Nightwalking: exploring the dark with peripheral vision - includes tips on nightwalking

Whole Earth Review, Fall, 1991 by Nelson Zink, Stephen Parks

A friend heard what we were doing and tipped us off to Alexandra David-Neel, who for some years studied and toured in Tibet. In Magic and Mystery in Tibet, she describes her encounter wit and investigation of Lung-gom-pas, Tibetan spiritual walkers of extraordinary ability. According to David-Neel, "The walker must neither speak, nor look from side to side. He must keep his eyes fixed on a single, object and never allow his attention to be attracted by anything else. When the trance state has been reached, though normal consciousness is for the greater part suppressed, it remains sufficiently alive to keep the walker aware of the obstacles in his way and mindful of his direction and goal." We felt in good company.

Nightwalking became one of the most consistently relaxing and exhilarating experiences either of us had ever had. The reports, ancient and modern, turned out to be true - employing secand sight did facilitate a distinct change in perception and sense of wellbeing. Not only were we learning to travel freely in the dark; it was becoming apparent that this capability connected us more directly to the non-conscious. Far from being a storehouse of fear, we found it an incredible protector, dedicated to our safety and happiness.

Just to make sure we weren't doing something that might cause undue eye strain, we thought it might be wise to take an optometrist on a Nightwalk. We contacted a respected Santa Fe practitioner who initially sounded skeptical but agreed to join us. Not only did he give us a clean bill of health, but by the end of his first walk he was speculating about the possible value of Nightwalking in treating myopia.

We began wandering whether Nightwalking would prove as exciting and useful for others as it did for us. So we planned a training which was divided into four sessions of about three hours each, covering various terrains and their attendant challenges.

The first group of a dozen trainees assembled shortly after sundown in the dry stream bed of the Rio de la Truchas, on Bureau of Land Management land between Santa Fe and Taos. Hats and rods were passed out along with simple instructions: Watch the rod tip and keep it up near the horizon, walk slowly and start to notice the scenery to the sides as you pass by. With a sense of mystery and excitement this first group set out, walking single-file into the twilight.

Musashi had given instructions for a particular kind of stance to practice while using secand sight. We had fiddled with it early on but found that the stance came naturally while engaging in secand sight. We wandered if people would automatically adopt this stance as they became more proficient at Nightwalking. They did, and we found we could tell if a particular person was using secand sight just by watching their walk.

After three hours of practice, almost everyone could experience a full visual field, walk over mixed terrain, and experience that characteristic sense of calm and exhilaration. During the secand session, most could move their attention around within the visual field without moving their eyes, and were becoming comfortable in the dark. One middle-aged real estate salesman was struck by how patterns in nature were captured by peripheral vision - the geometry of prickly pear cactus, for example. A young woman reported that she had suddenly realized she'd never really relaxed before.