As you know, after the pandemic started, there was a situation of closure to homes around the world. Thereupon, French researcher Christian Clot wondered what the limits for people to adapt to social isolation were and started an experiment.
Then, 15 participants, aged between 27 and 50, 8 men and 7 women, embarked on an adventure in the cave where they would live for 40 days without a phone, clock or daylight. So what was the result of this experiment?
The aim of the experiment was to observe people’s reactions when they lost their sense of time and space.
For this reason, the brain activities and mental functions of the participants were analyzed before they entered the cave, so that comparisons could be made after the research was completed. Clot stated that at first, the participants had trouble adapting to the cave, and that they were sleepless for a few days. Participants slept in tents inside the cave and were strictly forbidden to wake each other up.
And anyway, everyone was free, as Clot told the participants that they could sleep and eat whenever they wanted. Because of this, no one knew for sure how long he slept. In other words, we can say that the team leader left people to their own devices and asked them to plan their days according to their intuition.
As time went on, it was seen that people who could not sleep initially slept and woke up in harmony with the group. In fact, this was a kind of result that made people say that ‘man can adapt to everything in time’.
In addition, the volunteers had to generate their own electricity and cook their food naturally. Cave electricity came from a bicycle connected to a generator. As the volunteers pedaled, the bicycle supplied electricity.
For example, not all parts of the cave were illuminated, only a part of it was allocated electricity. Of course, this made difficult living conditions even more difficult.
People even drew water from a well 45 meters underground to cook food and meet their water needs. According to the researcher’s explanation, the shower event was unfortunately a bit of a problem. Because the cave was already very cold and humid, the environment was not very suitable for showering.
Something rather surprising was discovered in the experiment: The volunteers’ one-day time cycles were more than 24 hours.
Participants usually spent their days doing activities such as exploring the cave, examining insects, growing plants/vegetables. One of the interesting details noticed at the end of the experiment was that for most participants the days were longer than 30 hours. It was even found that a day for a female participant was 40 hours; He slept only 23 times in 40 days.
This interesting finding is, “Isn’t a day really 24 hours? Does time completely depend on our perception of it? Of course, these are a bit of a joke. Because the people experimenting in this cave have no concept of day and night. Therefore, it is not possible to change the perceptions of time.
While all this was going on, some scientific measurements were made on the participants, thanks to the electricity provided by bicycles inside the cave. For example, volunteers were given a drug that remained in the body for 3-4 days so that their body temperature could be measured.
When this drug traveled through the digestive system, the degree of body temperature could be understood. According to the team leader, taking this measurement was an important detail that helped to understand the effect of the experiment on the body, as body temperature changes around the clock.
Devices were placed in the bodies of the volunteers to measure sleep patterns. Apart from that, blood samples were taken and brain chemicals were monitored. While all this was being done, they were being watched by cameras.
Clot stated that they have a lot of data and that this data is processed by 12 laboratories around the world. In terms of being a research carried out in about a month, we can say that it is a small but comprehensive research.
You know what shocked everyone after the experiment was over?
When the volunteers were asked how many days they might have spent in the cave, most of them speculated, “I guess it’s around 30 days”. According to them, there was still a long time until the end of the experiment, so as you can see, there was a 10-day shift in their time perception.
When Clot told them, “Experiment is over, let’s go”, most of them didn’t want to leave the cave and had a hard time leaving it mentally. We can say that this was the most interesting finding of the experiment.
The funny thing is, some participants even wanted to go back to the cave after the experiment was over. Clot also stated that the 3 volunteers participating in the research insistently want to participate in such experiments.
In addition, the expert stated that he will gather a team and go to the Brazilian rainforests and Siberia to test the difficult living conditions again. Well, would you participate in an experiment that had to be lived in an environment with such difficult conditions? You can share your thoughts with us in the comments.
- Sources: BBC, Business Insider
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