Nate Hagens

And then what happens to the ego when we let go of our sight in these darkness experiences?

This is another really super rich topic.

So getting back to the ego thing, and you talked about arrested development at a certain age, so would there be presumably a correlation between the people, the humans in today's world or in any time period who have...

the biggest egos would have the most trouble with the darkness retreat?

Well, they may say that, but their underlying physiological reaction would probably be fear.

Oh, it is.

I just am going to have too many questions for the time allotted.

I'm trying to do a good job encapsulating your work.

I'm trying to be helpful for the audience, and I'm also trying to anticipate how this might be applied in my own life all simultaneously.

So I've heard the word in the past, ego death.

Is that what you meant?

So are there any individuals who should not engage in dark retreat?

And what are the risks or goals that people should be aware of?

Don't we all have that to some degree?

And isn't that an evolutionary thing?

So let me circle back to my work on this, which on the surface aren't a lot of direct linkages, but under the surface in the gray area, there are quite a few.

So a lot of my work focuses on

how our psychological biases might hinder our efforts to navigate a future with less material throughput and predictably probably more societal disruptions.

So how could learning to be comfortable facing our fears, including fear of darkness, such as what happens during the dark retreats, help us better face the unknown and uncertainty of both the present moment and the coming decades?

Frank is next door.