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The most silent place on Earth could drive you crazy!

Credits: Wikimedia Commons

Do you have a need for calm, relaxation, peace and serenity? What could be better than a room in which absolute silence reigns supreme? This room however is so silent that it could in fact drive you crazy! Don’t worry, there is a scientific explanation for this…

In the Orfield laboratories in Minneapolis (United States) there is an anechoic chamber, or a ‘no echo’ chamber. This is considered an experimental chamber intended to measure acoustic (or electromagnetic) waves in free-field conditions, in other words, with no reverberation and thus no echo, as 99.9% of all sound is absorbed!

This room is quite simply the quietest place on Earth, and it was measured at -9.4 decibels, a record for quietness obtained in 2005. This area is a veritable goldmine for NASA and for musicians, but as a regular client, it is possible to try it out for yourself, experimenting with some time alone. This is a real challenge for those who dare to try it out, as apparently it is very difficult to remain in this anechoic chamber for more than a few dozen minutes.

We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark – one reporter stayed in there for 45 minutes….When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly….In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound”, explained Steven Orfield, creator of the room, as reported by Daily Mail.

Particularly unsettling, the experience does not stop there, and your body is really put to the test:

“How you orient yourself is through sounds you hear when you walk. In the anechoic chamber, you don’t have any cues. You take away the perceptual cues that allow you to balance and manoeuvre. If you’re in there for half an hour, you have to be in a chair”, continues Orfield.

The chamber was originally intended for the study of noise. In fact, it is made for testing out devices and instruments which aim to have fairly low noises, such as earphones, mobile phones, washing machines or car doors. Musicians also use it to test out their instruments.

However, it seems that silence, pushed to its extreme, can drive a person crazy, and this idea piqued the interest of NASA, who have made their own anechoic chambers. They use them to test out their astronauts, to see how long it takes before the stress caused by the absolute silence leads to hallucinations, and if the astronauts can handle them.

Orfield laboratories open up their chamber to the general public for a few hundred dollars, including a visit to the laboratories and a range of explanations regarding this exceptional room. So if you find yourself in Minneapolis one day (in the State of Minnesota), why not give it a go?

Sources: Atlas ObscuraThe Daily MailSlate