Third Wave host Paul Austin interviews Ian Gardner, founder of Acrya, a company building dark-retreat rooms marketed as an advanced contemplative practice. Gardner situates dark retreats in monastic and esoteric traditions across Buddhism, the Tibetan Bön tradition, Christianity and Islam, arguing that sensory deprivation removes everyday “anchor points” and brings subconscious material to the surface.
Gardner makes several medical and metaphysical claims about the experience, including that around day three or four the pineal gland begins producing endogenous DMT and that retreatants can access vivid “inner worlds” with greater stability than on psychedelics. He also claims, without providing data, that some teenagers diagnosed with ADD/ADHD report improved focus after 48–72 hours in darkness, and he recounts anecdotal healing narratives.
A large portion of the conversation focuses on Acrya’s business model and infrastructure. Gardner says he aims to build 2,000 dark rooms globally over 10 years, with rooms under development in Costa Rica, Nepal and Bali. He describes a three-part structure (a non-profit “church”, a for-profit real-estate development arm, and a technology company) and outlines a sensor-based safety system he says is adapted from Israel’s nursing-home industry, designed to monitor vital signs and flag distress. He also describes voice-note capture and remote facilitation features, including real-time translation. Gardner says Acrya plans a study with the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Research and the Harvard Meditation Center to measure physiological effects such as hormone changes and DMT levels.
Gardner says Acrya’s dark rooms use hardwired sensors, described as derived from Israel’s nursing-home sector, to monitor retreatants’ heart rate, temperature, respiration and movement. He says the system is designed to flag escalating distress and enable staff intervention if someone appears at risk of a “breakthrough” or “psychotic break” scenario.
Read this moment →Gardner claims that teenagers diagnosed with ADD/ADHD who spend 48–72 hours in darkness sometimes report they “don’t have ADHD” and attribute improved focus to time away from phones. He offers the account as an anecdote while arguing that modern overstimulation affects attention, without describing any study design, sample size, or clinical assessment.
Read this moment →Gardner says Acrya plans a study at its Costa Rica site with the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Research and the Harvard Meditation Center to measure physiological effects of extended darkness. He says researchers would track DMT levels, hormones and other markers to document healing accounts he describes as anecdotal.
Read this moment →Ian Gardner alleges that by the third or fourth day of a dark retreat, the pineal gland starts producing endogenous DMT. He argues this makes “inner worlds” more accessible in a way he likens to psychedelic experiences, but offers no evidence for the biological mechanism.
Read this moment →Ian Gardner, founder of Acrya, says he is planning a rapid expansion of dark-retreat rooms, targeting 2,000 rooms globally within a decade. He frames the effort as making an esoteric contemplative practice more accessible, and links recent Western interest to existing retreat centres and long waiting lists for some facilities.
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