Spending time in complete silence isn’t as peaceful as it sounds

True peace and quiet is hard to come by these days as most of us are never far from the buzz of conversation or the buzz of a mobile phone notification.

Now most of us would probably jump at the opportunity to spend time in the world’s quietest room and experience true silence.

But be careful what you wish for, as it turns out spending an extended period of time being able to hear yourself think is quite terrifying.

Just ask anyone who has spent time at the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Currently holding the Guinness World Record for the world’s quietest room, the chamber is said to absorb around 99.9 percent of sound.

To give you an idea of just how quiet the chamber is, the average room measures around 30 decibels at night, while the room at Orfield Laboratories comes in at an astonishing -20 decibels.

Now you may think that spending time in perfect silence could be a refreshing change from the chaos of daily life, the complete absence of sound said to be completely unnerving to visitors.

It is officially the quietest room in the world – meaning visitors can hear every grind, crunch and squeak their skeletons make.

Most people can’t stand to stay in there for more than a few minutes, as the silence is well and truly deafening.

It’s so quiet, that those inside essentially ‘become the sound’ – hearing their hearts beat and blood flowing through their bodies.

The world’s quietest room is located in Minnesota. (Orfield Labs)

The chamber is a six-sided steel double-walled box, encased in 12-inch thick concrete and even more layers of steel.

It’s supported by vibration absorbing springs to stop even the slightest sound infiltrating the eerily silent room.

Large chunks of fibreglass are also wedged along the wall to help reduce the amount of echo.

The room, designed by Steven Orfield, is primarily used to conduct experiments and measuring the noise of products.

But it has become an unlikely tourist attraction in recent years among daredevils who want to listen in on the inner working of their body.

Even if you think you’re hard enough, it doesn’t take long for visitors to be humbled by the power of peace and quiet.

Orfield explained: “We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark. When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear.

“You’ll hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly.

“In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.”

It is so silent that visitors can hear their hearts beating (Orfield Labs)

If the mind-boggling silence doesn’t get you first, the disorientation will certainly knock you down a peg or two.

People often loose their balance in the room as they are unable to steady themselves due to the lack of sound, Orfield said.

If you plan on spending around 30 minutes in there, you have to be sat in a chair.

Orfield himself admitted he can only last 45 minutes inside his creation – which is a mean feat considering he has a mechanical heart valve thumping away.

But it seems silence is in high demand, as he revealed the laboratory is still inundated with requests from ‘thousands’ of people from across the globe.

“There is no sceptical reaction, as this is simply a bodily experience, and there’s nothing to learn or believe,” he said.

A YouTuber managed to spend a whopping one hour and 26 minutes inside the chamber – but said he began hallucinating.

Complete and utter silence is surely enough to send anyone around the bend.

But if you’re still curious and somehow want to check it out for yourself, you can book a trip to the chamber.

It’s not cheap though – a visit to the room will set you back $600 (£527) per hour, per person. It’s also highly unlikely that you’d need more than a couple of minutes in there.