2 men.
1 plan.
An ever changing plan.
But a plan none-the-less.
Monday we'll begin our experiment of sensory deprivation. We start with eyesight. After Monday morning I put on my glasses, gauze pads, and possibly night cap. 5 straight days of being blind and I can't help but be excited.
I want.
To discover.
Myself.
Today we collected materials. All the things that we will need to continue on this experiment. Above, you'll see a pohto of what I will be wearing when I'm blind. You may not be able to tell but I am actually blind in the photo above. I'm wearing flesh colored medical bandages (I understand you can't really see them in black and white) and glasses that have been blacked out by both sharpie and tape. I can detect changes in light fairly easily though so Ben and I are looking into a way that I will not be able to, though I hope that we don't have to resort to a sleeper mask (It makes me look ridiculous). Tomorrow, Ben and I will visit Ameer to get the voice of a person who has been blind since the day that he has been born. He is a true friend and a amazing person.
Today made me realize that this experiment is extremely interesting. People want to learn and look into this and understand it. It scary to me because I now see the potential that this experiment carries. We had a round table discussion with the members of the independent study interim who were still at Wofford. It was very interesting to hear everyone's studies in full detail, along with the reasonings why they wanted to conduct their studies. It was overwhelming to have everyone ask so many questions about my reasonings behind wanting to put myself through this series of sensory deprivation but it helped me think about what I wanted to get out of it, since I haven't given that much thought since we designed the study. I'm looking for a means to me, to be completely honest. I'm excited that I'm able to do this in a research setting but am more excited to see myself for who I really am. They always said that college was the best opportunity to figure that out but I don't think anyone who says that really expected me to go blind for a few days.
The thing that scared me the most at these talks was the fact that our study does actually have academic and novel credit. The sponsors of the research studies were very interested and explain that it does have a very good chance of publication both academically and journal form from my experiences. I never really saw this as a means to something like that. I always have and will see it as a journey to discover myself, I just so happen to conduct research along the way. It scares me to think something like publication could happen... and I'm not exactly sure why. I know that I want to hurry up and get to Monday though.
For five days I will be going blind (Monday through Friday). The next week I will be going deaf for 5 days. The last week I will be stricken with true adversity by completing two whole days of both deaf and blind. While I'm most scared for the last week I also think it will be a time that I can truly examine my being, soul, or anything else that may be in there.
And soon, we begin.
Monday is so close.
And I can't wait.
No comments:
Post a Comment