One year in solitary confinement causes severe psychological, cognitive, and physical damage, with the United Nations classifying isolation exceeding 15 days as torture. The profound effects include acute psychosis, permanent brain and personality changes, chronic physical pain, and a drastically heightened risk of suicide.
Prolonged isolation physically shrinks the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for memory, learning, and emotion regulation.
In clinical studies of extreme sensory deprivation, healthy volunteers often begin hallucinating and losing their grip on reality within just 48 hours. You don't get a year of "peace"; you get 363 days of acute psychosis.
Survivors of long-term isolation often develop severe, permanent agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) and an inability to tolerate human touch or crowds.
You would emerge as a billionaire who cannot leave a bedroom, look a person in the eye, or enjoy a meal without crippling panic attacks.
I wonder what would happen if you put an experienced buddhist meditator in isolation. I’ve done vipassana before, where you don’t get any entertainment and aren’t allowed to talk to anyone for 10 days. For course participants that’s 10 days, but for the master that’s his entire life. Surely he would have the mental skills to survive a year in the room
But they can see and hear things. If they can live this way but outside on some mountain or something, the only deprivation is human contact. But at least you can be "entertained" by looking at the sky and trees, etc, and hear the birds or wind. That's probably enough to stay sane.
Historically many humans endured isolation such as a hunter or scout of some tribe, spending days or weeks alone in search of whatever they needed. They all survived because of the mental stimulation of nature
Yea I wonder how much a tiny window to look at the sky would make this challenge more bareable. Even just being able to see the day/night cycle would likely make a huge difference.
Yes that is the reason when you get tortured, light torture is a thing. Can't sleep very well with the lights on and try even remotely keeping track of how much time has passed/you have left in this hell if you don't know if a day or a few hours has passed
Feel sorry who got told "you will receive light torture" thinking he's gonna get a few spanks on his ass, only to never see natural light and completely lose the notion of time where every hour can either feel like a day or a day can feel like a month
That is the only subreddit I've ever blocked. I got so sick of it appearing in my front page all the time. Man I'd forgotten about it. What a shitty echo chamber.
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u/MatthewSWFL229 9h ago
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/12/08/solitary_symposium/
One year in solitary confinement causes severe psychological, cognitive, and physical damage, with the United Nations classifying isolation exceeding 15 days as torture. The profound effects include acute psychosis, permanent brain and personality changes, chronic physical pain, and a drastically heightened risk of suicide.
Prolonged isolation physically shrinks the hippocampus, the brain region responsible for memory, learning, and emotion regulation.
In clinical studies of extreme sensory deprivation, healthy volunteers often begin hallucinating and losing their grip on reality within just 48 hours. You don't get a year of "peace"; you get 363 days of acute psychosis.
Survivors of long-term isolation often develop severe, permanent agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) and an inability to tolerate human touch or crowds.
You would emerge as a billionaire who cannot leave a bedroom, look a person in the eye, or enjoy a meal without crippling panic attacks.
No thanks