Have you ever been in a sensory deprivation tank? The idea is that isolation from any sensory input for an extended period of time has a healing effect on the body. There is very little to prove this phenomenon, but I believe, when used in the proper context, that profound silence is a tool that can heal, as well as inspire creative endeavors that may not manifest in an active environment.
I recently took a solo road trip to the Anza Borrego Desert State Park to explore this concept. This area is populated with tourists in the spring, who come to see the desert wildflower blooms, but I was there between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so there was very little activity in the area. The city of Borrego Springs was very quiet, and had a profoundly eerie feeling, as if something had just happened, or was about to happen. Maybe it was just my imagination running wild.
Anyway, after getting oriented to the layout of the park, I took a short tour of the places I wanted to photograph, then back to town for an easy dinner before heading to my hotel. At this point, I decided to fully commit to silence by not playing any music or media of any kind, and not speaking. Waking up in darkness from a restless sleep, I felt the urge to venture outside early, so I could be on location as the sun rose, and to have the best chance of experiencing absolute silence and solitude. I arrived at Rockhouse Trail well before sunrise, and was treated to one amazing display of color in the eastern sky. The OHV trail I was driving on became soft sand, so I decided to go on foot onto the dry lake bed. The first thing I noticed after getting out the car was the overwhelming sense of complete silence. I guess I hadn't realized just how much ambient noise is always there, even in the quiet suburbs away from the city.
Conditions changed rapidly, and as storm clouds formed, my preconceived ideas of the photographs I had planned disappeared. As the weather rolled in, I stood on the salty playa and simply absorbed the silence. Anxious thoughts of past and present dissolved, and I found myself in a state of hyper-awareness of my immediate surroundings, and nothing else. In this liberated state, I roamed the playa for one hour, freely making photographs, with no expectations or attachment to the results. Some of the images I created are displayed below.
The takeaway from this twelve hour "silence bath" was a visceral feeling of inner peace. The positive effects this experience had on me lasted a couple of days before I was unwillingly reintegrated back into auditory environments. I will be visiting another silent location soon.
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