
Earth’s Quietest Place Will Drive You Crazy in 45 Minutes - acheron
http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/12/earths-quietest-place-will-drive-you-crazy-in-45-minutes/
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Theodores
This story drives me crazy because it pops up on HN every 45 days!

Top instances from Google search:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=161333](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=161333)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4053296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4053296)

For novelty, here is the noisy relative:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_\(filmmaking\))

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XaspR8d
I've used anechoic chambers of varying quietness for making high-quality voice
recordings a handful of times in the last year. I have to say that the effect
of being inside always surprises me. The air seems to have such an ethereal
dullness to it, it's hard to explain. And even though everyone conversing in
the room can hear each other in a literal sense, there is a constant feeling
of your voice being lost and an inability to gauge the size of the room
(probably the lack of echo reinforcement, I assume).

Maybe I'm overstating the experience a bit because I find it so interesting,
but most of my close colleagues agreed it evokes a clear emotional reaction.

EDIT: I should say I've done this very infrequently, so I don't make any
claims about people being unable to acclimate or what kind of tolerance
variance there is. We had a few subjects that didn't think anything of it at
all. (Although they were much older; maybe tinnitus diminishes the effect.)

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cypherpunks01
This seems exaggerated.

"In the anechnoic chamber, 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."

The average person can walk for more than a half hour with loud headphones on
without falling over. People use float tanks and other sensory deprivation
methods for an hour plus, all the time.

~~~
simonrobb
I've been in one of these before briefly, and I'll agree it immediately
affects your balance - in a way that wearing headphones doesn't. Not sure why,
perhaps the brain only uses these cues below a certain threshold of sound.

That was in a chamber with the lights on, and only for a few minutes. I won't
discount the possibility that after a half hour it could be very difficult to
maintain balance.

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nitrogen
I enjoyed my brief visits to a couple of anechoic chambers. The quiet was very
relaxing, and the few sounds that were present I could pinpoint precisely
without looking. I think it'd be a useful place to meditate for maybe 10-15
minutes at a time.

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staunch
Bah hum bug. People vary too much to make a claim like this. It may take some
practice but I bet you can learn to deal with it for much longer periods.

~~~
vacri
Of course, the article says as much when it talks about astronauts.

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fiatmoney
Sensory deprivation has well-known adverse psychological effects, which is why
long-term solitary confinement is known as a type of torture.

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zacinbusiness
I don't even like sitting in my office if it's too quiet. And that's with
three dogs running around. I almost always listen to Spotify when I'm working.
Interestingly, I can read in total silence and in fact I prefer to. I'm unsure
why. Both require concentration.

~~~
X4
You surely don't mean total silence like in the article, but in a relatively
silent room. I can imagine that you need the silence to build the worlds and
for sensemaking, when you read.

The mode your brain works in the office and when reading a book are entirely
different. You can visually, emotionally, auditory, or sensually build worlds
just using your imagination which is fed by reading the words and sentences of
your book. In the office, you can at most have a daydream though. What you do
at the office is switching between multiple inputs and silence would only
intensify individual signals. That's why many people like to hear music or
prefer a little more noise to reduce the intensity the inputs have on you. By
input I mean each task you do, including observing things, selecting and
choosing the actions you want to do, plan in advance, keep a record and order
of things, imagine future action, or dream about outcomes. and situations

~~~
zacinbusiness
Oh yeah I don't mean like....maddeningly silent...just a quiet room without,
say, a television. I can read on an airplane and generally that's what I do on
transatlantic flights. Luckily, I'm able to read in a car as well, I know some
people get sick if they try to read while on the road.

That's true about having a single input that you can sort of control, and I
think that makes sense as to why I listen to music while working.

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GigabyteCoin
If it was dark and completely silet, yea... I probably couldn't last too long.

If there were lights on like in the picture, of if I had my laptop to surf the
net... I imagine I could stay in there for days!

~~~
X4
I thought the same, but don't forget about the sounds of your laptop you
usually don't hear. And your heartbeat, stomach, all the abdominal noises,
even your own breathing noise will start to annoy you. Let's exclude the
deprivation from any physical or social contact (ok, admitted. for hackers
that's maybe not such a big problem). I don't think that wifi works in such a
chamber.

