Inside the quietest room on Earth: A mind-bending experience

Did you know there is a world where silence  takes on a life of its own? In this room, your heartbeat becomes an audible drum, your breathing is loud, and the silence is deafening. Welcome to the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota, the quietest place on Earth.

Silence Like You’ve Never Known

This remarkable chamber holds the Guinness World Record (2021 to date) for the lowest sound level ever recorded: an incredible -24.9 decibels. Prior to this, Orfield Labs held the 2005 and 2013 Guinness World Record for the quietest place on Earth. Microsoft’s anechoic chamber in Redmond, Washington beat Orfield in 2015 to become the world’s quietest place.

To put that into perspective, Orfield Labs is quieter than a whisper, rustling leaves, or any other sound your ears are used to hearing. In this setting, silence is more than just the lack of noise; it is a completely new sensory experience.

Interestingly, the place transitioned from a place of music and sound to the quietest room on the planet. The building which was used for a well-known studio called Sound 80 was where popular artistes such as the late Prince, an American musician, began their careers.

The chamber achieves this level of quiet with ingenious design. Fiberglass wedges, insulated steel walls, and a foot-thick layer of concrete combine to absorb 99.99% of all sound. This creates a vacuum of noise so complete that it can feel otherworldly.

The Unsettling Side of Silence

For most people, such silence isn’t peaceful; it’s disorienting. The longest anyone has lasted in the chamber is about 55 minutes. Deprived of external noise, your brain tunes into the internal symphony of your body. Your heartbeat thuds, your stomach rumbles like a drum, and even your breathing takes on an eerie resonance.

The lack of sound doesn’t just heighten your awareness of internal noises. It can also play tricks on your balance and spatial perception. Without auditory cues, many people report feeling unsteady or disoriented, as if the room itself is shifting. It’s a profoundly strange—and sometimes unsettling—experience.

In an interview with CNN, the founder of Orfield Labs, Steve J. Orfield, stated that the experience is partly influenced by the location one was in moments before entering the chamber because it will be more difficult to properly comprehend the calm after coming from a noisy setting.

Orfield, who has conducted studies on the effects of noise on those with degenerative illnesses like dementia, also mentioned that tourists with autism, ADHD, and other anxiety and hypersensitivity disorders typically found the chamber to be serene and peaceful.

Why Build Such a Room?

The anechoic chamber serves important scientific and industrial purposes. It’s used to test products like microphones, hearing aids, and other audio equipment in environments free from sound interference. NASA has even used chambers like this to prepare astronauts for the silence of space, simulating conditions that can be both isolating and challenging.

A Test of Human Limits

For those brave enough to enter, the chamber offers a unique challenge: enduring the kind of silence that most of us will never encounter. Orfield Labs occasionally allows researchers and curious visitors to step inside and experience this profound quiet firsthand—if they dare.

Redefining Silence

The anechoic chamber isn’t just a scientific marvel; it’s a window into how deeply sound shapes our perception of the world. In this space, silence isn’t golden—it’s an almost tangible force. For anyone who enters, it’s a journey into the heart of quiet, where even the faintest sound becomes impossible to ignore.