Validity of bounds on light axions for <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>f</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≲</mml:mo> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>13</mml:mn> </

Light bosonic dark matter fields that can be treated like a classical wave have nonlinear field values close to massive bodies. Here we make the important observation that the quadratic interactions of axion dark matter lead to nonperturbative axion field values for values of the decay constant of <a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <a:mi>f</a:mi> <a:mo>≲</a:mo> <a:msup> <a:mn>10</a:mn> <a:mn>13</a:mn> </a:msup> <a:mtext> </a:mtext> <a:mtext> </a:mtext> <a:mi>GeV</a:mi> </a:math> and masses <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <c:mrow> <c:msub> <c:mrow> <c:mi>m</c:mi> </c:mrow> <c:mrow> <c:mi>a</c:mi> </c:mrow> </c:msub> <c:mo>≲</c:mo> <c:mn>7</c:mn> <c:mo>×</c:mo> <c:msup> <c:mrow> <c:mn>10</c:mn> </c:mrow> <c:mrow> <c:mn>8</c:mn> </c:mrow> </c:msup> <c:mo>/</c:mo> <c:mi>f</c:mi> <c:mtext> </c:mtext> <c:mtext> </c:mtext> <c:msup> <c:mrow> <c:mi>eV</c:mi> </c:mrow> <c:mrow> <c:mn>2</c:mn> </c:mrow> </c:msup> </c:mrow> </c:math> and generalize this result for axionlike particles. We identify experimental observables impacted by this effect.