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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow extreme isolation warps the mind
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140514-how-extreme-isolation-warps-mindsMichael Bond | 14 May 2014
When people are isolated from human contact, their mind can do some truly bizarre things, says Michael Bond. Why does this happen?
Sarah Shourds mind began to slip after about two months into her incarceration. She heard phantom footsteps and flashing lights, and spent most of her day crouched on all fours, listening through a gap in the door.
That summer, the 32-year-old had been hiking with two friends in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan when they were arrested by Iranian troops after straying onto the border with Iran. Accused of spying, they were kept in solitary confinement in Evin prison in Tehran, each in their own tiny cell. She endured almost 10,000 hours with little human contact before she was freed. One of the most disturbing effects was the hallucinations.
In the periphery of my vision, I began to see flashing lights, only to jerk my head around to find that nothing was there, she wrote in the New York Times in 2011. At one point, I heard someone screaming, and it wasnt until I felt the hands of one of the friendlier guards on my face, trying to revive me, that I realised the screams were my own.
We all want to be alone from time to time, to escape the demands of our colleagues or the hassle of crowds. But not alone alone. For most people, prolonged social isolation is all bad, particularly mentally. We know this not only from reports by people like Shourd who have experienced it first-hand, but also from psychological experiments on the effects of isolation and sensory deprivation, some of which had to be called off due to the extreme and bizarre reactions of those involved. Why does the mind unravel so spectacularly when were truly on our own, and is there any way to stop it?
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How extreme isolation warps the mind (Original Post)
G_j
May 2014
OP
bvar22
(39,909 posts)1. Solitary Confinement IS torture,
and widely practiced in the USA.
G_j
(40,366 posts)2. From Prisons to Black Sites, US Hand in Global Torture Exposed
bvar22
(39,909 posts)3. Well, at least 12 people care.
I believe "they" are winning.