Can you hallucinate in an anechoic chamber?

1. Anechoic chamber and echo chamber effects

An anechoic chamber is an acoustic laboratory used to study the propagation, reflection and absorption of sound within a space. It is designed to minimize the interference of external sounds to the experiment, allowing the experimenter to work in a completely quiet environment. However, this quiet environment may also create a strange phenomenon - the echo chamber effect.

The echo chamber effect means that in an anechoic chamber, people may experience hallucinations, anxiety, disorientation and other phenomena due to being in an extremely quiet environment for a long time. These phenomena arise from human dependence on environmental sounds and the sensory and cognitive challenges in the absence of sound stimulation.

2. Hallucinations in anechoic chambers

Although the main purpose of the anechoic chamber is to provide a quiet environment, this environment may also have certain negative effects on the human body, which is actually a sense of discomfort. The following are hallucinations that may occur in an anechoic chamber:

1. Auditory hallucinations: In an anechoic chamber, people may hear non-existent sounds, such as buzzing, whispering, etc. These sounds may be due to the brain's response to a lack of sound stimulation, or due to external environmental influences.

2. Impairment in spatial perception: In an anechoic room, since there is no basis for sound reflection and positioning, people may be confused about the space and find it difficult to judge the positional relationship between themselves and surrounding objects.


3. Anxiety and panic: After being in an anechoic chamber for a long time, people may feel anxious and panic due to the lack of social interaction and sound stimulation.

Hallucinations and other cognitive impairments are indeed possible in anechoic chambers. However, these phenomena do not mean that the anechoic chamber is harmful to the human body. In fact, staying in an anechoic chamber for a short period of time will not cause harm to the body. Some of the discomfort will disappear when you walk out of the anechoic chamber. The human body has lived in a noisy environment for a long time. When it comes to a place without noise, The environment, especially our hearing, will produce deviations. This is mainly due to the sense of incompatibility of our senses, which is what we usually call hallucinations. We need to scientifically use the anechoic chamber to study acoustics. When the discomfort in the anechoic chamber becomes worse, we can temporarily exit the anechoic chamber and slowly adapt.