Total Isolation

[SpRi7e]

Here's an awesome psychology experiment where a group of researchers studied a group of volunteers mind before/during/after they experience a total sensory deprived environment.

here's the video link..
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 8614&hl=da#

This kind of reminds me of when I was in cyber school. It was just a really fucking weird time for me.. I was pretty much forced to be inside for a good 8 months. I developed a badd video game habit and for weeks at a time I wouldn't even go outside or look at the sun. I was in the my dark room with headphones on (outside senses deprived completely) and I had a bad relationship with my parents so I rarely talked to them. The way they described things felt almost identical to that sort of situation. Ever since that year I've been really interested in studying the mind under sensory deprivation. I've noticed that after once I started doing things again and didn't stay in my house all the time, that my senses and mind were either GREATLY heightened in certain areas, or they were completely shot, like my sense of direction. It would take me literally 10 times going somewhere to memorize how to get there at first. There were just certain parts of my mind that remained undeveloped and some that greatly increased, but I won't get in to that much because that's not in perfect correlation between my situation and the video. What I'm getting at with that though, is that my environment for that time was kind of like a low dose of this video, but for a longer period of time.

I want to someday go in a flotation tank maybe under a hallucinogen and experience a FULL sensory deprived environment. No sense of touch, sound, sight and just see where my mind takes me. It's almost like what they did, but a more powerful extreme to the whole isolation technique.

[WeedGuru_Flow]

Yeah I read and watched some documentaries on this, must be crazy to start hallucinating after a couple of hours in the dark with no sense of sight or hearing.

It's because the brain starts making up for stimuli that would normally come from the outside world.

Good video man!

[SpRi7e]

yeah, the hallucination is a lot like how when you're in the dark.. you think you see something, you think...either it's nothing, or you get afraid and it's now maybe a ghost, maybe a beast out to get you. Whatever it is, the fear boosts up your senses and with your brain lacking whatever you hear/see, it creates literally whatever your mind wants you to see. You get afraid there is a ghost or animal coming up to you and you're in the dark so you can't see it, but your mind is playing a trick on you. The trick is that since your brain doesn't know what it is, it almost creates an empty pocket in your mind, and since our minds constantly need to know what we are seeing/feeling/touching.. it creates its own visual or sound that it just kind of picks out of your head to use as a filler. When fear is involved, your brain is working at a faster pace, needing to put together those pieces of the puzzle quicker, but less rationally.. causing visual/auditory hallucinations as the result.

This is the same thing, your mind in these situations just needs a filler for it to keep itself going. When in extreme situations like this video where there are no senses being used, the filler has a MUCH wider array of things to come together in your brain. With each sense that is lost, it takes away that much more specificness to what it'll pull out of that magic hat in your head. These people saw clams, people, voices, the girl thought her bed was wet.. and where? in this SMALL room where it was obvious nothing happened.. but with each sense gone, it makes their perception of reality more and more altered through the brain not being able to narrow down what is really happening. Here's a diagram to kind of explain it..



Once it gets down to nothing, and there are so many different things that your brain could use as a filler, the hallucinations become very random and more lucid because it has no barriers restricting what it chooses to do anymore AS your mind builds that wall they were talking about that detaches you from your normal reality

I understand that was really unorganized and kind of hard to understand, but I had to blot my thoughts down before they were gone.

[andriaSRH]

That does not look fun at all lol

[SpRi7e]

It's a mental challenge, not recreational.

They use it as a way to torture people actually.. but they do it for way longer periods and from what the people said in the video, it ruined parts of their cognition forever

[andriaSRH]

Ohh I see. Yeah I didn't watch all the video I just skipped ahead to the interesting parts. @.@

[kravhen]

Fun fact: the guy from Fear Factor, Joe Rogan has an isolation tank in his basement, heard him talk about this before.

My question is: Does this happen if you turn blind or blind and deaf? would you start seeing hallucinations even with the loss of sight?

[SpRi7e]

Yeah I've read up all about Joe Rogan and his isolation tank experiences.. he actually seems like a cool realistic guy from all the times I've heard him speak.. Everything I've heard him talking about was through experience and intelligence, which he's got a lot of.

The thing that's different between having your senses HINDERED and being completely gone is completely different. Your body knows that there is a sense missing and it's all internally. It's not from any 3rd party reasons, so it doesn't go in to a kind of 'freak out' mode that I'll call it since the real name isn't poppin in my head. Your body gets adjusted to the changes with the internal mess-up and kind of just shuts that part of your thinking off (not really, but that's the best way to explain it right now). I think the sensory deprivation works mainly with your sight, combined with the other senses, but your sight is the most important role. Being in a completely dark area CAN bring out hallucinations, but that's (like i said) usually when something is causing your brain to work in overdrive mode and it can't pick out exactly what it is trying to pick up correctly.

It all differs with people though, like the guy who had a strong mental build from meditation and being introverted, it took him much longer for the symptoms of isolation to effect him. The guy who was a comedian and very extroverted was the one who took it the worst, and it's most likely because when under those circumstances.. your brain has a certain amount of stimulation needed, it's just all a matter of how MUCH it needs that. While they were in the isolation tank, it was very lightly explained that you build a wall barrier blocking your brain from not having the essential senses we need and it results in a sort of psychosis.

Another thing to note about it is that an isolation tank and being isolated in that room is slightly different. An isolation tank is meant purely to COMPLETELY block your senses resulting in faster hallucinations, with a less amount of psychosis. Time is a key role in this experiment because it's not supposed to be based on hallucinating. It's seeing what happens mentally in the longer term with a smaller dose of the isolation and seeing how that breaks down your cognition (your thought process)

here's a good way to explain it.. Think of the isolation tank as a STRONG dose of something lasting a short amount of time, and think of the isolation as exhibited in this video, would be a small dose of a constant supply. Time barriers in these situations are the key role in breaking down the mind, which is not the purpose of isolation tanks

[Bubbles]

my senses are so strong i can feel a person enter the room... in the building 2 blocks away.

i can hear a bird sing as it flutters through the amazon.

i can taste anything i imagine.

i can listen past silence and hear the screams of the dead.

i have average vision.

i am Canadian.


btw this thing sounds cool, ill watch it later when im done with tv.

[(weedguru)scarf]

im glad that im not the only one who thinks joe rogan is actually can an intelligent and articulate individual.
and quite fucking funny too...

interesting... i read a book by dean koontz based around sense deprivation and the ability to leave ones body and create a more powerful being through the subconcious... was a book that is always in my mind

[Weedguru Higher]

[Bubbles]

me and my buddies brother used to harass his brother by saying hes gay for joe rogan, eventually he agreed with it to try and get us to stop... we didnt..

[(weedguru)scarf]

id be gay for joe rogan

[pkkupo]

Cheers Spri7e. Thanks for the vid man, AND for sharing a short anecdote concerning your experience... I just got through watching... I like the juxtaposition of mild versus immediate sensory deprivation. The slow but steady approach seems a bit more harsh the way I see it... Karma for you, sir....

Also, I bet Joe Rogan is an epic lover...