The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Darkness Deficit Disorder: How Constant Stimulation Has Shaped our Consumption with Andrew Holecek
27 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Take a very good look. What are you always doing? You're always working with your mind because that's all there is. Maybe it might behoove you to work with your mind a little bit more directly through the inner arts, through contemplation, through meditation, through things like dark retreat.
Maybe you'll become a better researcher, scientist, human being when you better understand who you are and what the instrument is that you engage in in your investigations. The lens of your investigation is your mind Sharpen your mind. Heighten your mind. Become aware of your mind. It will benefit everything you do.
You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Hagans. On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play emergent roles in the coming great simplification.
Today I'm joined by consciousness scholar and meditation practitioner, Andrew Holachek, for an in-depth look at our most important and accessible tool for navigating the great simplification, the human mind.
Andrew Holachek is an interdisciplinary scholar practitioner in non-dual wisdom traditions and is actively involved in scientific research on what ended up being the main topic of today's conversation, dark retreat, with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Studies.
He is also a research consultant for the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at Northwestern University. Andrew is the author of many books and offers seminars internationally on meditation, lucid dreaming, death practices, and dark retreat. While these ideas are ancient, he believes these are urgently relevant given the stakes we face today.
In our conversation, Andrew describes how in our era of light pollution, devices everywhere, and nonstop stimulation, many of us now constantly exist in fragmented, distracted states of mind, which he calls darkness deficit disorder.
Going to the roots of this problem, Andrew and I discussed the power of work that does not require fossil fuels or machines or even a light bulb in the form of what he calls dark retreats.
Drawing from scholarship rooted in ancient traditions like Tibetan Buddhism, he details how meditative practices like dark retreat can help alleviate our suffering and enable us to better do the work needed to navigate our present moment. Importantly, and surprisingly to me, Andrew outlined how light itself and contrast darkness relate to our behaviors of endless acquisition and consumption.
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Chapter 2: What is Darkness Deficit Disorder and how does it affect us?
No, no. It's a really important interruption because what is society composed of? Individuals. And so it's this marvelous mutual causality between macro and micro. You know, the iterative phenomenology between these two different iterations and instantiations of reality, the inside and the outside, the macro and the micro. Right. And so, therefore, they're not mutually exclusive.
When you're, you know, it says, you know, this in hermetic traditions, as above, so below, the Kalachakra Tantra, as within, so without, chaos and complexity theory, talk about universality and self-similarity. Reality is fundamentally recursive, reiterative.
And this is actually no small thing, because then when you're actually exploring one dimension of reality, you're actually, upon close examination, discovering different, subtler iterations of that. So this is one instance, for instance, in my own work, when I work with meditation, dreams, and death. Well, they may seem not terribly connected, but they're intimately connected.
They're basically fundamental iterations of same underlying processes. Now, this becomes super, super interesting, because then what you can do is you can infer, you can triangulate your understanding. You can use one display to help you understand the other. We do it all the time. It's called a reciprocal hermeneutic. This is one of the ways we go about learning.
Chapter 3: How can dark retreats serve as a path for inner reflection?
So again, I'll pause here because, boy, you're throwing out some really rich stuff here.
I'm going to throw one more geeky, nerdy quote, and then we'll get back to the... Well, yeah, I mean, our friend probably knew that we would geek out on this stuff. So you mentioned Alfred North Whitehead. Here's a quote that a viewer sent me after a recent podcast from Whitehead. The truth is that the brain is continuous with the body.
And the body is continuous with the rest of the natural world. Human experience is an act of self-origination, including the whole of nature, but limited to the perspective of the focal region. High five. Yeah. So explain that to me using slightly less obtuse language, because that feels right to me.
Well, yeah, it certainly resonates with my own experience. So, yeah, first of all, the continuous kind of nature, right, from brain to body to cosmos, you know, this is... I'm trying to think of like frameworks that contextualize this to some extent.
And one that immediately comes to mind, and then we'll get back to this localization thing, because this has to do perhaps with egoic structure and what ego actually is and its relationship to all this. But Spinoza intimated this, Einstein's favorite philosopher, and it has a lot of traction to me. Someone suggested it in the quote from Whitehead.
This dual aspect monism thing, which is, again, a little bit philosophical geek speak about looking at mind is really subtle body and looking at body is really gross mind. This then bespeaks, again, a more non-dualistic way. That's the monism thing, right? Yeah.
the monism thing suggests the non-duality, the dual aspect kind of suggests the reconciliation or the balancing of the non-duality with dualistic principles. Because again, this is worth throwing into the mix. You can't throw everything into one basket or the other because this leads to all kinds of pathologies, all kinds of absolutisms.
If everything is thrown in the non-dual basket, that can become problematic, the absolutistic end of it. And then conversely, if everything is thrown into the relative basket, well, then you get this confused conditioned reality that's called samsara in the Western languaging. And so to me, I mention this because this is really important. It's what William Blake so beautifully talked about
is the cultivation of double vision, the capacity to honor, integrate, and incorporate both views of reality, the absolute and the relative, the dualistic expression and its non-dual essence. This then becomes much more elegant, much more holistic, systemic. I think that's really important. But it's not good for profits. Depends on profits in what department.
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Chapter 4: What role does non-duality play in our understanding of self?
The principal signature of the dark age is we're blinded by the light. And there's too much of it. And we hold it in the palm of our hands, right? With these weapons of mass distraction that literally pull us out and apart from who we are. This is the basis of the metacrisis, by the way. One distraction upon the next. One dismemberment upon the next.
This is the iterative recursive expression of what collectively brings about the metacrisis. I have no doubt about it.
I have so many thoughts. So let me ask you this. So what you were talking about earlier, you mentioned a bunch of words that were not Nirvana and then a bunch of other ones. So is darkness the not? Because there's nothing there and all the other things And so this is – can you tie this into our dissatisfaction and hungry ghost consumptive fervor?
And what sort of a mass diagnosis can you give at the larger scale of society and the world?
Well, part of it is what I just said. Let me repeat this because I did glance through it quickly, but I think it's super important. But, yes, tying it into what I mentioned earlier – You know, I look at dark practice now, which, by the way, has been around for thousands of years. It's nothing new. I'm just maybe reintroducing an ancient psycho-spiritualism technology.
But the idea here is darkness is the addition of a tool designed for subtraction. Again, the theme of the Great Simplification, Meister Eckhart, the soul does not grow by addition, but by subtraction. And so when you go into the dark... everything comes to a screeching halt. Everything is put on hold.
So if you, like I had Anna Lemke on earlier this year, and she talked about dopamine addiction and how 14 days, but optimally 28 days for a technology fast can reset in the same way that you give up sugar and all of a sudden blueberries are sweet. What you're saying is at a macro level higher than that, that if you reset dopamine,
In darkness for I don't know how long, but then it resets all of those things. Yes.
Yes. Spot on, my friend. It's a massive recalibration, a massive restorative process. And this is exactly what we're studying. So one of the really exciting things is, you know, I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm writing about it.
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Chapter 5: How does light pollution impact our mental health?
Why? Because darkness is uncompromising and non-negotiable. And what you said is so spot on. This is so great, man. It forces you to meditate. What does that really mean? Meditation is just developing a more sensitive, awake relationship to the contents of your mind. So dark retreat forces you to relate to your mind. Why? Hello, because there's nothing else.
And this is where it ties into a dream. This is where it's very dreamlike. It forces you to relate to your mind, to meditate because there's nothing else. And so this is why Rudy Gobert, right? Who's kicking butt right now in the NBA first round, right? Superstar and defensive player of the year. He's done this practice and he came out and said something so spot on. This is so high five, right?
He said, dark retreat is meditation times a thousand. I mean, yeah, maybe the number is archetypal and exaggerated a little bit, but in that, really, it's just really concentrated, intense, accelerated meditation. Now, let me say one last thing, and then I'll pause. Now, you can join this statement, kaitakruti is meditation times 1,000.
You can join this statement with a really brilliant statement by one of my root teachers, the crazy citizen, Trungpa Rinpoche, when he said meditation isn't a sedative, it's a laxative. Well, if that's true, and you go into the dark, in meditation, dark retreat is meditation times a thousand, you're laxating times a thousand. And this is what I mean, and this is really important.
The crap is going to come up. It has to. It has to come up. And so when you're down there and you can no longer keep it down, right, by distracting yourself from it, this is where it's remarkably similar to psychedelics. Literally, the word literally means mind manifesting. That's what psychedelic means. Dark retreat is a sober psychedelic.
And when you're in there, depending, again, on the person, you're going to purge, right? This shit is going to come up, and it has to. And if you understand that, you know, whether it's you going down, that's the wrong-bop thing, or it coming up, it doesn't matter. These are metaphors for directionality. The stuff has to come up. Because if it doesn't come up...
This undigested, unprocessed, unconscious material, which, by the way, neuroscientists will tell you, minimum 95% of what we do is dictated by these unconscious processes. This is, in fact, how you can bring all this unconscious refuse into conscious awareness. Process of individuation, as Jung referred to it. So I'll pause because, my gosh, there's so much to say here.
But this is really important because now you know, okay, whoa. Life is short. What can I do to extract the essence in the shortest possible time? Nothing is transforming more than dark retreat.
But also, I have to say this at the outset, the reason I'm writing the book or wrote the book, actually, and I'm doing the science is just as much to keep people out as it is to invite the properly prepared and inspired people in. Because if you don't go into this big medicine properly, just like with a psychedelic, you can overdose. But here, what are you overdosing on? Yourself.
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Chapter 6: What are the benefits of facing our fears through darkness?
Literally, I'm not exaggerating. Oh, you know, he conquered K2, you know, the second largest peak in the world. His next conquest was going to be seven days in the dark. Are you kidding me?
So that type of thrill seeker, spiritual seeker, I mean, spiritual thrill seeker, that's a major contraindication because then, yeah, you'll cross the finish line bruised and beaten, but you're just going to have a stronger ego, not a softened ego. You got to come out. This is not a tough guy practice. This is a soft, you're going to come out a smoothie.
You're going to come in, you're going to go in there, rock hard, mate. And you're going to come out smoothie, Nate, right? You're going to come out a soft guy. So the darkness is going to do its little acid bath thing on you. And you're going to come out a softie. You're going to open, open, open.
That's the fundamental underlying narrative of the whole thing that we haven't hit on at all is openness. Meditation, another definition of meditation. I mentioned several, my favorite. Meditation is habituation to openness. And when you go into the dark, initially you contract because it's like a cold plunge.
Our data shows about 90% of the people, when they hit the dark, fight, fight, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, response. They contract. But eventually, if you're doing it right, so to speak, you can surrender, just like a good psychedelic trip. What's the best ingredient for success in a psychedelic trip? Trust. Surrender. And eventually when you trust and surrender, what are you going to do?
You're going to let go. You're going to die. You're going to open. And as you open, as Rumi put it, the wider, wider rings of being, that's when the magic starts.
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?
Yeah. Oh, this is great. This is terrific. This is translational work, you know, bringing this esoteric stuff into an exoteric application. Because this is so great, Nate, and I realize I'm not being patronizing here, because meditation isn't the point. Dark retreat isn't the point. Psychedelics isn't the point. The point is life.
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Chapter 7: How does meditation relate to the experience of darkness?
Are you always working with your mind? Gosh, you know, I guess you're right. Well, maybe it might behoove you to work with your mind a little bit more directly through the inner arts, through contemplation, through meditation, through things like dark retreat. And again, dark retreat is just really intense meditation. That's all it is.
And then come out, see what happens when you do this very profound inner first person exploration and see what happens to your being. See how, in fact, you might be able to do better science. You might be able to do better anthropology, better AI. Interesting, a lot of AI people are really, the tech people are really into this dark stuff, by the way, parenthetically.
Maybe you'll become a better researcher, scientist, human being when you better understand who you are and what the instrument is that you engage in in your investigations. The lens of your investigation is your mind. Sharpen your mind. Heighten your mind. Become aware of your mind. It will benefit everything you do.
Can you speculate for me, fast forward five or ten years, and there is this ego transcendence in a meaningful percentage of the population, whether through darkness practice or meditation or psychedelics or whatever? LSD in the water system. I think Leary had it, right? Right. Um, that reference I did understand. Um, the, what could you see happening?
Like in a group of humans, if you have one or two of them, uh, being able to have this experience versus 90% of them, does that change the social interaction of that group? Yes. And have you seen that?
Well, you know, there was a highly controversial book that came out 30 years ago called The Maharishi Effect that speculated the science was pretty weak, sloppy. But Richie Davidson and his colleagues now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for the Investigation of Healthy Minds, they're actually doing some really interesting work along this sort of thing.
That what happens when individuals reach certain almost tipping points is that can collectively then have benefit, you know, society, societally and whatnot. In a materialistic worldview, this is woo. This just is like, this is just new age bullshit. But not in the world that's, let's go to Ian McGilchrist again. Not in a world that's made of mind.
Not in a world that's made out of heart, mind, spirit. In that world, what you do with your mind is inextricably interconnected to what happens in the matrix of mind at large, Huxley's term. And so, therefore, when you're doing your work, this is the Bodhisattva ideal, when With the deeper understanding that the reality of, nobody's ever experienced matter, by the way.
Matter is just the label we append to the regularity of experience. This world is not made of matter. When you understand the fundamental matrix of reality is heart, mind, spirit, what I do with my heart, mind, spirit has a benefit on the world. And so, yeah, I would say something along those lines.
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