Can Silence Actually Drive You Crazy?
Many stories have circulated claiming the longest anyone has stayed in an ultra-quiet anechoic chamber is 45 minutes, the reason being any longer would drive you insane. To me this sounded like unsubstantiated rubbish, like the claim the Great Wall is the only manmade structure visible from space. So I put my own psyche on the line, subjecting myself to over an hour of the most intense quiet on Earth.
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You see people go crazy after solitary confinement, so I suppose silence could make you go crazy because the only thing going on is the thoughts in your head.
True, but the length of time to go from "normal" to "a bit loopy" in solitary confinement seems to be on the order of years. From what little I've read on the topic, solitary confinement blocks are a lot louder than the anechoic chamber. Lots of beating, banging, screaming, etc. The surfaces are all concrete or stainless steel.
Being locked in a small, uncomfortable room filled with hard surfaces, intermittent screaming from outside, and no way to control your environment (I.E. temperature, lights) for 23 hours a day would drive any thinking person just a bit crazy.
I'd love to try this myself.
I think this would be a great place to meditate.
Sound reminds me that I exist.. I can't imagine how it would feel to hear absolutely nothing, and also have my eyes closed.
Now this I find fascinating. I know I'm getting a bit deep here, but... You need external stimuli in order to feel like you exist? So without any external stimuli, you fear you might not know whether you exist? What's left of you when you remove all external things? This starts to open a slim crack in a doorway towards a profound inner revelation. The Descartes quote "I think therefore I am" is incorrect, as any meditator will tell you. If your thoughts quieten down, you're still there, in fact you're MORE there. But what is this "you" that remains once all thoughts and all external stimuli have ceased? This is the question to be investigated...
You would hear all the little sounds your body makes.
I really dig this youtuber's videos. They're all very informative without being condescending.
Veritasium is awesome!