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.
[dramatic 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 is on the border of misery.
[electronic 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?
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
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 them all 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.
- [device buzzes] - Oh, shit.
- What? - Shocked the shit out of me.
Touch it.
- [device buzzes] - [grunts]
- It did shock me. - No, it didn't.
- Did it really? - Yeah, it did.
- He doesn't like it. - That really shocked 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?
'Cause it shocked me,
and I can still feel it going down my forearm.
Now it's time for Jamison'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. Okay. - Or not.
All right, the moment of truth.
[door closes]
When the only two options are boredom or painful shock,
which will our subject choose?
He's not even looking at the button.
Oh.
It hasn't even been a minute yet,
and already Jamison is restless.
[pensive music]
With 29 minutes 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,
he just goes ahead and pushes that button?
♪ ♪
- [device buzzes] - [grunts]
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.
This guy doesn't like being bored.
Can he resist touching it a second time?
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- [device buzzes] - [grunts, laughing]
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. - Sure.
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 was just bored in this room, I suppose, so...
- Really? - Yeah.
- Did that hurt? - Yes.
The hypothesis is that when left alone
with a very negative stimulus,
people will go ahead an re-experience it
just because it's something to do.
- I'm one of them. - [laughs]
We dislike being bored so much,
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
in 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 salt water
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 sort of a 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, right?
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. - You 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 for hours.
This flotation tank is a really good way
of getting him prepped for the isolation chamber,
but I also think he needs to be okay with the fact
that it's gonna put him outside 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. - Hey, Dominic.
- How was it? - It was really good.
- Yeah? - Can we sit down?
Yeah, let's do it.
My initial thought when I laid 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.
Uh-huh.
But my eyes were open.
Like, it was sort of like 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 atoms that are on the top of this pool,
floating in space.
So now you've done this,
and you're doing this isolation booth.
Do you think that that was in some way helpful
or a hindrance?
It made me more...
unhappy about what's coming up.
72 hours 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 Follini
volunteered for a NASA experiment
to help study the effects of isolation
associated with space travel.
She spent 130 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,
Ms. Follini's body was thrown out of wack.
Her menstrual cycle stopped,
and her sleep-wake cycle changed radically.
She tended to stay away 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.
[dramatic music]
Solitude isn't always nice.
♪ ♪
What happens when isolation
is not voluntary?
William Brown has firsthand knowledge
of solitary confinement.
So, William, how much of your life
have you spent in prison?
Probably, like, 16 years.
That's, like, almost half your life.
Yeah, basically, almost half my life,
'cause I want to jail when I was 18
for armed bank robbery.
This right here...
This was my home, off and on, about two years...
♪ ♪
The hole.
What was the longest stretch of consecutive time?
It 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 other than that,
you would have nothing more.
This light will constantly stay on,
so there will be, you know...
- That light's always on? - That light is always on.
- Even at night? - Even at night.
That light is always on.
You're left in here with your thoughts,
and that's it.
♪ ♪
I would sit...
like, say, for example, sit in this corner right here.
Like, facing the corner or facing out?
No, I would face out,
and I would just sit
and just concentrate on breathing.
You don't know. It's like you're in limbo.
You never know when they're gonna open 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... - Mm-hmm.
The awareness, the sudden awareness
of how much time I have.
See, that's the thing about it,
'cause 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 to 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 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 jet lag.
Oh, great.
I think it's important to test
his cognitive ability
to gauge any mental decline
that might happen during his 72 hours of isolation.
Let's try the reaction time.
Okay, do...
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. I mean... - Uh-huh.
Yeah.
And so I wonder if that might be amplified.
That is how my brain will work.
- Right. Of course. - 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,
be dissociated from reality,
have tremendous anxiety, psychotic types of episodes.
- Marnie, 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.
Like, I think, you know, he's safe in there.
But I think that he's gonna struggle in there.
He's gonna be really bored.
- I love you. - I love you, too.
- Bye-bye. - Bye.
♪ ♪
Oh, my God.
Bye.
♪ ♪
Ah, forgot to ask what time it was when I came in.
♪ ♪
[laughs]
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 have that.
If he succeeds in going to sleep
for any length of time that's substantial,
it'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, 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning,
maybe closer to 9:00 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.
Six...
♪ ♪
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...
8 more hundreds to go, and I'll be at 1,000.
One, two...
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.
97, 98, 99, 100.
300 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.
You know, they look at lab rats
who have had their circadian rhythm destroyed,
and they overeat.
12, 13...
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?
Uh...
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, just 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 that you can converse with.
I think having you here...
makes a big difference.
He's entertained himself in a sense,
you know, talking to the camera,
and 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, 8:00 p.m....
maybe 9:00 p.m. on Friday.
A good time to get some shut-eye
when there's not much else to do.
♪ ♪
[groans]
I think it's Saturday, about 9:00 a.m.
Saturday, the day I get out. [chuckles]
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 8:00 p.m.
on Saturday.
So, in about a couple hours,
I should see that door open.
He's not even close,
and I wonder how he's gonna respond to that.
[clock ticking]
[somber music]
♪ ♪
I don't think I'm getting out today.
A fear I have right now is that it's just Friday
and that there's still
a lot of time left.
There were other times during this
that I was definitely more Zen about everything.
Now I'm upset. [sighs]
♪ ♪
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.
It's hard for me even to remember what I just thought.
712, 713, 714,
715, 7...
15, 716, 717...
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.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
How many bottles of water have I drank?
Is there one more...
laying around here that I've lost?
♪ ♪
'Cause there are only six here.
But then down here there are...
Did I...
♪ ♪
All of the dreams I've had that I remember
have been about this room.
They've been about me being in this room
and about...
♪ ♪
He wakes up, and then he's in the room,
and it's difficult for him to discern the difference
between reality and dreaming sometimes.
So that's a real dissociation for him.
S, R, Q...
L, M, N, O, P...
I actually feel kind of 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.
And I keep smelling it 'cause it's just sitting there.
♪ ♪
Clearly, Michael is not happy right now.
He looks, like, you know, on the border of misery.
♪ ♪
Really aggravated by how uncomfortable I am.
This seems like a very, very long three days.
♪ ♪
He was just laying there.
When I walked in, I thought he'd be,
you know, sitting on the 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.
♪ ♪
[inhales deeply]
[groans]
It seems like Michael woke up from some kind of dream.
♪ ♪
He looks confused.
♪ ♪
[mouths words]
♪ ♪
Okay.
I'm really confused.
Wait. Did...
♪ ♪
I guess not. I guess I just dreamt it.
[crying softly]
I am so confused.
[knock at door]
Is 72 hours over?
It's 72 hours, Michael. You can come out.
All right, I'm coming out.
♪ ♪
- Wow. - Hey.
both: Congratulations. - Thank you very much.
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...
- Congratulations. - 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.
It's excited energy by 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.
[grunts]
Your pulse is also higher.
I think that's 'cause 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.
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 to able to communicate
actually had you more focused, more aware,
and that's why you performed better.
I find it interesting that the test you did the worst on
is 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.
- Hey. How are you? - Hi.
- I'm good. - Oh, good. I missed you.
- Let me say hi to my mom. - [laughing]
Hi.
Oh. Glad you survived that.
In the room, I was fine being alone.
This is where 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.
[laughter]
♪ ♪
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 "Mind Field"...
♪ ♪
Ready? Ready.
Hold the drug in your mouth until we say "swallow."
There have been some audio/visual distortions.
Ow!
You may see some images behind your eyes.
- Ooh. - Ow! [bleep]!
You [bleep] dick!
Why don't you come in here and [bleep] talk to me in person?
[grunting loudly]
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 chatbot.
What in the world?
♪ ♪
- [electricity crackles] - [grunts]
Beautiful.
Welcome to "Mind Field."
[electronic music]
♪ ♪