500 days in a cave

Contemplating sensory deprivation, HSP and extreme introversion

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Graphic art designed by © Claudette Labriola. All rights reserved.

Sometime during the pandemic a Spanish woman by the name of Beatriz Flamini entered a cave with the intention of staying there, disconnected from humanity and sensory distractions, for 500 days. The New Yorker featured the article, written by D.T. Max, which captivated my attention for an entire afternoon.

A number of thoughts jumbled through my head, none of them particularly structured, although loosely connected to the themes of sensory deprivation, solitude and by degrees, introversion.

The article triggered a few sentiments about my own desires to foster more, not less, solitude, particularly when I’m writing. My obsession to retreat into my very own room with a door is well-versed here and in my personal blog, and now that I finally have it, I welcome the built-in solitude that accompanies my personal, private space.

HSP - Highly Sensitive Person syndrome

The article also evoked further inquires into my self-diagnosed, Highly Sensitive Person syndrome (HSP). This connection - over-reacting to external sensory stimuli - intrigued me because Ms. Flamini insisted on being in a cave, void of nature’s natural rhythms of day and night, and changing seasons.

My first thought was I could never do that. I depend on daylight and especially sunshine to maintain a sense of emotional well-being. Despite often shutting myself away from the busy world of people and social activities, I always seek natural light to accompany my activities during daylight hours. As soon as it gets dark, I either have to simulate a pleasantly lit ambiance of low lighting in my environment, or succumb to my natural desire to sleep. The alternative, to subject myself to lengthy periods of darkness, tends to result in symptoms of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). Which is why winter months in Canada are particularly difficult for me, but more on that another time.

Experimenting with sensory disconnect

Experimenting with a complete sensory disconnect including natural light seemed excessive to me, but that was partly the reason I wanted to find out more about this woman and her desire to undergo such an extreme experiment. I found it peculiar that someone would choose to spend 500 days away from natural light on purpose.

Still, the article is fascinating in its own way and casts my thoughts about a variety of related subjects into a wider net, always a good thing when contemplating the written words of others. Or writing my own written words for others, be that as it may.

Personal thoughts based on direct quotes

Here are some direct quotes taken from the article, in no particular order, which prompted relational thoughts about Ms. Flamini’s adventure.

Quote 1:

Spending time in a cave could provide useful lessons in endurance and focus.

My first question was, why did she want to do this? Was there a career aspiration in extreme sports, perhaps, that she was training for? There was mention of spelunking, - the exploration of caves - which captured her interest but that didn't deter me from wondering why she would want to excommunicate herself not just from social contact (which I can understand by degrees) but from nature, daylight and changing seasons.

Quote 2:

How would she get garbage out without seeing daylight?

The article mentioned that the idea itself was not a bad one, especially when considering the scientific aspect of the experiment, but in order to successfully complete the experiment, she would require a team to help monitor and sustain her. If she refused to leave her cage to get rid of refuse and personal waste, she would need assistance in the name of hygiene and to avoid unnecessary illness. Simultaneously, she needed food and water, none of which she could scavenge, hunt or gather herself if she were to remain inside the cave for the duration of her experiment.

There was a team of scientists, medical professionals and many volunteers who agreed to assist Ms. Flamini with her desire to remain submerged in her cave, which turned into a lengthy and logistically complicated undertaking especially since the world at that time was still reeling from the effects of the covid pandemic.

Quote 3:

Her basic goal remained intact: to neither see nor speak to another human being for five hundred days. She didn’t even want to see her own face. “I wanted total disconnection,” she says. If her expedition worked as planned, it would feel somewhat like spending a year and a half inside a sensory-deprivation tank.

Reading this statement makes me hyperventilate. This is where the HSP connection entered my mind. There were many times when I desired a deep disconnect from everything and everyone, possibly for longer periods than the average person could endure, at the height of my parenting years of young children in year-round competitive sports, but a complete disconnect from most of my senses? To me, this seemed excessive but none the less piqued my own curiosity.

I was drawn in by her sense of adventure to conduct such an experiment.

I kept thinking, would her results and later sharing of her personal story help me discover things about myself?

The whole idea about sensory deprivation is fascinating, especially because I already struggle with hearing loss and depend more heavily on my other senses. What if I was submerged in a dark, cool cave without access to sunshine? How would that affect my neurological health, my mental and emotional stability, and my physical ability to do all the automatic things we take for granted while living a normal life? Would it impact my sense of balance more than it already does? (Balance is controlled by the inner ear, and since my hearing is damaged, my balance is not great, especially in the dark.)

Reading a little about Beatriz's personality and character traits, I understand that she was happy in solitude, more so than most of us. Her desire to plunge into this experiment with resounding confidence of success is remarkable even though her attitude toward this experiment didn’t really resonate with me.

Quote 4:

Julio Santiago, an experimental psychologist at Granada, who planned to examine changes in Flamini’s temporal and spatial perceptions, told me, “You don’t very often find someone who wants to be isolated and disoriented like this.”

The desire to be isolated for a time is probably not that unusual; parents, teachers, nurses, anyone working with the public... Still, even self-proclaimed hermits have occasional contact with other humans, and many of them isolate themselves in nature which means they have access to other living things. (I once knew a colleague whose brother lived in a cabin deep in the Canadian bush and rarely made contact with other humans.) For these hermits in the forest, non-human living things like animals and plants become a primary source of nourishment and mental health; I bet watching wildlife becomes a form of entertainment, providing visual sensory stimuli which must have some neurological impact on the human brain. But these self-imposed hermits don't depend on others to survive the way Ms. Flamini did. The hermits likely hunt and gather their own food and water, and participate in the natural life cycle of disposing one’s waste, whereas Ms. Flamini had food and water delivered to her by volunteer caterers and groups of people participating in other life-sustaining activities.

Quote 5:

There is no past, there is no future. Everything is present, everything is a while ago, and it’s all brutal and strange.

This sentence confuses me. I agree that there is no past or future if you’re surrounded by darkness day in and day out. The only thing you continue to attach time to, perhaps sub- or even unconsciously, is your body's natural rhythms. You will get thirsty, you will get hungry, you will need to eliminate waste from you body, your hair and nails will grow.

I wonder how that would work in constant darkness; does the body keep a predictable schedule?

Quote 6:

Flamini was capable only of sporadic bursts of activity. She drew some cartoons about her experience—one depicted the Time Cave team members picking out books for her at the library—but left out everyone’s facial expressions. Whenever she drew herself, she placed a blindfold over her eyes. “I was denying myself,” she told me.

This idea of denying herself, or leaving faces blank or drawing blindfolds, fascinates me. Did she do this consciously or did the artistic bursts of creativity just come out that way?

I wondered many times whether she kept a journal. There was talk about entering daily updates into a computer (set up as a one-way method to avoid connecting with the outside world) which she agreed to use for the purpose of scientific monitoring. But within a few months, there appeared to be a disconnect with her journaling, at least as far as the computer was concerned. She also experienced technical issues and was hesitant to allow anyone to enter her cave to fix or replace the technology.

If I was in such a circumstance I know I’d be writing pretty much every sordid thought which entered my mind into some type of journal. Most scientific explorers tried to keep track of their adventures by making some form of notes, but it didn’t appear Beatriz did this very often. Not everyone is drawn to writing daily, I get that, but I would have wanted an opportunity to re-read my journey at some point in the future, so I found this to be an odd omission.

Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut extraordinaire, connected with the world via social media (twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield) from the space station to entertain millions with his impromptu experiences. I loved that aspect of humanizing a trip to a place where few people will every go.

Fictitious but starship Enterprise captain Jean-Luc Picard also entered daily updates into an electronic device to keep track of his discoveries, challenges and insights.

I’m curious: will there be a book by Beatriz Flamini? I will have to keep an eye out for news on this.

Quote 7:

She read sixty titles, though she told me that she recalls almost none of them—one exception was “Endurance,” an account of Ernest Shackleton’s failed attempt to reach the South Pole, which she had brought with her and read soon after arriving in the cave.

I am familiar with Shackleton's tale and understand that a woman like Ms. Flamini would be intrigued by his challenging adventure.

The Hollywood connection

Meanwhile, it occurs to me that isolation is a topic well covered by movies featuring many popular celebrities. Think of Cast Away with Tom Hanks, I, Robot (by degrees) with Will Smith, and who hasn't seen Matt Damon's The Martian?

I also recall clearly how isolation due to necessity affected the very well received television series The Walking Dead, at least for the first few seasons. After Negan's arrival, some of its popularity dispersed, but I remember watching for a while still and tried to wrap my head around what some of the characters went through at the onset of the apocalyptic catastrophe. Michonne spent much time alone before she joined the tribe at the prison, and Carol Peletier became a hermit in her own way after Rick Grimes gave her the boot. And the show favorite Daryl Dixon is well-known for his need to separate from the collective and survive on his own.

All in all, I find that an extreme approach to most hermit-induced, excessive isolation scenarios are not my cup of tea, preferring instead a more balanced existence. What fuels me even while in temporary self-imposed isolation (in my relatively recently acquired room with a door) is the ability to think and write without interruption. However, the east-facing window in that room lets in enough daylight to beckon and tease me to disconnect from my screens every so often in order to enjoy the world beyond the shut door and associate with humans and nature as a way to increase my abilities to express myself creatively. I can’t imagine how an almost complete shutdown of sensory systems would allow for the cultivation of such outlets.

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