“Psychiatrist and cult watcher Dr. John Clark reports that ex-members have more than the normal number of nightmares, many of which are about their past in the cult. He also thinks that cult members frequently experience what has been called “black sleep,” sleep without dreams or without the usual form of dreams. Experiencing black sleep is like falling into utter blackness, into a pit, and coming out of it with a start, whout any consciousness of even having been asleep.”

—Willa Appel, from Cults in America: Programmed for Paradise, 1983.