Aeon ........
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What's your opinion on all this?
It really depends on how you define dark night. I don't think it's helpful to use that term in reference to meditation, it is not used in the original description of the progress of insight - it is a modern/western invention.
But when you start to observe the activity of the mind you often release unpleasant suppressed thoughts and emotions and that can be difficult. Depending on the person and what is suppressed it can be mild or traumatic - some people wish they had never started meditating to begin with and will stop, other people don't notice much difference from the normal ups and downs of life. Samatha meditation can help to relive some of the emotional pain and sometimes I think it is wise to take a break, do less of the kind of practice that leads to releasing. I don't agree that there is a particular stage where this is likely to happen. As one continues with their meditation practice they perceive subtler and subtler mental phenomena and uncover more and more strongly suppressed thoughts and feelings. POI followers may call this "cycling" I don't see it as circular I see it as a kind of linear progress, not related to other "stages" - as deepening. (In my opinion, cycling is a way to force a preconceived idea onto a system that it does not really apply to - like epicycles were used to explain retrograde motion of planets.
People can have repeat experiences during meditation but I don't see that as orderly progression of stages - in my experience it has to do with combinations of factors that influence the meditative experience: nutrition (fluctuating biochemistry stress hormones, neurotransmitters, blood sugar levels), sleep, stress or lack of it in daily life, amount of meditation done, etc etc. These things vary and produce repeated experiences but are random not cyclic.
Those factors can produce A&P type experiences as well as "dark night" experiences when you meditate but are due to chance events in life and have nothing to do with meditation stages.Also when you start to see that the mind and self is not what we think it is, that can turn your worldview upside down and cause problems too. But it depends a lot on the individual person. Some people are flighty and react strongly to things and other people are stoical and are not phased by anything. Three people can have the same experience and one person will say they dissociated and go to a psychiatrist, another will post here to discuss their enlightenment, and a third will think it's a better alternative to getting high.
I don't agree that there is a stage where it will definitely happen because people are different and they wake up differently. Some people wake up without meditating at all - skipping all stages of the path. If that can happen, then it seems likely that some meditators will skip any particular step that can be hypothesized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_SoulThe Dark Night of the Soul (La noche oscura del alma) is a phase of passive purification of the spirit in the mystical development, as described by the 16th-century Spanish mystic and poet St. John of the Cross in his treatise Dark Night (Noche Oscura), a commentary on his poem with the same name. It follows after the second phase, the illumination in which God's presence is felt, but this presence is not yet stable. The author himself did not give any title to his poem, which together with this commentary and the Ascent of Mount Carmel (Subida del Monte Carmelo) forms a treatise on the active and passive purification of the senses and the spirit, leading to mystical union.[1] In modern times, the phrase "dark night of the soul" has taken on the broader meaning of spiritual dryness and existential doubt and loneliness.
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Dark Night of the Soul
On a dark night,
Kindled in love with yearnings
–oh, happy chance!–
I went forth without being observed,
My house being now at rest.
In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder, disguised
–oh, happy chance!–
In darkness and in concealment,
My house being now at rest.
In the happy night,
In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught,
Without light or guide, save that which burned in my
heart.
This light guided me
More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me–
A place where none appeared.
Oh, night that guided me,
Oh, night more lovely than the dawn,
Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover,
Lover transformed in the Beloved!
Upon my flowery breast,
Kept wholly for himself alone,
There he stayed sleeping, and I caressed him,
And the fanning of the cedars made a breeze.
The breeze blew from the turret
As I parted his locks;
With his gentle hand he wounded my neck
And caused all my senses to be suspended.
I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
...
The dark night of the soul is a stage of final and complete purification, and is marked by confusion, helplessness, stagnation of the will, and a sense of the withdrawal of God's presence.[note 1] It is the period of final "unselfing" and the surrender to the hidden purposes of the divine will. The final stage is union with the object of love, the one Reality, God. Here the self has been permanently established on a transcendental level and liberated for a new purpose.[7]
