Before the privatization of electricity in India power cuts were a regular occurrence, and it wasn’t out of the blue for families to have television-free candlelit dinners. The food, cloaked in the soft flicker of the flame somehow tasted earthier, as if baked by a runaway sunbeam, In all the millenia prior to the invention of electric lights, this is more-or-less how we have taken our post-sunset meals. Assuming eating by the light of a fire under the stars is how we have dined for much of our species’ lifetime, it is not surprising that those dark dinners had a different quality about them - we ate more sliently, feeling the textures, scents, and sounds of our food more attentively, as if compensating for the lack of visual stimuli. We felt more satiated, content, and perhaps more nourished.
Eating dinner in a dim or dark setting can be a unique and immersive experience. However, it is not a new concept. For centuries, the Tibetan Buddhist monks have practiced darkness retreats as a form of meditation and spiritual practice. The retreat involves staying in complete darkness for days, weeks, or even months. Prolonged exposure to total darkness can have a psychedelic effect. Participants have been known to see and hear the invisible, and yogis shun light for the spontaneous visions that are then discussed in their philosophies of the metaphysical. Those who have experienced darkness retreats describe profound shifts in consciousness and a deeper connection to the divine. Some gain a renewed sense of purpose and clarity, and some others confront their deepest fears. Its teachers consider it a powerful tool for transformation and growth.
The effects of darkness retreats can, at least physiologically, be understood via the pineal gland. Located at the center of the brain, this pinecone-shaped organ has variously been called the “third eye” or “seat of the soul where thoughts are formed”. Many cultures associate it with mystical experiences, intuition, and higher states of consciousness. Physiologically, it regulates the circadian rhythm by signalling darkness to the rest of the body. This triggers melatonin production in almost all the organs and tissues of the body, including the skin, gut and red blood cells. Apart from the retina, it is the only other organ to contain rods and cones that sense light and color. The pineal gland receives far more blood than its metabolic requirement - only second to the kidney - leading to hypotheses of the gland acting as a blood filtration system like the kidneys. Dysfunction of this fascinating organ is associated with poorly understood disorders (psychiatric, mood, sleep) and with age, calcification of this organ leads to lower melatonin and neurogenerative diseases like Alzheimers, MS and ALS.
A “thumb rule” about pineal gland sizes is that their size increases in vertebrates from the equator to the poles; the colder/harsher conditions, the bigger the glands. But along with the cold, higher latitudes also experience longer periods of sustained darkness. At the poles, a night is 6 months long; indeed, the largest pineal gland was recorded in a South Pole seal occupying 1/3rd of its entire brain.
As interest in the intersection of science and spirituality grows, the links between an ancient spritual practice and its physiological effects on the storied pineal gland open a possibly interesting window of investigation. While we wait for researchers to gather data, it might be a fun exercise to recreate a power cut at dinner. Light a candle or not, attentively savor every morsel of the meal, and revel in the calm and quiet of the blue-black inkscape,