When people talk about extreme challenges, they usually mean marathons, mountain climbing, or fasting. But one of the strangest and most unexpectedly intense challenges I’ve ever faced involved none of these. It required no equipment, no physical training, and no travel. All it required was a room, a door, and a commitment: to spend 24 hours in total, uninterrupted darkness.
At first, the idea sounded harmless. How bad could it be to sit in the dark? After all, we spend every night with our eyes closed. But I quickly learned that there’s a massive difference between sleeping in darkness and living in it. What I experienced during those 24 hours was part science experiment, part psychological rollercoaster, and part surreal adventure into the unknown corners of my own mind.
This is the story of what happened.
The Decision: Why Choose Darkness?
The seed was planted when I came across an article about monks in Tibet who practice “dark retreats.” They lock themselves in completely black rooms for days or even weeks at a time, claiming that the experience brings clarity, visions, and deep self-awareness. Some Western athletes and CEOs have adopted similar practices, calling it a way to “reset the brain.”
I didn’t buy into the mystical promises. But the scientific angle fascinated me. Psychologists and neuroscientists have long studied sensory deprivation—situations where the brain is cut off from normal input. Without external light, sound, or touch, the mind begins to do strange things. It hallucinates. It bends time. It reveals patterns of thought usually drowned out by daily noise.
So I thought: why not try a short, safe version myself? Not a week, not three days, but just 24 hours. It felt like a daring but manageable challenge.
The Setup: Building a World Without Light
To make this experiment real, I had to prepare a space. I chose my guest bedroom because it had no electronics and thick curtains. I taped the edges of the window to block any stray rays of sunlight. I covered the small crack under the door with a rolled-up towel. Then I checked every corner for glowing LEDs—alarm clocks, chargers, even the little red dot on the smoke detector. Everything had to be covered.
Once I was satisfied, I stocked the room with a few essentials: a jug of water, some snacks, a notebook (though I couldn’t write in darkness, I thought I might try by touch), and a blanket. No phone, no watch, no glowing gadgets.
And then, with a deep breath, I flipped off the light switch, closed the door, and let the world disappear.
Hour 1–3: The Awkward Beginning
At first, it was anticlimactic. I sat on the bed, waiting for something profound to happen. Instead, I got… nothing. Just pitch black silence. My eyes strained, desperate to find a pattern, but there was none. Occasionally, I thought I saw faint waves of color, like static on an old television screen, but I quickly realized they were just tricks of my brain.
Time immediately felt strange. I tried to guess how long I’d been sitting there—maybe 30 minutes? It had been only five. The absence of light erased my ability to measure time. Minutes stretched like hours, and hours folded in on themselves.
By the second hour, I found myself humming songs out loud. Then I began to talk to myself in full sentences. I wasn’t going crazy—I just needed something to break the silence. My voice became the only anchor in the emptiness.
Hour 4–6: The Body Starts to Rebel
Without natural light cues, my body thought it was nighttime. I grew sleepy, even though I knew it was still early in the day. My circadian rhythm—the biological clock tied to sunrise and sunset—was already confused. I yawned, curled up, and took a short nap.
When I woke, I had no idea how long I’d been asleep. Ten minutes? An hour? My sense of time was disintegrating.
I noticed my hearing had sharpened. I could hear the faint hum of the refrigerator in the distant kitchen, the creak of the house settling, even the faint ringing in my own ears. With no visual input, my brain amplified every sound.
It wasn’t just hearing—my imagination grew louder too. I began to replay conversations from years ago, arguments I had lost, moments I had forgotten. In the light, those thoughts are fleeting. In the dark, they lingered like ghosts.
Hour 7–12: Hallucinations and Strange Emotions
Around what I guessed was the halfway mark, the experiment escalated. I started to see things. Not clearly, but like shadows moving in the blackness. At one point, I swore I saw a faint glowing outline of a door on the wall—except I knew the wall was blank. Another time, I thought I saw tiny stars sparkling in front of me, as if the universe had opened inside my room.
These were classic visual hallucinations caused by sensory deprivation. With no light coming in, my brain had begun generating its own. It wasn’t frightening—it was mesmerizing.
Emotionally, though, I swung between extremes. One moment, I felt euphoric, like I had tapped into some hidden state of mind. The next, I felt crushing boredom and restlessness. I paced the room in circles just to feel movement. My body wanted out, but my mind told me to keep going.
Hour 13–18: The Deep Void
At some point during the “night,” I fell into what I can only describe as the deepest silence of my life. I lay on the bed, completely still, and listened. The room was so quiet that I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.
This stretch of time was the hardest. I questioned why I was doing this at all. What was the point? Was I learning anything, or just torturing myself with boredom? My brain begged for stimulation. I missed colors. I missed faces. I even missed the tiny annoyance of my phone buzzing.
But here’s the paradox: in that void, I also felt a kind of peace. With nothing to distract me, my thoughts slowed. I wasn’t scrolling or multitasking or rushing. I was just there—floating in darkness, alive but stripped down to the basics.
Hour 19–24: The Final Stretch
By the last stretch, my body was utterly confused. I had dozed on and off but had no idea how much I had actually slept. I was tired and restless at the same time. My eyes, though open, felt heavy, as if they had given up trying to search for light.
And then something remarkable happened: I began to enjoy the darkness. My fear and boredom had been replaced with a strange comfort. The blackness wrapped around me like a blanket. I wasn’t looking for an end anymore; I was simply existing.
When the 24 hours finally ended and I stepped back into the light, it was overwhelming. My room exploded with color. The white walls looked impossibly bright, the blue of the sky almost painful. I had to squint like a mole coming out of a tunnel.
But along with the discomfort came a flood of gratitude. I never realized how much I took light for granted. Even the dull glow of a streetlamp at night felt like a miracle after a day without it.
Reflections: What Darkness Taught Me
Spending 24 hours in total darkness was not just a quirky experiment. It was a mirror. It showed me how dependent I am on stimulation, how quickly my brain invents stories when deprived of input, and how fragile my sense of time really is.
More than anything, it gave me perspective. We fill our lives with constant light—screens, bulbs, neon signs—rarely pausing to let darkness in. But in that darkness, I found space for thoughts I usually avoid, emotions I usually bury, and silence I usually drown out.
Would I do it again? Maybe not for 24 hours straight. But I walked away convinced that a little darkness can be profoundly illuminating.
✅ Sources
- Czeisler, C. A., & Gooley, J. J. (2007). Sleep and circadian rhythms in humans. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology.
- Merabet, L. B., & Pascual-Leone, A. (2010). Neural reorganization following sensory loss: The opportunity of change. Nature Reviews Neuroscience.
- Wackermann, J., Pütz, P., & Allefeld, C. (2008). Psychophysiological effects of long-term sensory deprivation. Psychological Research.
- Spiegel, A. (2011). The science of sensory deprivation. NPR.
- Noll, R. (1985). Mental imagery cultivation as a cultural phenomenon: The role of visions in shamanism. Current Anthropology.
Written by the author, Fatima Al-Hajri 👩🏻💻
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