OUT OF TIME
Born in Nice in the South of France, Michel showed a prodigious talent for science.
He took up caving as a hobby when he was just ten years old.
After passing his baccalaureate, Michel went to the Sorbonne University in Paris and gained his degree one year later.
At the age of just seventeen, Michel was writing academic papers for the Academy of Sciences.
His speciality was the study of caves – speleology.
Michel’s lecturer, Jacques Bourcart, said he looked like, “a young Charles Darwin – the one from The Beagle’.
Michel founded the French Institute of Speleology (not to be confused with their great rivals the French Federation of Speleology).
On one trip to Sri Lanka, Michel caught amoebic dysentery. This disease tended to reappear throughout his life when he was stressed, leaving him with temporary paralysis.
He was also fascinated by the space race, particularly the Cosmonauts that the Soviet Union were sending into orbit. “I was fortunate to live in the most fabulous decade of the race to the stars.”
His great heroes were the astronaut John Glenn and the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
Michel noted how both cosmonauts and astronauts experienced disorientation upon returning to earth and consequently he decided to do research work on the effects of isolation on the human body.
In 1962, aged just 23, Michel set up an unusual experiment. “The idea came to me – this idea that became the idea of my life. I decided to live like an animal, without a watch, in the dark, without knowing the time.”
He found a cave in the Alps, about 70 km from Nice. It was known as the ‘Abyss of Scarasson’.
Michel decided to live underground in this cave for two months. It was 2,000 metres below the surface.
The experiment was done with the co-operation of his caving club.
Michel went underground on the 16th July 1962. He lived in a tent and had a groundsheet, a camp bed with sheets, a small stove, a lamp, some reading material and some slippers. He handed his watch over.
There was a telephone. He would phone out every time that he ate food and just before he went to sleep. His team were not to phone him under any circumstances until it was time to come out.
Michel also insisted the ladder was taken away so that he would not succumb to temptation and leave the cave.
As part of his experiment, just prior to being left alone in the cave, Michel counted to 120. It took him exactly two minutes.
The cave was well below freezing point, but the humidity was extremely high. His slippers became saturated and consequently useless. He was often afraid to light the stove in case he gave himself carbon monoxide poisoning.
Michel was in constant fear of his dysentery returning and he developed vertigo. Michel also admitted he suffered from depression.
Every time Michel phoned the surface, he took his pulse and then counted to 120 again. He also kept a diary whilst underground.
Michel was often not certain if he was awake or asleep – or for how long he had slept. “I had the impression of being motionless, and yet I knew that I was being dragged along by the uninterrupted flow of time…Time was the only moving thing I was moving in.”
He added, “In this world where everything is nothingness, only one thing remains – my thoughts.”
At one point there was a massive explosion very close to where he slept. It was a rockfall within the cave. “The emotional shock raised my temperature, bringing me out of my lethargy.”
After 32 days in the cave, Michel was phoned by his team – on the 14th September 1962. He was told it was time to come out. He had lost all concept of time. He thought it was August 20th, so refused to come out.
It took some persuasion. There was a five-minute argument (which was actually twenty minutes as Michel had lost his sense of time.)
When he eventually left the cave, Michel was so weak that he fainted twice. He was immediately put on a stretcher and a helicopter took him to hospital.
Whilst recovering, his team got him to count to 120. It took him five minutes – thus proving he had lost the concept of time.
Asked what the experiment had taught him, Michel said, “It’s entirely black. It’s like one long day. There is no external stimuli to respond to.”
He admitted his internal clock had gone haywire. “From the first day I no longer had any notion of time. I tried to find my way according to my hunger.”
Unwittingly, Michel had created a new area of scientific study; chronobiology – the study of human’s relationship with time.
“Without knowing it, I had created the field of human chronobiology.”
It meant a shift in the direction of his career. “Instead of studying caves, you end up studying time.”
Asked if he would repeat the experiment he said, “I will do it again – in ten years time.”
Michel published a book in 1964, based on his underground diary – ‘Beyond Time’. It became a scientific classic.
He was thrilled to hear that both the USA and the Soviet Union had used the book to help them with their space programme. What he did not realise was that both the Americans and Russian military also used it to help monitor the sailors in their nuclear submarines.
Over the next decade, Michel co-ordinated other similar experiments, using other people in isolation and monitoring the results to add to his excessive amount of data.
Michel summed up the purpose of his work. “I want to live as long as I can physically.”
He also undertook a trip to Guatemala in 1965, in search of Mayan rock art. There were many other expeditions and research projects.
In 1972, Michel decided to do the cave experiment all over again – but this time he went below ground for six months. It was sponsored by NASA.
He chose Midnight Cave, near Del Rio in Texas.
The focus of his research was ‘Without the sun, would a human being’s sleep pattern be the same?’
This time, he made sure he had more comforts – living in a tent within the cave and having reading, writing and research material to help him while away the time. Michel remembered how bored he had been on his earlier trip underground.
He also took the same freeze-dried foods with him that astronauts had on Apollo 16.
Michel had himself wired up to electrodes to monitor his body’s responses.
This time, his body stopped reacting to a 24-hour cycle and readjusted itself to a 48-hour cycle. He also reported a loss of short-term memory. He could not remember anything he had done for the previous two days.
After 79 days underground, Michel hit crisis point. His record player broke, and his writing and research materials and scientific equipment were rendered useless by mildew.
He tried to catch a mouse as a pet, using a dish to capture it – but he accidentally killed it. It tipped him into suicidal thoughts. “Desolation overwhelmed me.”
His experiment gained lots of media attention until he was pushed off the front pages by the Munich Olympic hostage crisis.
When he left the cave, Michel was forced to wear sunglasses for a while until his eyes could adjust to sunlight.
He immediately contacted NASA to give them the results of his experiment. Many of their astronauts had suffered a similar memory loss.
The unexpected consequence of Michel’s research project was that he accumulated a massive debt, despite having sponsorship. Coming out of the cave, he found himself owing $100,000.
Due to his financial worries, Michel reverted to more mainstream science, becoming an oceanographic geologist.
In 1999, he saw that his great hero, John Glenn, had gone back into space aged 77.
This inspired Michel to go underground for a final time, into the cave of Clamouse in the Herault region of France in 1999, to study the effects of aging on humans in isolated conditions.
He saw in the millenium whilst below the surface. He was underground for 60 days.
In 2004, Michel moved back to Nice. He lived in chaotic conditions, with paper and books everywhere – the house littered with souvenirs of his career.
He also published a second book – ‘Decouvertes dans les Grottes Mayas’.
When Michel died, there was much praise from the scientific community. “He revolutionized the understanding of the circadian rhythms and the reactions of the human body under extreme conditions.”
His research has had a lasting effect. Modern astronauts spend time alone in a cave in Sardinia, to experience isolation.
RIP – Repeated Isolated Practices
