I’ve read that quiet rooms and pitch black apparently cause hallucinations and whatnot because the brain is always looking for stimulus. Why is a break in stimulus not good? Can’t the brain just be like “aw yeah, silence let’s chill”?
In: 24
Well, the brain is a curious organ, always seeking stimulation
Without any input, it starts making up its own entertainment, which could be a bit trippy in a pitch black room.
Probably because nothing like this exists in a natural state. The only place that might be close is the womb, which obviously nobody can remember
It’s used as a therapy and as a torture. whether it’s good or bad generally depends on consent and desire.
It can be bad or good, it really depends on what someone has within them. Concept of time will be irrelevant, there is nothing to listen for besides yourself, nothing to visually perceive, and if doing it in saltwater, you’ll even lose the sensation of weight, along with that electric field constantly running through and around you.
Your body will have to do much less, and even though you are awake, it’ll be like you are dreaming, essentially, down to brainwave patterns. Your thoughts will go into overdrive essentially, bc you have all that energy to burn on basically only that. As for what you start to see/hear/think when most external stimulus is removed, that varies person to person. Could be relaxing journey through the void, could be a kill-box where every repressed sin manifests.
Either way, sensory deprivation, no matter how many senses you cut, has a massive self-discovery element to it, and some people reject themselves or their circumstances so violently that they induce a panicked psychosis. Others accept all and/or nothing, and experience tranquil peace…and then some people just fall asleep lol.
I’ve been in sensory depravation chambers a few times in 1hr sessions and ive found it pretty relaxing
Humans evolved in an environment that was never entirely devoid of stimulation for long periods of time, but the level of stimulation can vary wildly from weak and subtle to huge and overwhelming. To cope with the huge variation in level of stimulation, the brain evolved mechanisms to attenuate or amplify the signals coming in from the sensory organs to a level the brain can work with.
If a person is placed in an environment utterly devoid of sensory stimulation, the brain behaves as if the stimulation must be there, but just too subtle to detect at that time, so increases the amplification. Eventually it becomes so sensitive to the input signals it is getting that it begins to react to the random fluctuation of the body’s sensory organs. An example of this is, if it’s really quiet for a while, you begin to notice the sound of your breathing and heartbeat. The human body is never entirely inactive, so it will randomly generate weak “noise”. Normally, that is overwhelmed by real signals, but in their absence, the brain starts to listen to them and assign meaning, hence hallucinations.
Basically in evolutionary terms, humans never existed in a zero-stimulation environment for more than brief periods, so the brain never evolved a “let’s chill” setting.
It’s kind of like when you’re laying in the quiet dark at night, your mind can’t help but become stimulated by thoughts since there’s nothing else going on.
Latest Answers