A typical quiet bedroom at night is about 30 decibels. This chamber measures -9 decibels.
Ta Orfield Laboratories in South Minneapolis the home of a place once called “the quietest place on earth” from Guinness World Records. (As of 2015, this title now belongs to a quiet room developed by Microsoft in Washington state). The lab is called anechoic chamberwhich means there is no echo as the room absorbs 99.99% of sound. It’s used by various manufacturers to test product volume and sound quality — and it can also drive a person crazy.
A typical quiet bedroom at night is about 30 decibels. This chamber measures -9 decibels. It is constructed of 3.3-foot-thick fiberglass acoustic wedges and double walls of insulated steel and foot-thick concrete.
Members of the public they must make a reservation for a tour to visit the room and only allowed entry for a short, supervised stay. According to the lab’s website, only members of the media are allowed to be alone in the room for extended periods of time. One reporter took up to 45 minutes, and most people leave after half that time, tormented by the eerie sounds of their own bodies. “In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound,” says Orfield.
In the absence of external noise, it is the presence of insane silence that the ears adapt to. As the ears adjust to the silence, the sounds of your heartbeat, stomach, and lungs are your only reference and can be a disorienting experience.
Orfield explains that the only way to stay in the room for a long time is to sit down. A person’s orientation is largely ensured by the sounds made when walking or standing, and as these sound cues are removed, perception becomes skewed and balance and movement become near-impossible feats.
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