WEBVTT - Sensory Deprivation Chambers 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:15.120 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.880 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.640 this week we are talking about sensory deprivation. Uh. This 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:25.120 is an interesting stuff that we've we've touched on here 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.360 and there in the past, but we are this time. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.520 We are talking about the tank. We're talking about the water. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.360 We're talking about immersing yourself in what John C. Lily 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.360 referred to in the introduction to the Beak self as 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:42.080 the womb to tomb wet box, which sounds lovely, right, Yeah, 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.559 I want that for myself. But I kind of do 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.720 want that for myself, just because I have seen these 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.640 wonderful photos of people floating around in the Dead Sea, 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.120 which is full of water, right, people live, people with 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.320 these beatific smiles on their face. And apparently the salt 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.240 content is is makes the water so buoyant that it 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.800 feels like this sort of zero gravity experience. So I've 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.760 always thought that seems pretty neat. Um, what's the deal 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:09.800 with that? Well, you can have that sort of experience, 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:14.600 albeit in this sort of tomb like coffin. Uh. Well, 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.479 I wouldn't. I mean, yes, it is kind of coffin esque, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:19.680 but I wouldn't, you know, I think of it more 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.160 of as a more of a like a space sarcophagus. 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:25.360 You know, there are there are different iterations of it, 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.960 and some of them look really slick and very much 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.080 like they would be on some sort of spacecraft. And yeah, 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.920 like I like to think of, you know, like those 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.280 those pods that people you know enjoy hyper sleep then 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:42.759 in the science fiction stories. Exactly right, Um, so this 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.959 is you know, this is this idea of the suspended hibernation. 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.480 This this idea that we could have a forced shutdown 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.760 of our brain without dying, and perhaps there would be 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.560 some sort of benefit to it. And there's a long 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:02.000 tradition of studying this, the sensory deprivation which causes this 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.360 this forced shutdown. So we're going to discuss some of 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:07.280 that today, and I thought it would probably be helpful 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.959 to talk a little bit about, um some of our 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:16.560 other podcast episodes before, particularly Splendid Isolation, when we talked 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.079 about what happens when, um, you are isolated and when 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:25.160 your senses are deprived of stimuli, and also touch on 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.320 the default mode network. Really quickly because we talked about 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.880 this with the science of hallucinogens. We've talked about it 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.000 meditation and yoga. This idea that this part of your brain, 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.720 the default mode network, is causing that constant shatter buzz 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:45.160 in your brain which can sometimes lead to depression. Yeah, 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.440 so let's talk a little bit about the brain and 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.600 it's and it's sensory input. I like to think. I 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:52.840 like to think of it this way. I invite everyone 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.560 else out there to think of the most media addicted 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.640 person in your life. Uh, the person who is just 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.720 they're constantly on Twitter, They're constantly uh, you know, checking 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:05.120 their Facebook status, They're they're using four Square, they always 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.960 have earbuds in, uh, fingers typing away. They just have 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.200 to be connected to all these things. So they're like 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:14.239 they're doing Twitter, they're doing live Twitter updates, while they're 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.800 watching some show on t vow. Everything is connected. And 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.360 then what happens when you break them away, if you've 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.080 ever successfully broken them away from those things, that it 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.440 changes them. There's like a shock that goes through their system, 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.799 sometimes for the better, maybe sometimes for the worst, but 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.080 their sensory input has has has altered, and it has 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:34.960 altered how they feel about the world around them and 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.920 how they interact with the world around them. Well, on 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.520 a more basic level, sensory deprivation involves robbing the brain 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.560 of a lot of its inputs. Our brain is constantly 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.600 chewing on stuff. Uh, it's chewing on thoughts, and it's 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.280 chewing on all the sensory input that's coming into us. 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.040 It's chewing on the sites, the smells, the sounds, the taste, 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:57.640 various other senses that we've just discussed in the path 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.520 that are further down the list. But it's it's processing 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.560 all this, it's crunching it, it's making sense of the 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.400 world around it. And what happens when you cut off 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.680 even one or two or three of those senses, well, 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.400 you see that chatter go down, specifically in the medial 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:17.240 prefrontal prefrontal cortex, the medial parietal cortex, in the medial 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:21.200 temporal lobes, because this is where uh, most of the 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:25.160 activity activity occurs when you have repetitive thoughts. It's sort 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.960 of the cohesive, the center of self, the ego of 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.320 the brain. And when you can shut down some of 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.400 that stimuli, well, then, as we've seen with meditation or 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.719 with some of these studies with hallucinogens and depression. It 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.000 gets pretty quiet there, and that is the goal of 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.720 some of the sensory deprivation. So, as we've discussed before, 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.640 this ties into the basic eye story that ends up 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:53.000 clogging up most of our brains all the time, this 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.599 story that we put ourselves at the center off and 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.480 it's the constant chatter that's telling you, hey, you're you're 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.520 not doing it right, you're doing it wrong, you're really 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.000 screwing up this podcast, that kind of thing, and uh, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:05.479 and then you have to to shut that down in 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.840 order to properly focus on anything that's right. So there 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.960 are a lot of benefits here for having sensory deprivation 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.840 in your life, right, Um, But there is a dark 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.000 side to it. And in order for us to really 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.120 get to the benefits of plunging yourself into a bunch 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:26.200 of water encapsulated, uh by walls around you, we should 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:31.599 look at the CIA and some past experiments with sensory deprivation. Yes, 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.600 I mean, we've discussed before in our episodes Splendid Isolation 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.040 some of the the harmful effects of isolation on the 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.400 human mind because you can shut off a lot of 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.800 these these inputs and have beneficial effects as we were 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.560 going to discuss, but also the brain can have a 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.480 tendency to sort of chew on itself in these situations. UM. 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:53.240 For instance, prisoners who have who have been isolated for 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:59.599 long periods of time have been known to experience depression, despair, anxiety, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations, 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.960 problem with impulse control uh, and impatability to think, concentrate, 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.800 or remember um tonitus, weakening get the immune system, uh, 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:13.000 premature menopause, aggressive behaviors, and prisoners, volunteers, animals. There's a 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:18.479 whole list of dire consequences to shutting oneself off. So 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.000 for a long time it's been a It's also been 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.240 used as a method of interrogation or even if you 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:30.960 want to use the more um harsh terminology here, soft torture. Um. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:35.080 What is a way to induce a horrible state upon 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.320 upon a human mind without actually resorting to physical violence 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.960 and physical torture. Well, you just start shutting off the 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.160 sensory input. You put them in a position where, uh, 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.359 maybe they're not seeing, they're not hearing. Uh. So some 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.480 of the experience were we're looking at involved even even 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:55.000 you're like putting the equivalent of thick gloves on or 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.360 cardboard tubes around the arms, so they can't even get 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.440 any kind of sensation that way, putting them in a 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.800 space that essentially just has room for a bed. In 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.839 some cases you see the use of hoods, two heavy 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:10.239 thick hoods that also uh contribute to even more dampening 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.960 of sound, or the use of white noise your phones 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.560 to to clog the mind with with with just this 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.160 constant white noise. Yeah, I mean, essentially what we're talking 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:21.480 about is taking away the chew toys of the mind. 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:26.160 And you just described doctor David Hebb's experiment and he 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.680 did this and I believe in the fifties and the sixties. 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.520 In one study, he had student volunteers at McGill University 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.520 where he was the head of psychology, and he put 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.680 them in an air conditioned cubicle, as you said, just 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.600 a room enough for a bed. He placed goggles, gloves, 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.680 and ear muffs on them, and then he piped in 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.880 some white noise. And he had hoped to observe them 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.040 for up to six weeks. That's what he thought he 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.320 could get out of this. He could see this gradual 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.720 deterioration of the mind. But it turns out that those 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:58.680 students lasted for only two days in twenty four hours, 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.880 hallucinations begin in in forty eight hours. They suffered a 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.400 complete breakdown. And these students, by the way, we're not 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:08.160 primed at all for this experience. Nobody was. In fact, 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.600 the students all came in with this idea that they 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:12.840 were going to get a lot of work done. There 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.520 was one student who was going to work on a presentation, 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.200 so they thought that they'd have this quiet, nice time, uh, 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.320 for their mind to really dwell in. But once you 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.280 took away from these basic stimulized it was just sort 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.119 of wrecked them. Yeah, I believe this was the study 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.000 was Originally he was open to conduct it for about 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.920 six weeks, and it just did not last that long. 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.240 Like you said, we're talking ended up more like a 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.920 few days at most with the participants. Yeah. Actually, the 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.160 BBC had a documentary called or they have a documentary 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:45.040 called Alone the Brain, Sensory Deprivation and Isolation, and it 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.760 recreated Hebb's experiment and it just was pretty awful. In fact, 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.559 the person who suffered the most was a comedian who 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:53.680 was so used to this sort of back and forth 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.000 of stimuli with his fellow humans that you know, he 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:00.800 was the first to fall apart. Yeah, star of a 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.040 comedian of his or her audience and U and it's 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:07.120 gonna are gonna be dire consequences. All right, Well, let's 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:11.160 talk about these sensory deprivation tanks that we encounter today. 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.320 If you live in a larger area, chances are there's 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:16.440 at least one that you might be able to find 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.120 in your area. I know in the Atlanta area there 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.720 seems to be mainly one place to go, I understand. 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.679 In New York City even they're only a handful of possibilities. 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.480 Some individuals who are really into sensory deprivation make own 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.760 their own tanks, and there are people out there who 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.400 will sell you one. Michael Crton, by the way, has one. 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:36.200 He had one. He has one. Well he's dead, alright, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:41.360 he had one. Um though there are various interpretations of 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.000 of of what that might might consist of, but in 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.080 a sense, he does have one. Now I think I 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.280 don't know the details of his burial, but I mean, 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.720 you know, defined has Yeah, right, was this re arranged atoms? 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:53.319 But that makes sense? You know, he was. He was 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.560 a thoughtful individual. I can imagine him. He probably had 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:56.760 to get an extra big one though he was a 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.559 very tall man. I don't know, but I mean, but 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.559 apparently this was something that was This is very helpful 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.880 to people in the arts, also athletes as well. Yeah, 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.240 a lot of the benefits, which we'll get into uh here, 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:14.160 involved benefits to creative individuals who are trying to think 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:19.080 creatively about various tasks, individuals sustained various injuries or bodily trauma, 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.680 people dealing with with with depression. Um, if it's coupled 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:26.880 with the right amount of psychotherapy as well. But but 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.559 what are we talking about here. Sensory tank is essentially 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.679 the dead sea inside of a container. Like we're talking earlier. 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.480 The idea that you're gonna have a salty broth to 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:42.800 float in, and the chamber itself is uh is soundproof. 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.400 There's no light. You're just floating as if as if 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:50.959 in the womb. Yes, and salty womb. And this is 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.520 from the somebody manufacturer. One of the manufacturer of these 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.600 tanks says the float tank is a little larger um 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.920 than a twin size bed and about chess tie. It 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.280 contains ten inches of water to which so much epps 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.240 and salts have been added that when you get in 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:08.760 and lie on your back, you are pushed to the 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.320 surface so that you float like a cork weight list 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.640 as an astronaut in space. Now when they talk about 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.040 a lot of salt here, they're talking about eight hundred 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:20.960 pounds of epps and salt in this uh this pool here. Uh. 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:22.960 There is a lightweight door that you can leave open, 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:24.920 or if you want to get rid of the distractions 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:26.360 of noise and light, you can close the door. You 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.480 can also put your plugs in, purportedly helped with not 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.520 getting the water into your ears. Yeah and yeah, it's 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.360 that sound counseling canceling and all I believe. Um and 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.199 and also worth knowing you mentioned the door. The door 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.680 is not locked. You're not sealed in here like a tomb. 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.320 So if you do have a need to get out, 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.280 be it physical or or or mental, um, it's it's 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.520 easy to do. So okay. So the cool thing about 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.600 this though, in case your germophobe, is that between floating sessions, 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.840 the water is filtered and sterilized with UV light on 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.240 a regular basis and hydrogen brock side is poured into 0:11:57.280 --> 0:11:59.920 the water for of course more hygienic. So it's not 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.880 like just a giant footpath at a at a cheap 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.360 nail salon exactly. So, so if someone peas in the pool, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:12.560 don't worry about that. I can imagine asking that when 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.319 one goes in. You know, is it okay to pee 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.360 in the in the isolation chamber in the century deporation chamber. 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.199 I dare you. I will not bring it up, but 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:23.760 I mean it might be in the literature when you 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.000 sign out. I mean I should have mentioned that I've 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.680 not used one of these yet, but but I do 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:31.800 intend to at some point. We both are going to 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:36.640 this yeah, um and uh so so, but we wanted 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.360 to go ahead and cover it in the podcast right now, 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:41.520 talk about it, talk about sort of the limited studies 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.719 that surround this, and then have the experience for me 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:45.280 to talk about it, and then we can draw in 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.760 personal experience. Yeah, we don't want to prime our brains 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.000 too much. Um. But anyway, these these things, Uh, they 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.160 gained popularity in the sixties and seventies and the eighties 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.360 they started to want a bit um, but they have 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.600 made a resurgence. Excellent, Yeah, because you did have that 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:04.720 first first real push for the for the sensory deprivation tank, 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.800 especially based on the work of John C. Lily. Uh 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.800 Dr suit Field will be getting into these guys in 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:14.000 a bit, um, And I guess, like a lot of 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.360 these things that you guys out for a little bit 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.079 and then people get old, older they may be, and 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.760 maybe the isolation tank just becomes a place where restore 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.040 some tools. It just sets empty in the backyard and 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.599 occasionally you have to explain it to some guests. But 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.079 now you have you have people that are rediscovering exactly 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.480 what what this uh technology or or methodology can do 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.200 for one. Yeah, and well we will dive into the 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:40.000 tank in a moment. We're gonna take a quick break. 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:42.760 When we get back, we will talk about John cy 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:46.760 Lily to be patron saint of LFD and Galpin Science 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:59.640 and I will be right now. All right, we're back, 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.360 and uh let's talk a little bit about John C. Lily. 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.880 We have discussed him in one episode in detail and 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:08.400 he's coming to time or two since then. Um, well, 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.280 now we probably miss him a couple of times in detail. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:15.600 Because John C. Lily made his name in the field 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:21.080 of electronic brain stimulation. Uh, in the field of dolphin communication, 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:23.960 and in the in the end, in the field of 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:29.360 just progressively crazier and eventually unfunded research. Yeah. Although he 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:31.760 started out being funded by the Naval Institute and by 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.000 the National Institute of Mental Health, but as you say, 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:39.040 his studies, his experiments became a little bit more fringe. Well, 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.640 of course he lost his funding. But this is someone 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:46.360 who is was steeped in science, at least pure science 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.840 in the beginnings, and then it kind of got muddled. Yeah, 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.360 I would argue that he never you know, he never 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:54.640 ceased being being a very brilliant, thought provoking man. It's 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.040 just in the early stages he was more of a 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:01.200 pure scientist, and his work and his and his curiosity 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.760 became more and more esoteric as the as the decades 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.160 rolled on, and well in the influence of his own 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.720 studies of LSD, which he used himself as a subject 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.760 quite a bit. Yeah, generally, Yeah, combining sensory deprivation tank 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:19.120 with a large amount of LSD two to create the 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.560 expected results. As he attempted to at times to communicate 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.880 with dolphins, and not only dolphins as we know them, 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:30.960 but dolphins as this kind of pan dimensional creature. Remember too, 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.800 this is the guy who took a two bedroom house 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.440 and he submersed it in water input one of those 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.680 female research assistance in with a dolphin and uh, the 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.720 dolphin and the female had a sort of relationship. And 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.600 I will leave it at that. But so this is 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.840 someone who's thinking outside of the box. And the tank. Yes, 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.920 now his tank was pretty hardcore. Um. This is you know, 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.040 the older day, the early days, the cowboy days of 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.760 sensory deprivation tanks, where you you really needed to go 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:00.480 out and build your own design, in your own if 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.920 you got exactly what the specs were gonna be. So 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:08.000 temperature regulated, salt filled, soundproof, lightproof tank. Um. And in 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:09.960 this one, you though there was no just sort of 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.240 gently floating on top of the water. You were submerged 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.480 up to the very top of your head. Yeah. This 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.040 is the pre salt one hundred and sixty gallons of water. Yes, 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.440 and uh, and so your head is basically encased in 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.480 this uh this latex mask, like wrapped in a latex 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.960 with these uh, with with these these breathing holes coming 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.840 out front from it. It's called a blackout mask. And 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.280 it it looked if you imagine something that you might 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.840 see and say, you know, a nine inch Nails video 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.640 from from the nineties or at some sort of a 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:44.960 fetish club or something that this is about what the 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:47.400 black out mask looking. Yeah, I was thinking about the 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.880 gimp from pulp fiction. It looks kind of like a 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.080 gimp mask as designed by Dr SEUs. Yes, right, because 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.520 that's where the air hose connected to the pump comes 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.320 in the susy and pump, I think, or if you've 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:59.840 ever seen anyone receiving some getting some sort of like 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:01.960 Mountain Monster makeup for a movie and they you know, 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.360 they put the straws in and they cowed them completely. 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:06.800 It's that level of just wrapping your head up and 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.120 cutting off all of the sensory equipment from the outside world, 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:14.399 in addition to being in this lightless soundproof tank and 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:17.720 possibly on LSD. Right. But the nice part of this 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:19.440 is at the water I think you had mentioned is 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:22.680 kept at thirty four degrees celsia's fore degrees franheight, so 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.200 it was nice and warm. Yeah, contrary to the description, 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.480 there was not a torture method. It was this was 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.639 just an inability to again shut down the sensory and 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.840 put to the brain, uh, and go on this journey 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:40.920 of self discovery or pan dimensional communication. Yeah. And so 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.840 later on though, of course Lily figured out that he 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.600 could just fill this tank with a bunch of salt 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.000 and have people float to the top. They didn't have 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.320 to wear their latex mass because of course people were 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.320 bothered by that, and he could still have his experiments. Um. 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.119 And also, by the way, this tank was then um 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.920 sort of as you described, more of like a sarcophagus, 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.720 and then you have no light source and you have 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:08.240 the sort of quietude that you need um to have 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.040 the sensory deprivation. Yeah. Now he wrote a lot about 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.840 the the womb to tomb wet box and uh and 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.320 and and with Lially, like a lot of people who 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.560 get into some crazy stuff, it's it's also easy to 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:21.280 just discount him and say, oh, well, that's that's just 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.920 a crazy old man and in a tank of water 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.520 doing drugs. But a lot of what he said, even 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.680 you know, as he went further down the French path, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.199 a lot of it still lines up with what we 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:34.560 know about the one in the Workings of the human mind, 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:38.240 about the default mode network. UM. One quick quote here 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.480 from from his book. At the highest level of satory 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.359 which people from which people returned, the point of consciousness 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.920 becomes a surface or a solid which extends through the 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.879 whole universe. It was in this state that I experienced 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.280 myself as melded and intertwined with hundreds of billions of 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.680 other beings in a thin sheet of consciousness that was 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.280 distributed around the galaxy a membrane. So, on one hand, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.919 that does sound like maybe a lot of hippie trippy nonsense. 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:08.000 But this idea of like voices shutting down, a consciousness 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:14.359 becoming like a a single featureless plane, uh, lines up 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:17.359 with a lot of what we know about just having 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:19.760 a calm mind, about calming the mind, about shutting down 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.240 the default network. Well, I was thinking about his experience 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.400 and then other people's experiences minus the LSD, and how 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.040 they all share that sort of overview effect that astronauts 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:35.320 sometimes experience when they look at the Earth UM and 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.159 they get that sense of unity and the shedding of 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.760 the self, the shutting of the ego. So that's something 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:43.640 that his experience has in common with with a bunch 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:48.720 of other people. UM. But again, most people who have 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.200 undergone this sensory deprivation in the tank. Do not have 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.440 that experience that he had where he had the conferences 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.119 of the three entities or whatever sort of aliens or 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.359 other being that came to him. So that probably was 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.600 part and parcel of the hallucinogens that he was taking. 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.480 But as we've discussed with hallucinations before, there are hallucinations 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.480 in their hallucination, their drug induced hallucinations, but there there 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:17.440 are hallucinations produced just entirely by by non um illicit methods. 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:19.359 I'm glad you brought that up. So I just thinking 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.440 about that. I was thinking that when you don't have 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.640 the stimuli, just like when we talked about lilcution hallucinations, 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.080 the brain will make something up UM. So, yeah, you're right, 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.920 there are degrees to it and there are sources of it. Yeah. 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.360 I was actually looking at two thousand four study that 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:38.120 found it during prolonged blindfolding experiments with cited individuals, they 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.000 experienced visual hallucinations. And then there's a two thousand and 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.680 nine study from a Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.560 University College London. I would have time that just fifteen 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.600 minutes of near total sensory deprivation was enough to trigger 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.600 vivid hallucinations in many of its test subjects. So again, 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.560 no LSD required when dealing with a sensory deprivation tank. 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:02.800 And that's one of the appeals to some users of it, okay, 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.879 is that the anarchic chamber the two thousand and nine study. 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:07.959 I think i'd read the same thing about the fifteen 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:12.399 minute yes Yes, which is a sort of different stimulation 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.560 or the lack of stimulation, which we'll talk about an 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.639 upcoming episode. But that's interesting to know that's just taking 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:24.320 out that one bit would induce hallucinations. So enter Dr 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.120 Peter Suitfeld. Yes, this is another individual who has had 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.119 a lot to say and a lot of influence on 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.760 our modern understanding of sensory deprivation. UM. He quickly uh 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:37.879 fell in love with the with the with the technology, 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.199 the methodology, and it was one of the individuals who 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.040 owns his own tank. Well you know too that he 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.280 UM When he was a lad in school, he actually 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.520