Quietest place on Earth is so quiet you can hear your own organs

Being able to hear yourself think might sound like a nice idea, but the reality isn't as pleasurable as you may imagine.

Just ask anyone who has stepped foot inside the world’s quietest room, which absorbs 99.9 percent of sound.

To put that into context, while the average room measures around 30 decibels at night, the anechoic test chamber at Orfield Laboratories comes in at an astonishing -20 decibels.

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

The echo-free chamber in Minneapolis, Minnesota, even has the Guinness World Record to prove it.

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

It'x so quiet, that those inside essentially 'become the sound' - hearing their hearts beat and blood flowing through their bodies.

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.

It must be lovely and toasty in there - as well as chillingly soundless - with that much insulation.

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."

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.

You could always try putting it on your Christmas list and see if Santa brings you the gift of extreme silence.

Topics: Weird, Guinness World Record, World News, US News

Olivia Burke

Olivia is a journalist at LADbible Group with more than five years of experience and has worked for a number of top publishers, including News UK. She also enjoys writing food reviews (as well as the eating part). She is a stereotypical reality TV addict, but still finds time for a serious documentary.

@livburke_