[imagesource: Bruno Mazodier/AP]

Imagine going back to the basics; the darkness, a pre-born state.

Imagine switching off from your surroundings; no sense of time and no deluge of news, messages, meetings, responsibilities, or obligations.

Just you and your natural cycle of needs.

A study has just taken place trying to imagine this situation and the effect it would have on people.

The experiment, as part of a project called Deep Time and funded by the Scientists at the Human Adaption Institute, included 15 French volunteers who lived in a cave (see the picture above) for 40 days without daylight, clocks, and no connection to the outside world.

The experiment was to find out more about how humans adapt to drastic changes in their environment and to their living conditions.

As per The Guardian, Johan Francois, who sometimes had “visceral urges” to leave, said that the only challenge was “to profit from the present moment without ever thinking about what will happen in one hour, in two hours.”

As expected by those leading the study, the participants lost their sense of time.

They were released after 40 days from the Lombrives caves in south-west France with eyes shaded from the natural light and smiles on their faces:

“And here we are! We just left after 40 days … For us it was a real surprise,” the project director, Christian Clot, said.

“In our heads, we had walked into the cave 30 days ago.”

One female participant commented that she felt like they were in the cave for only 23 days

For many of the participants, taking part in the study was more like a getaway, to disconnect and press “pause”:

“It was like pressing pause,” said Marina Lançon, one of seven women to take part in the experiment. She did not feel any rush to do anything and wished she could have stayed in the cave a few days longer, she said, but that she was happy to feel the wind and hear birdsong again.

She did not plan to look at her smartphone for a few more days, hoping to avoid “too brutal” a return to real life, Lançon said.

The scientists, with labs from France and Switzerland collaborating, monitored the 15 team members’ sleep patterns, social interactions, and behavioural reactions via sensors.

One sensor was a pill-like thermometer that the participants swallowed, which transmitted data about their temperatures, only to be expelled naturally later.

The participants followed their biological clocks to know when to wake up, go to sleep, and eat.

They counted their days not in hours but in sleep cycles.

And they synchronised with each other fully, making it work, despite cold temperatures and no natural light:

“Our future as humans on this planet will evolve,” Clot said after emerging. “We must learn to better understand how our brains are capable of finding new solutions, whatever the situation.”

Overall, though, it seems a big takeaway from the study is how people crave and value a slower, less digitally intense lifestyle.

Relatable.

Here’s the moment they emerged from the cave, along with a few interviews:

[source:theguradian]