Can silence drive someone insane?

Yes and yes. Silence is used as a sensory deprivation torture technique. Adding one sound is Chinese Water Torture (though I believe it goes by other names). Being around people, noises, natural light – all are very important for our sanity.

It depends on if you are then replaced into a social context. Insanity in total isolation is probably an irrelevant condition.

I think I could tolerate silence better than darkness, or, worse yet, silent darkness. lol

It would depend of course.

Voluntary silence, like a meditative thing, and/or self imposed long stretches of silence would be easy to handle, for me anyway, but…torture induced silence would also carry a heavy burden of anxiety that would be the real insanity.

I once toured some caves and was told that total darkness will drive one insane pretty quickly.

The tour guide turned off the lights in the cave and said it was the most intense, dense, darkness one could experience.

I am a pretty sound woman, no real neuroses,fears, and I swear after about a minute in that darkness, with your eyes not being able to adjust at all, I started feeling really creepy!

They left the lights off for about 3 minutes and I was on the verge of screaming…seriously! lol

I’ll take silence over darkness any day!

Complete sensory deprivation can make you psychotic in fifteen minutes. You start hallucinating voices and visions quickly inside of anechoic chambers, rooms that dampen out all sound and block out light.

@Coloma But meditative silence isn’t total silence. You still have the sound of the wind, the sound of trees and leaves and animals, perhaps the sounds of the city/traffic – the only thing silent is you.

@papayalily

True. noticing the sound of my fridge humming. now, previously unoticed noticing, haha

It is hard to attain utter silence short of wrapping your head in egg crates and insulation. lol