The 15 members of the Deep Time mission voluntarily confined in a cave in the Pyrenees for forty days found the light of day this Saturday and recounted their experiences, marked by the desynchronization of sleep, but also by "wonder" at this environment. "Extraordinary".

Dazzled by the sun, sunglasses on, the members of the Deep Time expedition reconnected with the outside world, their faces a little pale but visibly in good shape.

Without a watch, telephone or natural light, the 15 volunteers, led by Franco-Swiss explorer Christian Clot, had to get used to the 10.5 degrees and 100% humidity in the Lombrives cave, in Ariège, generate their own electricity by a pedal boat system and draw water 45 meters deep.

“The humidity has a huge impact.

We have seen over time and fatigue, the need for food increases, ”said Christian Clot, who spoke at length to the press.

Loss of temporal landmarks

In particular, the other participants stressed that they felt that much less time had passed when they were warned that the forty-day period was over. “It was a real shock. I thought there was still five or six days left, ”said Emilie Kim-Foo, a 29-year-old nurse who was part of the group. During the experiment, the participants also noticed a great disparity in sleep cycles. So when some people got up, others went to bed.

"We had no time benchmarks," said Tiphaine Vuarier, a 32-year-old psychomotor therapist.

"We probably slept more some nights and less others," said Marie-Caroline Lagache, a 50-year-old jeweler.

Usually, “I don't remember my dreams.

I had a good surprise.

I remember a few dreams in the cave, ”said Arnaud Burel, a 29-year-old biologist.

According to Christian Clot, founder of the Human Adaptation Institute, Deep Time aims to study our ability to adapt to the loss of spatio-temporal landmarks, a question raised in particular with the health crisis.

Contested scientific approach

Although researchers are associated with it, the approach is greeted with skepticism by other scientists who point out the absence of a sufficiently "rigorous" framework. Etienne Koechlin, director of the cognitive neurosciences laboratory at the Ecole normale supérieure (ENS), which participates in “Deep Time” research, defends its “innovative” character. Thus, data on the brain and on the cognitive capacities of the participants collected before entering the cave will be compared with those collected on leaving, in particular to study the changes in the nervous system linked to this exceptional environment.

Like other researchers, Pierre-Marie Lledo, director of the Genes, Synapses and Cognition laboratory (CNRS) and of the “Perception and Memory” unit at the Institut Pasteur, underlines the absence of a “group control ”allowing to compare the results of people locked up with those of others remained outside, which prevents scientifically validating the results according to him.

In total, Deep Time will have required 1.2 million euros in funding, in which private and public partners participated.

Society

After twelve days in the cave, the "voluntary prisoners" lost track of time.

Planet

In all illegality, loggers cut down swathes of forests in private homes in Ariège

  • Experience

  • Society

  • Cave

  • Confinement