Part of the answer is simply that it is easier for me this way. But the main reason lies elsewhere.

In some places, food is served in the dark room at set times. Then you know when it is day and when it is night, and your sense of time stays intact. The mind stays on guard, controlling the situation. This does not fit with what darkness is meant to do. If you go into darkness at all, it should not be to try out how darkness works under control, but to truly let go of the mind’s control.

My experience

I have been in a dark room myself and made my own food. It was unfamiliar. My body was used to knowing by the clock when to eat. Listening for when the body actually needs food was unfamiliar and confusing.

That was exactly what was needed. Listening to the body took the place of the thought “I must eat, because the clock says so”.

My sense of time did not disappear completely, though. Through long sleeps, my body began to set a logic: if the sleep was long, it was night.

If food had been brought to me, it would have been one more place where the mind could take hold. That is not the point of the dark room, at least not in my view.

What really happens there

I realised how clinging the system is that wants to know and control. Doing things the way they have always been done: breakfast in the morning when the clock says so, lunch the same way, dinner again in the evening.

That is a programme. It is not what the body says.

In the dark room that programme cannot run. There is no clock, and no one to bring food at the right time. What remains is only what the body actually says.

Where to next

For what to bring and how to prepare your food, read the post The dark room: how it really works. These posts are currently available in Estonian only:

Price and practical information are on the dark room page.