Imagine living in complete darkness, deep underground, for 17 months—no sunlight, no people, just the echo of your thoughts. That’s exactly what happened to Beatriz Flamini, a Spanish climber and extreme sports enthusiast. She volunteered for a science experiment to see how isolation affects the human mind and body, and she spent all that time in a cave without contact from the outside world. Beatriz passed the time by reading, exercising, and writing journals, but she didn’t even know how long she’d been down there until she came out! When she finally emerged, she was surprised to find the world had changed in ways she never expected. And she wasn't the only one who spent months inside a cave for science! Credit: Mammoth Cave, by w_lemay, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Passage,_Mammoth_Cave,_Mammoth_Cave_National_Park,_Mammoth_Cave,_KY_-_52726550184.jpg https://www.flickr.com/photos/59081381@N03/52726550184/ Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00So, what's the longest you can survive without looking at your phone or watch to
00:05check the time?
00:07My personal record is about 13 minutes.
00:10But someone has no trouble living without knowing the time for 63 days!
00:15In the summer of 1962, a French chap named Michel Siffra took off his watch and went
00:21down into a cave in the French Alps.
00:24The then 23-year-old spent the next couple of months in complete isolation and without
00:29seeing the sun.
00:31And that's how he accidentally became the founder of a whole field of science called
00:35chronobiology, or the study of biological rhythms.
00:40Michel's original plan was to study an underground glacier he had discovered earlier.
00:46He wanted to spend 15 days underground, but then thought it wouldn't be enough to do
00:51serious research and decided to stay there for two months in the dark.
00:56It wasn't the comfiest of vacations, as his feet were always wet, and his body temperature
01:01was way lower than usual.
01:03He spent his free time reading, writing, thinking about his future, and studying his surroundings.
01:08He also slept well and ate when he felt like it.
01:12There was a team waiting at the entrance of the cave.
01:15They agreed the scientists would let them know when he woke up, ate, and before going
01:19to sleep.
01:20The team wasn't allowed to contact him, just to record when he was sending signals
01:25to make sure he was safe and sound and keep track of his life cycle.
01:29Cifra also informed them of his pulse and counted from 1 to 120 one digit per second.
01:36And that's how they found out his perception of time was seriously off.
01:40It took him 5 minutes to finish that task instead of the regular 2 minutes.
01:45When the team told him it was time to get out of the cave, he was confident it was only
01:49August, but it was already the 14th of September.
01:53Cifra thinks it had to do with an almost total absence of light.
01:57He had just a little light bulb in the cave.
02:00It all felt like one long day to him, and his memory couldn't keep track of what he
02:04was doing yesterday or two days before.
02:10The most important result of his experiment was proving that people, just like animals,
02:15do have an internal clock that doesn't depend on the day and night cycles.
02:20Cifra didn't stop there and went on dozens of expeditions to spend some time inside caves.
02:26Ten years later, he started a 6-month experiment in Texas.
02:30All this helped him to find that when people don't have time cues, they switch to a 48-hour
02:36cycle, not the 24-hour one we're used to.
02:38It would be 36 hours of activity and 12 to 14 hours of sleep.
02:43NASA used the results of his experiments to help astronauts who had short-term memory
02:48issues after some time in isolation.
02:54In 2021, a Spanish woman beat Cifra's cave record.
02:58Beatriz Flamini spent 500 days in a cave outside of Granada with basically no contact with
03:05the rest of the world.
03:06She insisted that the support crew wouldn't give her any news at all, even if something
03:11happened to her family members.
03:13The idea of this rough experiment was to test her own limits and also help scientists
03:18understand how staying in such extreme conditions affects the human mind and body.
03:24During the experiment, called Time Cave, Flamini received food from a drop-off point and sent
03:30GoPro videos of herself to the support crew.
03:32They checked the footage to make sure she was physically and mentally fine.
03:37Flamini spent the entire time working out, reading books, painting, weaving, and making
03:43food.
03:44She didn't shower, but the support team took out her natural waste once every 5 days.
03:49At some point, flies filled the cave, but Flamini braved on and continued the experiment.
03:55Around day 300, she had to leave the cave and stay in a tent in isolation for about
04:008 days because of a technical issue.
04:03When 500 days elapsed, the support crew found Flamini sleeping.
04:08She had lost track of time completely and said it always felt like 4am to her.
04:13She didn't want to leave as she hadn't finished the book she was reading.
04:17Although she started hearing things that weren't real and had a strong craving for roast chicken,
04:22the extreme athlete never even considered leaving the Time Cave earlier than planned.
04:28Researchers from several Spanish universities will analyze the data from this unusual experiment.
04:37Intricate biological rhythms govern our lives, from the smallest cellular processes to the
04:42functioning of the entire body.
04:45These rhythms regulate various aspects of your physiology, including sleep patterns,
04:50body temperature, hormonal balance, metabolism, and cardiovascular activity.
04:55Many diseases get stronger during nighttime or in the morning.
04:59Shift work disrupts the balance between internal rhythms and external time, so scientists blame
05:05it for diseases.
05:06Jet lag is a good example of how your internal clock gets out of whack because you move to
05:11a different time zone.
05:13But light, especially when you catch it at certain times, can help reset your body clock.
05:19When you see light at the end of the night, it nudges your clock forward, and early evening
05:23light can push it back a bit.
05:26It takes about a day for your body to catch up with each hour of time difference.
05:31And since our natural body clock ticks around 24.2 hours, it's easier for us to adjust
05:37to longer days out West than shorter ones out East.
05:41That's why when athletes or researchers live underground for a while, they end up feeling
05:45like they're in a time warp.
05:49Back in the 70s, scientists found the circadian clock mechanism in a fruit fly.
05:55It has to do with different genes.
05:57One gene revs up the other, which then puts the brakes on the first gene, creating a swinging
06:02rhythm.
06:03During the day, when the sun's up, a photoreceptor tells certain parts of the loop to relax.
06:09There's a whole complex network of molecules and neurons making sure everything ticks just
06:14right.
06:15Every living thing's got its own circadian clock, with its own set of clock genes doing
06:20the work.
06:21Besides light, other stuff, like temperature and food, helps sync up an organism's clock
06:26with the outside world.
06:31If you're feeling adventurous and want to try cave isolation yourself, how about the
06:35deepest one on our planet – Varyovkina Cave?
06:39It only got this title in early 2018.
06:42It was explored step by step, deeper and deeper.
06:45The first expedition to this cave in the West Caucasus only explored around 5% of it, but
06:51it was already nearly 400 feet.
06:54It was obvious there was much more to this cave, with a small entrance diving into the
06:58limestone of Earth's crust.
07:01Expeditions from all over the world went back there until they finally reached the bottom.
07:06The world's second, third, and fourth deepest caves are all nearby, hiding deep in the mountains
07:11of the Arabica Massif.
07:13It is one of the largest karst massifs on Earth, but it's still not well-explored
07:18because it's really tricky to get to this area.
07:21It's only accessible up to 4 months of the year because of weather conditions.
07:26Going all the way down there is really tricky and takes several days.
07:30There are underwater waterfalls with near-freezing water, flooding, obstructed entrances, and
07:35other surprise dangers.
07:40So if you aren't ready for the deepest of them, you could go with the longest one.
07:44Mammoth Cave in Kentucky has over 400 miles of limestone labyrinths already explored and
07:50probably around 600 miles still to discover.
07:54Over half a million people visit the cave every year as part of organized tours.
07:59You can choose between a classical and more extreme version, learn about the cave's
08:04cultural history, or attend a concert within its stone walls.
08:08You can also enjoy meeting over 100 wildlife species living there.
08:12One of the most famous and unusual of them is the eyeless cave fish.
08:17It has adapted to the environment without light by no longer growing eyes.
08:22That's it for today!
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