Why attend a retreat with Andrew Holecek

A psychedelic experience. No substances.

June 2024. A lucid dreaming retreat with Andrew Holecek. I was wearing a t-shirt that said “Wake TF up.” I had worn it all morning. Through yoga, through breakfast. About 15 people around me and not one had noticed. When Andrew sat down, within seconds, pointed at my chest, and asked everyone at the table to read the shirt. The whole group laughed. Andrew smiled. Andrew sees what is there. Not because he is trying. Because he is awake.

What Andrew teaches

Andrew Holecek has spent decades mapping the territory between waking and sleeping. His work spans what he calls the five nocturnal meditations: liminal dreaming, lucid dreaming, dream yoga, sleep yoga, and bardo yoga. These practices cover the full spectrum of nighttime consciousness. He also teaches extensively on preparing to die, drawing from the Tibetan Buddhist bardo teachings to help people meet death (and life) with less fear and more clarity.

What sets Andrew apart is how naturally he moves between traditions. He completed the traditional Tibetan Buddhist three-year meditation retreat, has published scientific papers on lucid dreaming, holds a doctorate in dental surgery, and holds a degree in classical music. He is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. None of it fits in one box, and his teaching reflects that. Science and contemplative practice sit side by side in his work, not competing, converging.

Andrew is also likely the most prolific Western author writing and speaking about dark retreat. He has been practicing dark retreat for nearly three decades and is currently working with scientists across multiple institutions to study why the practice is so transformative. His upcoming book Total Eclipse of the Mind is the first in a series dedicated entirely to dark retreat. He calls it the single most transformative practice he has ever done. That includes all fifty-plus meditations from his three-year retreat.

Andrew shared precise, detailed information throughout the retreat, but I could tell he wanted more than the details to land. He wanted the experience to sink in. I treat retreats like meditations, staying present rather than documenting, and this one was no different. The teaching came through Andrew’s presence, the others in the room, and the nature around us as much as through the words. It was a psychedelic experience without substances.

What a retreat with Andrew feels like

Andrew structures his retreats around direct experience. There are teachings, yes, but also discussion groups, contemplation questions, time in nature, and space to sit with what arises. One evening he asked: “Which aspects of this world seem the most real to you, and why? Which aspects do you most easily experience as illusory?” Then he sent us into small groups to sit with the questions. Not to find answers. To let the questions do their work.

The pace is unhurried. The depth is real. By the second day, ordinary perception started to soften. Colors looked different. Conversations landed in the body instead of the head. The boundary between teaching and experience got thin. Nobody took anything, but something was clearly shifting. His intelligence shows up not as performance but as attention. He notices the details. He listens before he speaks. He holds the room with a presence that makes you want to pay closer attention to your own life.

How to connect with Andrew

If you can attend an in-person retreat, do it. You will experience his teaching with your own senses, and there is a transmission that happens in person that no recording can replicate. Andrew teaches at venues like Menla Mountain Retreat in New York, Blue Spirit in Costa Rica, and the Omega Institute, among others.

If in-person is not possible, Andrew runs Night Club: likely the most active digital community on lucid dreaming and nocturnal meditation in the West. Night Club is more than a forum. It hosts deep multi-session courses on topics like the power of dark retreat, dream yoga, and sleep yoga. These courses carry the same depth and presence as his in-person teaching. It also includes dream journals, ongoing guidance, and a community of practitioners at every level. He hosts the Night Club Podcast and the Edge of Mind Podcast as well.

For current retreats and events, visit andrewholecek.com.

Books to start with

Dream Yoga is the one I would put in your hands first. It reignited my passion for dream yoga because it connected Eastern and Western traditions without forcing either to bend. Stephen LaBerge wrote the foreword. The Tibetan lineage holders wrote the rest. Andrew holds both with equal respect, and the reader benefits from that rare balance. If you have been practicing lucid dreaming and want to understand why the Tibetan tradition calls it yoga, this book is where that bridge becomes clear.

Dreams of Light is the daytime companion. It focuses on illusory form practice: learning to see the dreamlike nature of waking reality. If the nighttime practices are clicking but the days still feel solid, this is the book.

Preparing to Die is for anyone willing to look at death directly. It combines practical guidance (advance directives, hospice, stages of grief) with heart advice from some of the most respected Tibetan Buddhist teachers in the West. It is one of the bravest books I have read on the subject.

Reverse Meditation turns toward what most practitioners avoid. Pain, difficulty, unwanted experience. Andrew’s approach is to move into it rather than away from it. If you have ever suspected that your discomfort is the doorway, this book will confirm it and show you how to walk through.

The kind of teacher who changes what you notice

If you want to deepen your awakeness, Andrew is a teacher who will transmit those teachings to you. Not through theory alone, but through the quality of his attention. The kind of attention that catches a t-shirt no one else saw and turns it into the lesson of the morning.

Some teachers give you practices. Andrew gives you a way of seeing.