Isolation - Mind Field (Ep 1)

[Music] Imagine being confined to a 10 by 10 foot room in complete isolation. No timekeeping devices, no phones, no books, nothing to write on, no windows. [Music] Psychologists say that fewer than three days in a room like this can lead to brain damage. I will be staying in this room for three days. Clearly, he's on the border of misery. [Music] Even in a city surrounded by people, it's possible to feel lonely or bored. Your brain is like a hungry sponge; it’s constantly absorbing information. It thrives when stimulated. Between smartphones and books and movies and friends and family, thousands of sensations are constantly going into our heads. But what if it all got cut off?

What is boredom? Well, it's believed to be an emotion that's a less intense form of disgust. A visual representation of emotions developed by Robert Plutchik shows the ball on a wheel. Notice that boredom shares a spoke with disgust and loathing; they are different intensities of the same emotion. You see, boredom pushes us away from low stimulus situations because variety and stimulation literally lead to neurogenesis, brain cell growth. We are here today doing what we do because boredom has guided us toward greater and greater challenges and bigger and more complex brains.

So, what is it like to be deprived of the sensations and social interactions so many of us take for granted? A landmark study at Harvard and Virginia universities found that students prefer to experience physical pain over 15 minutes of boredom. To demonstrate the surprising lengths people will go to to avoid boredom, we brought in an unsuspecting subject for what he believes to be a focus group. We begin by introducing a set of stimuli, one of which is very unpleasant.

“Oh dirty! What shocked the out of me!” Our fake focus test continues.

“So let's start with the shock button. Jamison, would you choose to experience this again?”

“I don’t want to do that again.”

“Why wouldn't you?”

“Cuz it shocked me. I could still feel it going down my arm.” Now it’s time for Jameson’s true test, the test of boredom.

“You will be in the room for 30 minutes. Please remain in your chair. Feel free to re-experience the electric shock button. Okay? Or not okay?”

Right at the moment of truth, when the only two options are boredom or painful shock, which will our subject choose? He’s not even looking at the button. It hasn’t even been a minute yet, and already Jamison is restless. With nearly a half-hour to go and no other stimulation in the room, the shock button is a tempting object to occupy Jamison’s mind. Remember what Jamison said a few minutes ago: “I don’t want to do that again.” But will he desire stimulation so strongly that he just goes ahead and pushes that button?

[Music] It took exactly one minute and 57 seconds of boredom for Jamison’s mind to go from “never again” to “sure, I’ll give myself an electric shock” to relieve boredom. Sometimes, stimulation—any stimulation—is perceived as better than none at all.

Now, this guy doesn’t like being bored, but can he resist touching it a second time? [Music] We’re social animals, whether it’s another human or a volleyball or an electric shock button. You’ll make friends with whatever you need to.

“Jamison, I’m Michael. Thanks for coming in today. So tell me a little bit about what you’ve been up to here in this room.”

“I’ve been sitting in this room with a button.”

“Yeah, and despite saying I didn’t want to press it again, I pressed it twice.”

“Why?”

“I just bored in this room, I suppose, really.”

“Yeah. Did that hurt?”

“Yes.”

The hypothesis is that when left alone with a very negative stimulus, people will go ahead and re-experience it just because it's something to do. [Music] We dislike being bored so much that sometimes physical pain is preferable. But intentionally putting yourself into what would seem to be the most boring environment possible can be useful.

It’s called sensory deprivation. Psychologists have conducted experiments on sensory deprivation since the 1930s. During the Cold War, the military used sensory deprivation for both training and interrogation. In the 1970s, the activity became recreational, with soundproof, lightproof flotation tanks that keep you buoyant with saltwater that is the same temperature as your body.

“All right, so I’m on my way to a subterranean float lab. This company sells sensory deprivation. This will be a sort of training session for my three days in isolation, and I’m getting guidance from an expert.”

“Hey, Dominic, how are you?”

“Hey, what’s up, Michael. You know Dominic Monaghan from Lord of the Rings and the TV series Lost?”

“Now this is your first time?”

“This is my first time. I'm a little nervous. I’ve never been alone without any stimulation.”

“One of my favorite things about floating is there’s nothing else going on. Okay, I can’t see anything, you can’t hear anything, you can’t do anything. You just have to look at you, and for some people that’s scary. It’s like looking in a mirror. If you that’s an isolation tank, it’s a really good way of getting prepped for the isolation chamber. But I also think he needs to be okay with the fact that it’s gonna put him out of his comfort zone.”

“The mind is a good thing to lose every so often.”

“All right, let’s take a peek. Oh, so this is the room. This is where I will be floating for the next hour, alone, with nothing to do but listen to my thoughts. I’ll see you on the other side.”

“The mind is a good thing to lose every so often. You have to remind fear that you're in the driver’s seat.”

“Hey, Dominic, pause it. It was really good. Yeah, can we sit down?”

“Let’s do it. My initial thought when I lay down was, wow, this is buoyant. And then I just started thinking about errands and tasks. But at some point, well, it was like dreams, huh? But my eyes were open. Like those sort of half-dreams you have either when you’re about to fall asleep or when you’re waking up. That’s when it gets interesting. You’re allowing your brain to be free. You're just floating in space. You’re just active, you’re on the top of this pool, floating in space.”

“So now you’ve done this, and you do this isolation booth. Do you think that was in some way helpful or a hindrance?”

“It made me more unhappy about what's coming up. Three days is quite a bit different than one hour.”

Some people choose isolation to learn about isolation. As we prepare to explore other planets, we’re faced with a little issue: stuff in outer space is really, really far apart. Within our own solar system, even a trip to Mars would take months in each direction. That’s a long time to spend cut off from the rest of humanity, stuck in a tiny spaceship. To get ready for those journeys, we have subjected some people to extreme conditions here on earth.

In 1989, a young Italian interior designer named Stefania Fellini volunteered for a NASA experiment to help study the effects of isolation associated with space travel. She spent a hundred and thirty days alone in a plexiglass cell in a cave 30 feet underground in New Mexico. In the absence of timepieces and any sign of day or night, Miss Fellini’s body was thrown out of whack. Her menstrual cycle stopped and her sleep-wake cycle changed radically. She tended to stay awake for 20 to 25 hours at a time, sleeping about 10 hours. When she finally emerged, she mistakenly believed she’d only been underground about half as long as she actually had.

As difficult as Stefania's experience was, at least she had books to read. In my isolation chamber, I will only have white walls to stare at. Alone time: what a pleasure. Checking out, getting away from it all, relaxing.

Banishment from society, the silent treatment, solitary confinement. Solitude isn't always nice. What happens when isolation is not voluntary?

William Brown has first-hand knowledge of solitary confinement.

“So, William, how much of your life have you spent in prison?”

“Probably like 16 years.”

“It’s like almost half your life?”

“Yeah, basically almost half my life because I went to jail when I was 18 on bank robbery. This right here, this is my home.”

“How long?”

“Oh, enough about two years, though. That was the longest stretch of consecutive time. I was like five months total.”

“I’ll tell you what really amazes me: this feels so much worse than a jail cell. This doesn’t have bars letting in light or a view.”

“Not at all.”

“Would you have a mattress? At least that would be the only thing.”

“In this particular cell, that would be the only thing in here. You would just have a mattress, and that you would have nothing more. This light will constantly stay on. So, there would be, you know, it’s always on. That light is always on, even at night.”

“Left in here with your thoughts, that’s it?”

“I would sit, like, say, friends. I will sit in this corner right here, like based in the corner facing out. No, I won’t face out, and I will just sit and just concentrate on breathing.”

“You don’t know; it’s like you’re in limbo. You never know when I got over the door.”

“I’ve known guys that have served consecutive years inside this same little box. How does that change them mentally?”

“It scars them for life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. This is what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna put myself in a room like one of these, and I won’t have a clock, anything at all. No way to tell time. What I’m nervous about is when that door closes and the awareness, the sudden awareness of how much time I have.”

“See, that’s the thing about it because once this door right here closes, it’s like, it’s final. This is almost a coffin, really.”

Even more extreme than isolation from other people is isolation from other people and stimuli. That’s what I’m going to be doing inside this room. This is about as boring as a room can get. It’s soundproof, and this light will never turn off. I do have a small bed, but there will be no interruptions. I will have no way to tell what time it is. No meals will be delivered because all the meals are inside the room already: white containers of Soylent. I do have plenty of water, and I have a wash basin with a white bar of soap, and I’ve got myself a tiny little toilet.

There’s nothing to do but be completely alone with myself and my thoughts. Now, psychologists say that fewer than three days in a room like this can lead to brain damage. I will be staying in this room for three days, a full 72 hours.

“So, I’m gonna take your vitals first.”

Michael is basically turning himself into a lab rat. What we want to do is see what might change with Michael before and after his time in isolation. What’s gonna happen to his blood pressure? What’s gonna happen to his pulse? His basic reflexes? Are there actually any medical concerns you would have?

“I’m just gonna be in this room. You’ve got a really bright light on there. The circadian rhythm, which is your natural wake and sleep cycle, is going to be completely disrupted by this really bright light. And once your circadian rhythm gets off, a lot of other things fall apart: hormone cycles, cognitive ability, metabolic processes. So, you know, it’s kind of like you’re giving yourself jetlag.”

“How great.”

“I think it’s important to test his cognitive ability to gauge any mental decline that might happen during 72 hours of isolation. Let’s try the reaction time.”

“Okay, dude, this is pretty fun. Can I bring this into the room with me?”

“So what’s gonna happen to my brain in there?”

“Well, one of the issues that might worry me is how calm versus neurotic you might be.”

“Where would you put yourself on that spectrum?”

“Closer to neurotic.”

“Coming on?”

“Yeah, so I wonder if that might be amplified.”

“That is how my brain will work— it’ll snowball.”

“I’m scared I’m not gonna be able to deal with the monotony and the lack of a sense of time, and I’m gonna have a panic attack.”

“In an extreme situation, people can have massive hallucinations, dissociated from reality. Have tremendous anxiety, psychotic types of episodes.”

“Marty, Jake?”

“Yes, I’m gonna be gone for three days. The danger signs to look out for are extreme agitation where it doesn’t appear that he’s aware of his own agitation. That’s when I think I might intervene. I’m not worried for him physically; I think he’s safe in there. But I think that he’s gonna struggle in there. He’s gonna be really bored. Love you, bye-bye.”

[Music] I forgot to ask what time it was when I came in. She’s always doing something, reading something, talking to someone. The day looks really bored in this making their five offenders. It’s just gonna be a horrible 72 hours.

“I’m actually pretty tired. I’ve been standing a bunch today. Normally when I change into more comfortable clothes, and I’m like ready for bed, I lay down, and then I pick up my phone or I pick up a book or something. But I don’t even—I don’t have that.”

“If he succeeds in going to sleep for any length of time, that’s substantial. That’s gonna be interesting to see what time he thinks it is when he wakes up.”

“Right. I was able to sleep and I woke up maybe one or two times in the night, so I think it’s probably, you know, 8 a.m. Thursday morning, maybe closer to 9 a.m. I guess I should have some breakfast.”

“One, two, three…”

“I’ve known Michael for three years, and I’ve never seen him do a push-up. Z Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K.”

“I think he’s come up with some good ideas for mental stimulation. I wonder if as time goes by, he’s gonna come up with some more creative ones or he’s gonna start to get less creative.”

“I’ve done 200 steps now. Eight more hundreds to go, and I’ll be at a thousand.”

“Why is it that so many people turn to counting to stay sane when they’re in these isolated environments?”

“Well, our minds want to remain active; they're naturally active. The healthiest people who survive in these types of environments will do something to self-stimulate. They’ll count, they’ll sing, they’ll do physical exercise.”

“One hundred, three hundred steps, and then some change that I just took right there. That’s just a little bonus for my body, for my health.”

“It’s amazing how hard it is to tell what time of day it is just based on your body.”

“I think it’s about 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. on Thursday. I think I’m gonna have dinner now.”

“He’s already quite off on his perception of time.”

“I was actually surprised at how quick that happened.”

“I was too. You know, if you’re using hunger as your gauge, that’s out the window too because the shifts in hormones are going to change your appetite. Now, they look at lab rats who have had their circadian rhythm destroyed and they overeat.”

“Thirteen? At the moment, I’m feeling bored, but obviously, nothing dramatic. If I had to guess, it would be 24 hours now since I first came in. One day down, two to go.”

“If he gets a full sleep cycle in, he’ll wake up not knowing where he is.”

“Right, good morning. I don’t know if I slept for eight hours or if I slept for three.”

“If you think it’s bedtime, it is. So long as you go to bed. If you think it’s breakfast time, it is. If you’re having breakfast, what am I looking forward to the most? Seeing my family and friends. It’s not even that I want a meal; it’s actually that I just want to have a meal with people. I just want to talk to some people. I just want some other words coming in to me than the ones that come out of my own mouth.”

“He enjoys sharing things with people, and to have no one, there’s nothing coming back for three days might be difficult.”

“I am the only person I’m hanging out with. If you’re in true isolation, literally part of your brain is generating some kind of companion converse with.”

“I think having you here makes a big difference. You know he’s entertained himself in a sense, talking to the camera. That’s been helpful for him; it’s really kept him cognitively aware.”

“I just feel like I’ve really lost all connection to time, but I’m guessing it’s, you know, 8 p.m., maybe 9 p.m. on Friday—a good time to get some shut-eye when there’s not much else to do.”

[Music]

“I think it’s Saturday, about 9 a.m. Saturday. The day I get out.”

“So, his dissociation with the actual time has doubled now, right? He wakes up, and there’s this bright light, and he’s thinking, ‘Oh, it must be morning.’”

“I’ve spent a lot of time being entertained by my memories, and I’m thinking of the people and the places and the events and how I miss them and how I treasure those moments. There’s a sort of cinema in my brain, a cinema of those memories that’s kept me from being very bored.”

“So I think it’s 8 p.m. on Saturday, so in about a couple of hours, I should see that door open.”

“He's not even close, and I wonder how he’s gonna respond to that.” [Music]

“I don’t think I’m getting out today. A fear I have right now is that it’s just Friday and if there’s still a lot of time left. There are other times during this that I was definitely more Zen about everything. Now I’m upset. I can’t believe the color of the light isn’t changing. In the mornings when I wake up, it’s so much more yellow.”

Without some type of stimulation, the mind wants to stimulate itself anyway and will begin to hallucinate and begin to play all sorts of tricks. Absolutely, my thoughts are really incoherent. There, it’s hard for me to even remember what I just thought.

“Seven, twelve, seven hundred thirteen, seven hundred fourteen, seven hundred fifteen, seven hundred sixteen, seven hundred seventeen.”

“In a way, our brains are kind of a ‘use it or lose it’ thing. He’s going to have a definite decrease in his cognitive ability, a decrease in his overall sense of well-being.”

“How many bottles of water have I drunk? Is there one more laying around here that I’ve lost? Because there are only six here.”

“But then down here, there are—did I…”

[Music]

“All of the dreams I’ve had that I remember have been about this room. They’ve been about me being in this room.”

“He wakes up in these in the room; it’s difficult for him to discern the difference between reality and dreaming sometimes, so that’s a real dissociation for him.”

“Worried about him now because when he first went in there, he was like bored, like someone waiting for a bus. You know, now he looks actually depressed. The soap is really unique; it’s not a kind of soap I’ve ever used before, and I really dislike the smell. I keep smelling it because it’s just sitting there.”

“Clearly, Michael is not happy right now. He looks like, you know, on the border of misery, really.”

“I’m really aggravated by how uncomfortable I am. This seems like a very, very long three days.” [Music]

“He was just laying there when I walked in. I thought he’d be, you know, sitting like in bed. You know, this was something he wanted to do, but I expected him to be bored—terribly bored. But I thought he’d still be talking and trying to entertain himself.” [Music]

“It seems like Michael woke up from some kind of dream. He looks confused.”

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

“I’m really confused. Did I?”

“I guess not. I guess I just dreamt it.”

“I am so confused.”

[Music]

“Is 72 hours over?”

“It’s 72 hours, Michael. You can come out.”

“All right, I'm coming out.”

“Oh my gosh, it’s bright in there. It’s really bright in there.”

“I hadn't really noticed, but now that you mention it, we’re outdoors.”

“Hey, that knock scared me.”

“Did it startle you?”

“Yeah, every little noise has been startling me.”

“Okay, you seem very with it right now. Excited energy?”

“Yeah, like coming out. At first, I thought it was that I want to communicate, but actually, I need this direction too, even if it’s just nods and stuff. That’s so much better.”

“Let me just check your vitals before you see your family.”

“155 over 95. So that’s quite a jump in your blood pressure.”

[Music]

“Your pulse is also higher.”

“I think that’s because you’re excited to be out. I think this is a huge rush. I’m interested to see now how you do with some of the more cognitive tests.”

“Three, eighteen, nine, seven, minus seven, minus seven—there you go.”

“I would say you did actually a little bit better this time.”

“Oh, wow. Okay.”

“Although we had hypothesized you would be worse at all of these tests, I think the rush of adrenaline that you got from finally being out and being able to communicate actually had you more focused, more aware, and that’s why you performed better.”

“I find it interesting that the tests you did the worst on are probably the most to do with the use of the verbal language, and you’ve had definitely a lack of that over the last 72 hours.”

“It was just me with myself for three days. It was only me.”

“How are you?”

“Oh, good. I missed you! Let me say hi to my mom.”

“Oh, glad you served, right?”

“Yes, in the room I was fine being alone. This is what I’ve been living. But then near the end, as I started to anticipate coming out and being able to talk to people and share my experience, I realized how important that was. If you only have your own experiences, you’re not fully having them. You have to have someone else to listen to them and react to them, and then you’ve fully experienced them.”

“Anyway, I’ve moved, I don’t live there anymore. When I was in isolation, I was surprised most by two things: how easy it was to be separated from distractions like entertainment and phones, and how difficult it was to be separated from things we humans evolved alongside, the earth and other people. I was amazed by how uncomfortable, confusing, and scary it was to have nothing but myself.

You know, I used to be a really big fan of the saying, ‘He who travels fastest travels alone.’ I think I liked it because it made me feel better about how I preferred to be independent and to be left to my own devices. But now I appreciate the full phrase better: It may be true that he who travels fastest travels alone, but he who travels furthest travels with others.”

And as always, thanks for watching this season on Minefield. [Music]

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Hold the drug in your mouth until we say swallow.”

“They’ve been some audio-visual distortions. We see some images behind your eyes.”

“How does it feel to be known as the Ken and Barbie of real life?”

“It isn’t a breakfast for champions; it’s a breakfast for sheeple.”

“Bachelor number two is an online chat beautiful. Welcome to Minefield.”

[Music] [Music]