Fifteen French volunteers between the ages of 27 and 50 lived for 40 days in the Lombrives cave in southwestern France without telephones, watches and sunlight with a constant temperature of 10 and 100% humidity. Goal: To explore the limits of human adaptability to isolation and to understand how such an extreme situation can affect the sense of time. The experiment, called Deep Time, ended on Saturday when the eight men and seven women emerged, very pale, from the bowels of the earth with special sunglasses to protect their eyes after a long time spent in the dark. The $ 1.2 million project was led by the Human Adaption Institute.
Life in the cave
During their stay in the cave the daredevil volunteers hannor slept in a tent and yes they are self-produced electricity by pedaling on a bicycle. The water came from a 44-meter deep well. No contact with the outside world, no updates on the pandemic, no communication with family friends. Since there was no sunlight, the team followed their own biological clock to decide when to sleep, eat or do other daily activities. As expected all of them very quickly lost track of time. A volunteer told reporters that he thought it was just 23 days. Almost everyone agreed that time seemed to pass more slowly in the cave. A math teacher, Johan Francois, told the BBC he ran 10 kilometers into the cave to keep fit, telling of visceral urgencies to leave. Others, however, did not think like him: two thirds said they would stay in the cave longer. For once in a lifetime as if we could take a break, Marina Lanon, one of seven women who took part in the experiment, told the Guardian. There was no rush to do anything and I would have stayed in the cave a few more days to finish the activities started. But it was great to go outside and hear the birds singing again. The appointment with the smartphone was postponed for a few days to avoid a return to the real world too brutal by added Lanon
Why this experiment
The scientists who organized the project explained that the experiment will help them acunderstanding how people can adapt to extreme living conditions. The brain activities and cognitive functions of the volunteers were analyzed before the group entered the cave and then we will proceed with comparative studies. Scientists monitored the sleep patterns, social interactions and behavioral reactions of the 15 team members using sensors. One of the sensors was a tiny thermometer inside a capsule that participants swallowed like a pill – it measured body temperature and transmitted the data to a computer until it was naturally ejected. The research is of particular relevance in this pandemic period in which millions of people have lived in isolation. Team members followed their biological clocks to know when to wake up, go to sleep and eat. They counted their days not in hours but in sleep cycles, the scientists commented. Our future, as human beings will evolve, said the director of the project, the Franco-Swiss explorer Christian Clot, also in the cave. We must learn to better understand how our brains can find new solutions, in any situation.
April 26, 2021 (change April 26, 2021 | 4:56 pm)
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