Depravation

I've been looking for studies on the effects of full sensory deprivation on the mind: can you direct me to where I could find the results of one?

 

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I havent come across any, but if you do, I'd love to see them. This is something that interests me a great deal. Mostly because I link the ideas of an AI disconnected from the world, living solely in a computer about the same as a person in full sensory deprevation.

Good thread, hope you get some responses.

-AntonK

 

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how did you get rid of the sense of touch ? ... how about sensors in the internal organs ?

 

hmm ... so what were the results?
I still think that to have complete sensory depravation you'd need to cut off all nerves that go in and out of the brain , and then , in order to find out what happened put it back togather ... no matter how much isolation you get the brain will still get signals from the internal organs ... which will give the mind something to think about ...

 

I don't know of any actuall studies, sorry.

I do know of studies on specific senses and they tend to report the body kind of making up input. Your brain expects input and when it doesn't get it it makes it up. I beleive it's because there is a certain amount of noise in the system so even if you cut off all input externally there will still be some internally.

so people put in a dark room will halucinate seeing things, sound proof rooms leads to auditory halucinations, ect.

now doing them all at once, and over a long period of time? my guess is that would lead to lots of crazy sensory artifacts. and would more or less totally screw you up.

 

K-hole

 

My sentiments exactly - I was just scrolling down thinking that when I saw you post an laughed!

The tranquiliser 'Ketamine', cuts off sensory input to the brain to a certain degree. Take a high enough dosage and you will enter what caners call the 'K-hole'. I once tried some, very strange experiance.

I had no access to my memories, just a thinking self. As it wore off I remember trying to work out the eviroment around me. Extremely interesting, especially as everything began to come back. Nothing philiosophical about the experiance, however. Revelations made under the influence of drugs should not be trusted.

 

So god isn't a yellow moomin that lives in a bucket at the bottom of my garden?

The closest experiment I can think of is the kittens in a box experiment where they were subjected to vertical or horizontal black and white lines during their growth, being in a box they were also subjected to a minimal of other sensorary stimuli.
I think the kittens couldn't retract their claws when walking across a carpet as they had no references in their neural structure to function correctly in the real world.

As for full sensorary deprevation in the human mind, try it for yourself for a weekend, I would think that over long periods of time the brain would create reinforced pathways through repetitive thought, send you a bit funny.

 

Yes, I agree. One of my many drug-theories (and this is only a hypothesis) is that stimulant drugs like MDMA or other 'phets cause meaningless pathways to be reinforced.

I would appreciate feedback on this hypothesis. For example, I do not know for certain if these chemicals do cause random neurons to fire, which is a pre-requisite of this theory. I do know that they do cause the release of neuro-transmitters in certain neurons and it seems like common sence to assume that the nerve is fired, just as if a genuine impulse arrived at the synapse and caused the release.

 

There was a prison system in Farnce designed to do such in the 18th century. Quite barbaric and it was shut down because of such cruelty to the inmates. It was based on a weirdo doctor's advice that Criminals came about because their senses decieved them t odo wrong things..(or something like that). From what i can recall the prisoners weren't allowed to see in light again. Their cells were always kept dark, they wern't allowed to talk, hear, smell, see, touch in their cells. When they were taken to the cafeteria or the showers they were kept in blindfolds all the time and constantly spun arpund so they wouldn't get accoustened to the prison layout even in the blindfolds.

Eventually it wasn't a success.....all the prisoners went crazy eventually, they became dellusional, crazy and just plain messed up. It was shut down

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So (to the person who did the experiment) how does the body functions go on when the brain is deprived of senses? (by body functions i mean sweat, digestion, hormones, cell reproduction, blood flow, etc)

 

I suspect that some of the body functions would be thrown in a loop. I guess one would sweat a lot more from the dellusions and the general crazyness. Blood flow would also speed up at the first stages since the heart would beat faster due to anxiety and the mental stress from the utter depravation. Digestion may drop from fear and high ephinepherine levels in the blood meaning endocrine working over time. It would be a major stress on your Brain though...hate t obe the poor bastard who has to go through this.

 

But why not the opposite? why not be tranquil, since theres no hot or cold (neutral)... Like a buddhist who achieved not wanting anything etc?

im really looking for the answer from the person who did the experiment, to receive detailed info w numbers.

 

Well i was reffering more to the effects caused by the French prison experiments.

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