Dark Night of The Soul: Meaning, Stages, & Symptoms

The Dark Night of The Soul is a term that’s used colloquially to describe a difficult time in one’s life (Wikipedia, n.d.-a). This colloquial use generally refers to a period marked by depression or life events or challenges that force one into personal growth. Although this may be part of The Dark Night of The Soul, general depressions or life challenges aren’t actually what The Dark Night of The Soul is about.

According to John of The Cross, The Dark Night of The Soul is a phase of passive purification that occurs during spiritual awakening. It is the final stage in the journey and therefore involves the “burning away” of the self, the personal will, and all attachments so that the True Reality (All that is) can be revealed. 

The Dark Night of The Soul may also be described as the process of discovering “I am nothing”. We discover we are nothing through the process of realizing that we are ‘not this’ and ‘not that’ (Wikipedia, n.d.-b). Eventually, we come to the point where there is nothing left of our self-concept.

The Dark Night of The Soul Versus Depression
Unlike depression, which may be related to a specific external life event or a shift in neurochemistry, The Dark Night of The Soul is a passive process that occurs internally. There may or may not be any challenging life events. Regardless, the distress is coming from the internal process of letting go of self-concepts and the perspective of being a separate self.

The Dark Night of The Soul often includes confusion, helplessness, and a sense of aloneness. Although difficult, it can ultimately lead to self-transcendence, ego dissolution, and self-realization (Wikipedia, n.d.-a). However, it may be distinguished from The Dark Night of Self, which is more about ego death.

When we enter The Dark Night of The Soul, we can expect to go through somewhat predictable stages. The amount of time we spend in each stage, the difficulty of each stage, and how much we move back and forth between stages will vary from person to person. Still, having a sense of where we in the process are can help us maintain presence throughout the difficulties and remember that “this too shall pass.”

Here is an overview of The Dark Night of The Soul stages:

The Dark Night of The Soul Phases According to John of the Cross
John of the Cross suggests that there are 4 main Dark Night of The Soul phases (Ascent of Mount Carmel, 2023). 

1. The Active Night of The Senses
2. The Passive Night of The Senses
3. The Active Night of The Spirit
4. The Passive Night of The Spirit

The first three of these phases are preparation for what is to come. They may feel like the suffering of existence, albeit a bit more intense than usual. Several years may pass between the nights of the senses and the nights of the spirit. 

It is the passive night of the spirit that marks what we refer to as The Dark Night of The Soul.

The Passive Night of The Spirit
This phase may be described as a dark tunnel. John of the Cross suggests it includes these passive processes—that is, they feel like they are happening to you and you have zero control over stopping them (Ascent of Mount Carmel, 2023):
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1. Stripping away of mental faculties such as intellect, will, and memory.
2. Feelings of abandonment and aloneness.
3. The feeling of being deprived of good feelings, knowledge, and good memories.
4. Dark contemplation and removal of things we have affection for.
5. Feeling rejected or like an outcast even among friends and family.
6. The realization that the self is nothing and Reality is everything.
7. Multiple waves of increasingly intense and painful realizations.
8. The requirement for patience and letting go.

We can also break down the The Dark Night of The Soul into smaller stages. Several texts have done this and I will aim to consolidate and summarize these texts below (Buddhaghosa, 2020; Ingram, 2018; Sayadaw, 1994; Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society, n.d.). I think it’s helpful to note that these texts agree with John of the Cross that The Dark Night of The Soul starts after a period of illumination. 

Illumination
Here, many of us experience what is referred to as rapture, or intense joy, exhilaration, or ecstasy, often accompanied by goosebumps all over the body (Sayadaw, 1994). Nothing disturbs us—life is as it is, and we’re not mentally bothered by things at all.

The Beginning of The Dark Night of The Soul

1. Dissolution
Dissolution marks the beginning of The Dark Night of The Soul and involves the fading away of the joy and ecstasy we experienced during the illumination stage (Ingram, 2018). This can feel like a massive loss as our joy begins to evaporate. It may also appear that the ground and sky seem to shake or vibrate (Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society, n.d.).

2. Fear
Here, we realize that everything ends and that means everything in the future will end. This insight produces fear (Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society, n.d.). We may confront our fear of death or the fear of losing our loved ones.

3. Misery
In this stage, we feel miserable. All conditioned things (thoughts, emotions, experiences) seem empty and unsatisfying. When we go to objects in search of comfort (e.g., TV, food, alcohol, friends, family, exercise, etc…), none of them provide any sort of comfort. Instead, they feel grating—like nails on a chalkboard.

4. Disgust
As our misery continues, it gets to the point where we can not take delight in even the most desired of objects or situations. There is absolutely no joy that can be found in any noticed object. We feel completely alone and cut off from everything (Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society, n.d.). We become disgusted with the entire world of forms and our attachments fall away.

5. Desire for Truth
At some point, it will become crystal clear to us that there is no comfort, no joy, no happiness in the external world. So we stop wanting it. We deeply desire to escape from the world of objects, and we feel restless and unsettled (Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society, n.d.). Here we shift to wanting nothing but the Truth, whatever it may be. 

6. Re-observation
In re-observation, we review all of the previous Dark Night of The Soul stages in what feels like some kind of cruel joke. Whatever we didn’t fully confront in the earlier stages will come back up for us to face again. We may feel exhausted or heavy, and we may be hot or sweaty (Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society, n.d.). The material world is like a void, empty of anything lasting or meaningful (Buddhaghosa, 2020).
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We’re just ready for the parade of horribles to be over. But somehow we know that the only way to move through the pain is to witness every painful thought, feeling, and experience. By witnessing every formation fully, without judgment, they slowly dissolve, and we eventually move out of The Dark Night of The Soul.

We may move back and forth between stages of The Dark Night of The Soul, and eventually reach the other side. Once we’ve exited The Dark Night of The Soul, we may fall back into it if we haven’t fully witnessed everything we need to witness. 

The End of The Dark Night of The Soul – Equanimity​
After moving through The Dark Night of The Soul, we eventually arrive at a new stage, called equanimity, which leaves us feeling indifferent. This stage may feel like a huge relief after The Dark Night of The Soul. We now refuse to let our ego-mind get attached to objects—we understand that attachment to anything only causes suffering (Sayadaw, 1994). The ego-mind still exists but it’s not in charge anymore. In fact, we can now see how everything is happening on its own. 

During this stage, we may notice what is called “abandoning of fear”. If painful feelings or emotions arise, we are no longer disturbed by them. Then, we may notice what is called “abandoning of delight”. When we see desirable objects that used to bring us joy, no joy will arise. We become neutral to all formations (Sayadaw, 1994). 

The Dark Night of The Soul & Ego Death
After solidifying ourselves in equanimity, we may eventually recognize that everything is impermanent, without a self, and imbued with suffering. As a result, we can experience ego death—the complete loss of our sense of being a separate self. This is the stage where we discover “I am everything”.

I find these stage maps extremely helpful because my experience lines up with them almost perfectly. I experienced all the stages, in the order suggested. It wasn’t until I hit misery that I really started to crumble, and the pain of each stage got worse and worse over time (as the map suggests). 
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To read more about the experience in each stage, check out the article on Self-Transcendence.

Once I reached equanimity, I only just touched it (I recovered my energy and felt indifferent towards everything) before quickly falling back into The Dark Night of The Soul. When I fell back into The Dark Night of The Soul, I experienced an intense 2-hour sobbing session as I witnessed the progression of a negative thought spiral.

I watched it with all my concentration. It went from loneliness to thoughts of self-harm to suicidal thoughts. Intense grief then bubbled up at the realization that these painful thoughts just arose, one after another, without me having any control over them. I then fell into pure sadness, now understanding how thought forms had controlled me throughout my life—and how they still control others. It was deeply devastating.

You may commonly hear that The Dark Night of The Soul is similar to depression (like a spiritual depression; Wikipedia, n.d.-a). Indeed, The Dark Night of The Soul can include a whole range of negative emotions including hopelessness, sadness, shame, guilt, fear, and anger. These emotions arise in response to the loss of what one previously believed to be reality.

Equally as common in The Dark Night of The Soul are physical symptoms. One may experience strange bodily movements, twitches, vibrations, itchiness, digestive upsets, sweating, and many other symptoms. It’s always best to see a doctor. Often, if you’re in The Dark Night of The Soul, the doctors won’t be able to find any disease or cause for your symptoms.
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Learn more about symptoms by reading our article on Kundalini Awakening.

The Dark Night of The Soul progresses at different speeds. For each person, each stage may last hours, days, weeks, months, etc… Sometimes, we may get stuck in a stage. This may be particularly likely in Western contexts where we may enter The Dark Night of The Soul without understanding what’s happening to us. 

If you get stuck in an uncomfortable stage, just keep noticing your bodily experiences (e.g., what does it feel like in your body?) Try not to evaluate, name, or judge those experiences—just experience them and let them go (Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society, n.d.). Whatever happens—no matter how blissful or terrible—just try to witness it as an observer without letting the ego come in and claim it.

• “The Dark Night of the Soul is a period in life where we are stripped of everything that is false.” – Aletheia Luna
• “There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.” – Inayat Khan
• “The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation. When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.” – Joseph Campbell 
• “Before the full and final victory, however, the soul has to undergo another test: it must pass through the “dark night” which is a new and deeper experience of annihilation, or a crucible in which all the human elements that go to make it up are melted together.” – Roberto Assagioli
• “The dark night of the soul is a kind of death that you die. What dies is the egoic sense of self. Of course, death is always painful, but nothing real has actually died there – only an illusory identity.” – Eckhart Tolle
• “I have all the spiritual tools; none of them is going to work. None of them. That’s called The Dark Night of The Soul… you have no tool left. Sit with it. Experience it fully.”  Jac O’Keeffe

• Ascent of Mount Carmel. DigiCat, 2023. Summary retrieved 6/24/2024 from https://catholicstrength.com/tag/the-active-night-of-the-spirit/
• Buddhaghosa, B. (2020). The path of purification: Visuddhimagga. Pariyatti.
• Ingram, Daniel. (2018). Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book – Revised and Expanded Edition. Aeon Books.
• Sayadaw, M. (1994). The progress of insight: a treatise on satipatthana meditation. Buddhist Publication Society. Retrieved 6/24/2024 from https://www.vipassanadhura.com/ProgressofInsight.html
• Vipassana Dhurs Meditation Society. (n.d.) Retrieved 6/21/2024 from  https://www.vipassanadhura.com/sixteen.html
• Wikipedia. (n.d.-a). Dark Night of The Soul. Retrieved 6/24/2024 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul
• Wikipedia. (n.d.). Neti neti. Retrieved 6/25/2024 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti
• ​Wilber, K. (2007). Integral spirituality: A startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern world. Shambhala Publications.