings About Darkness

Think about how you currently feel about the dark. Consider your present emotions before starting a meditation in darkness habit. Before entering the dark, you must know where you stand to determine the necessary improvements.

When people think of darkness, they frequently associate it with death or unhappy feelings. You could have grown up with a fear of the dark.

Are you afraid of the dark or being alone yourself? If so, you must adjust your false assumptions before beginning the meditation habit. It would help to accept the darkness in a healthy, constructive way.

2. Find Some Relaxed Clothing.

On a basic level, you should also get ready to meditate. Choose appropriate clothes since you don’t want any distractions when trying to meditate. Anything that is too uncomfortable—tight, itching, or otherwise—may interfere with your ability to focus. Choose a loose-fitting outfit that you feel at ease wearing.

3. Preferred Position

The ideal position for you is the one you choose. You can either sit up straight in a chair with your legs uncrossed and your hands resting on your thighs, lie down on the floor on your back, or sit on the floor with your legs crossed and your right hand resting palm up in your left hand.

4. Consider Going For A Low-Light Space.

Many forms of darkness meditation aim to develop an internal experience of darkness. You don’t need to be in a completely dark space to perform the meditation. Certain forms of darkness Meditation, however, does encourage you to find a very dark space.

In truth, individuals go on camps where they meditate for days in complete darkness. Consider meditating in a dark room if you’d want to adopt this kind of darkness meditation. Because there won’t be any external stimulation, you should be able to concentrate more on your thoughts and sensations.

5. Try To Clear Your Thoughts A Little Before Beginning To Meditate

A high level of focus is necessary for darkness meditation. Consider warming up before you start. If you’re stressed, try to relax and clear your thoughts. Before attempting to meditate, do something calming, such as reading a book or putting together a puzzle.

6. Developing A Sensation Of Darkness

For around 20 minutes, you should close your eyes. Using a timer is optional. It would help if you took this opportunity to think carefully about the dark. Concentrate on the sensation of blackness, its meaning, and any insights you obtain.

Throughout this meditation, your thoughts could go in frightening directions. That’s alright. There might be a lot of terror in the dark. One way to reduce some of that terror is to hype focus on darkness for a set amount of time.

Keep your attention on the darkness and how it makes you feel. Consider any ideas you may have about darkness. Let more positive connections replace the negative ones. Once more, consider darkness as a clean slate or a metaphor for your time in the womb.

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Is there a negative side to meditation in the dark?

1. It may make you sleepy

While trying to meditate, it may make you feel drowsy and lead you to fall asleep.

2. Summoning spirits

Some individuals believe that meditation in the dark will summon evil spirits (these are usually illusions of the mind); it depends on your beliefs.

Even though this may be quite upsetting for people who fear demonic spirits, meditating in the light could be wiser if this happens until you can overcome your fear.

3. Trauma-related stress

You want to bury and forget unpleasant memories since recalling them makes you unhappy. When you ponder, you could realise that you’re still feeling the same feelings of the stress which you had first experienced, like rage, fear, despair, or loss as you had when.

Being alone in a completely dark room while engaging in dark meditation might worsen these emotions, especially anxiety.

4. Causing depression

Too much time spent in the dark might mess with your body clock. If the body clock is not exposed to natural light, it can lead to mood swings and depressive phases and enhance sleep quality.

5. Frustration

After contemplation and realizing that you or your activities are not as good as you had imagined, you may feel disappointed in yourself.

Meditation in the Dark: Preventing Pitfalls

1. Do not use meditation in the dark as a substitute for treatment

Several mental health issues can benefit from meditation, but this practice is not a treatment in and of itself. Do not try to treat yourself with therapy if you have a problem like depression or anxiety. Consult a therapist or counselor for advice.

Ask your primary care physician for a recommendation to a therapist. You may also get a list of therapists in your network by calling your insurance provider.
Your institution can provide free therapy if you’re a student.

2. After meditation in the darkness, try not to remain disconnected

After meditating, it’s critical to return to reality. Meditation allows you to take a break from troubling thoughts and get your mind off specific problems. On the other hand, a long-term condition of being detached might limit your capacity to engage with other people. Always make an effort to come back to the present after meditating.

3. Admit that Practicing darkness meditation is difficult

If your first try with darkness meditation falls short of your expectations, do not let it discourage you. Clearing your head and preventing a dream state when shutting your eyes requires much work. Allow some time. Until you master the skill of darkness meditation, it can take months.

Do as many times of darkness meditation as you find comfortable. You should reduce your practice until you feel more at ease if you experience a negative reaction to darkness meditation.

4. When meditating, you must keep your eyes open and avoid focusing on your inner darkness

Allowing inner darkness to emerge is a good thing. Be at ease when it enters. Your surroundings should allow you to: not easily distracted by outside stimuli.

But if you are doing this at home, let your household members know you are about to perform so in case To prevent someone from unintentionally opening a door and disturbing you while you are doing a darkness meditation.

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Does dark meditation pay off?

The opinions on meditating in a dark environment differ from person to person. While some consider it a positive development with several advantages, others do not.

But if you have been meditating for some time and are not terrified of the dark, you should try it. Attending a camp would be preferable for those new to dark meditation so that you can learn more about it through a guided session.

Conclusion

Meditation in the dark can be a great way to reduce stress and can also be good for your health. Meditation is an easy exercise that anyone can do. It helps us learn more about ourselves, accept ourselves more, and live with more heart.

True meditation is just observing everything that happens without getting involved with it. Both light and darkness are just more things that happen.

FAQs: should you meditate in dark?

Q: Aren’t so comfortable that you fall asleep?

Go ahead and meditate if you can avoid dozing off in complete darkness. Go ahead if being under the daytime light doesn’t distract you. There are no “correct” or “incorrect” responses; only what works for you to concentrate on now.

Q: To meditate, do I focus on the ‘darkness’ of what is in front of me?

Yes, an old, outdated trick is out there—act as though they are not there. Keep your focus off of them. Keep yourself inside. 

Q: Do I need to meditate in complete darkness?

You have fewer disturbances when you meditate in a calm, dark area, which promotes a deeper feeling of focus. You may enter a spiritual level of meditation more easily and maintain it when you have that greater focus.

Q: How Do You Meditate In Light? Is It Better In No Light

The benefits of meditating in the light are numerous. It still works even if it doesn’t have as many benefits as meditating in the dark.

Q: Why Can’t I Visualize? I See Nothing But Darkness During Meditation. I Try To Visualize.

The inability to see visuals is referred to by researchers as aphantasia. It is not a sickness or a genetic error. 

Q: What Light Should You Meditate In?

Using natural light is excellent if you’re planning to meditate in the morning. You’ll feel more alert as a result of it, and the soothing warmth of the early sun will also help you unwind. Choose a spot where there is adequate natural light for meditation.

Q: Why Is Meditation Not Done At Night?

This is because the point of meditation is to make you more clear-headed and focused, only sometimes sleepy. Also, meditating at night can hurt the quality of your sleep because your mind may become too busy for you to fall asleep fast.

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