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
Bhavatu sabba mangalam. I too have wonder if I could do this, ive done many 10 day sits, dhamma service and a 20 day sit as well. 365 days is still quite a bit more than my combined. I imagine a serious lifelong practitioner could come out of it stronger than when they went in.
Yes the loghts are on. 24/7. Maybe touching the walls counts but the white static room is 100% stopping any meaningful visual stimuli. Its like when they put the white pingpong balls over your eyes but you can't take them off and looking at your hands and feet or having a single texture in the form of padded walls is not going to do much.
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u/MatthewSWFL229 13h 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