Learning to Befriend the Dark: Dreams, the Womb, and the Medicine of Night

For many years, I feared the nighttime.

I struggled deeply with sleeping alone in the dark. As the transition from day into night arrived, I felt it viscerally in my body. My stomach would drop, followed by uneasy, anxious, unsettled sensations in the base of my stomach. I found it hard to stay present as the moon replaced the sun and vast darkness replaced vast blue.

There was something about that threshold—the transition from daytime to nighttime—that activated a sense of dread within me.

I remember being a little girl and feeling grief when the clock struck noon. As morning gave way to afternoon, I felt a subtle sadness move through me. I judged myself for feeling these changes in light so deeply, believing there was something wrong with me for being so affected.

What I have learned over the past decade is that I am not alone in this. I am part of a collective of deeply feeling, depth-oriented souls who are highly attuned to the subtle shifts in light that occur throughout the day. I’ve come to understand that simply naming and honoring these transitions is profoundly regulating.

In doing so, I’ve begun to reclaim my relationship with the dark—and the unique wisdom and medicine she holds.

My Soul’s Lessons from Being Alone in the Dark

It wasn’t until I began unpacking my relationship with my mother more deeply that something clicked.

Being alone in a dark bedroom was echoing something much older in my psyche: the experience of being alone in a dark womb.

And that womb did not feel peaceful. It felt chaotic, anxious, and unsafe.

My nervous system recognized darkness not as rest, but as a threat. Nighttime wasn’t just night; it was memory. It was my body remembering something my conscious mind had long forgotten.

Naming this was so liberatory. I felt so much compassion for the part of me that struggled with the dark. And in that compassion, a new relationship with the dark became possible.

Dreaming as a Bridge Between Psyche and Spirit

…and so, I began embracing the dark and allowing her to be my wise, Goddess teacher.

I started using my dreams as a space to work this psychic knot through.

Before bed, I would pray quietly:

Spirit, soul, psyche—thank you for helping me use my dream space to heal my relationship with the dark.

Through this dream practice, the dark stopped feeling like a terrifying enemy and began to feel like a sacred partner—one with intelligence, depth, and voice. I began looking forward to the evening and dreamtime as a way to continue healing and deepening my relationship with Spirit.

The Dark as Teacher

The dark is teacher; Goddess;

She is wild.
She is shadow.
She is dream.
She is psyche itself.

In a world so devoted to light, productivity, clarity, and forward motion, the dark is often misunderstood or avoided altogether. We are taught—explicitly or implicitly—to fear it, transcend it, or bypass it.

But the dark holds its own medicine.

She teaches us about resting.
About sleeping.
About surrendering into the unknown.
About the intelligence of stillness.
About the wisdom of not knowing.

Winter is her season.
Night is the space from which she speaks.
Dreams are her stage—evolutionary doorways into our subcioncious that allow us to play, heal, learn, digest, and metabolize our life, and resolve issues.

I’m still learning from the dark.
And I suspect I always will be.

A Guided Sleep Journey for Transitioning from Day to Night

Because the transition from day to night can be especially activating for highly attuned nervous systems—and especially for those who experience nighttime anxiety or fear of the dark—I recorded a guided audio sleep journey to support you with moving through this threshold:

“Sleep Journey: Transitioning from Day to Night” is designed to be practiced lying down in bed before you go to sleep, and to support you to:

• Orient your psyche and your body

• Release the day and welcome the night

• Build a kinder, safer relationship with nighttime

Resources for Healing Your Relationship with the Dark

If you feel called to explore your own relationship with darkness, dreams, shadow, and night, here are resources that have deeply supported me and many of my clients on their own healing journeys:

Prayer

I invite you to pray before bed. I have found it to be incredibly supportive with deepening my relationship with Spirit and allowing my dream space to become even more rich, fruitful, and applicable to my daily life. Use these prayers or create your own!

Spirit, soul, psyche: thank you for helping me use my dream space to heal my relationship with the dark.

Spirit, angels, guides, ancestors, Archangel Michael: Thank you for protecting me and my home as I sleep. Thank you for helping me to experience deep and restorative sleep.

Books & Teachings

• Your True Nature Oracle, by Heather Waxman (yes, me!)
  A sacred ritual that includes many oracle cards and messages about embracing our own “inner winter” and embracing and integrating shadow aspects of ourselves.

• Dreaming Deeper by Madeline Giles
  A powerful guide to dream incubation, dream prayer, and the psyche’s nocturnal language.

• Waking Up to the Dark by Clark Strand
  A poetic reclamation of darkness as a spiritual teacher, inspired by the Black Madonna.

• Women Who Run with the Wolves and Mother Night by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
  Essential texts for understanding the wild psyche, shadow, and soul restoration

Astrology & Archetypal Wisdom

• Chani Nicholas’ podcast episode on Lilith and Black Moon Lilith
  A stunning exploration of exile, shadow, and reclamation through astrology, mythology of Lilith, and Black Moon Lilith

A Closing Invitation

If the dark has felt overwhelming, frightening, or activating for you, there may be a story your body is holding that needs recognition and naming. If this is true for you, may you uncover this story with ease and grace, and may it inspire you to journey with the dark in your own sacred way.

With care,
Heather

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