What’s It Like to Sit In the World’s Quietest Room?

Soundproof chambers actually have practical applications for acoustic testing, but they’re also really good for weirding people out.

Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota has built what they call “one of the world’s quietest rooms,” a chamber within a chamber within a chamber with walls that absorb all sound inside it.

That means that when you’re sitting in the middle of this room, the only things you’ll hear are the noises you make yourself – and it turns out the human body is really noisy.

As founder Steven Orfield explains, the moment the door closes – with the lights off, no less – you start hearing things like your heartbeat, your ears buzzing, your joints rubbing together and air moving in and out of your lungs.

This might be a relaxing experience for some, but for most people, being all alone with the sounds of your inner workings gurgling away is deeply unsettling. Most people can only last for about 45 minutes before they want out – so if you got trapped in there for hours you’d probably go out of your mind.

Don’t get any ideas, Orfield Labs!