 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Unlike in 2015, where I first spoke at the Portland Fold Conference, this time it is virtual, but what is the same is that I'm going to speak about Chamber Rest, which is completely different or not completely, but quite a different topic from anybody else's presentations, as I guess everybody else is going to speak about floating or flotation rest. And I'm going to speak about quite a similar technique, but which is obviously not floating. So I hope you will find it interesting for yourself. The focus of my talk, or the focus, like in the floating is on darkness and solitude, but in floating is not as much about solitude because the procedure are quite short. In my research topic, the procedures are very, very long, or can be very, very long. So that is why the solitude is the other focus. So why darkness and solitude matters? This is the talk. My name is Marek Marusz, and I work as the head of the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ostrava in the Czech Republic. So, welcome. The content, I asked for a workshop here, then I was asked to have also a lecture. So I decided to split it into two sections, like to the lecture, when I want to introduce you to some concepts connected with Chamber Rest, with the history, then Chamber Rest, then what do we call the darkness therapy? Not only, but especially in the Czech Republic. And then in the questions and answers session or in the workshop, I hope we will be able to dive much deeper into this topic. And I could ask your questions if you have any. And I'd like to tell more about burnout effect, psychotherapy and personal growth opportunities of Chamber Rest itself. So now the content of this talk is perceptual isolation, sensory deprivation, and then chamber or restricted environmental stimulation. You know, flotation rest, I'll be talking about chamber rest. And then the, let's say popular term, darkness therapy as for the introduction, which I called research prehistory. It is 1950s when perceptual isolation is emerging as a new field of experimental research of both psychology and physiology. It is connected with McGill University in Quebec, and the names like Donald O'Hep and John Peter Zubeck, as you can see them in the right down corner of the presentation. They had first laboratory for studying human reactions during stimulus modification. And in 1954, first published article, you can see how it looked like. You can see the drawing of the perceptual isolation chamber from 1950s. You can see, I hope that you can see the pointer of the mouse on the screen. You can see a communication device, a speaker and with microphone, some air ventilation and air conditioner heating, for example, for controlling the temperature. Here you can see the focus on the, let's say, guinea pig. You can see a participant in the study. You can see only lying down on his back, some standardized clothes, bandages around his forearms. Then you can see some wires probably from ECG measure. And you can see goggles over his eyes. What is important in this era, the focus, the emphasis wasn't only on darkness and silence, but also on different levels of light and sound. Let's say, let's say, gray sound and gray light. Sometimes it was all, it was also about excessive stimulation. So not only, let's say, sensory deprivation, then you do the new word terminology, not only about monotonous stimulation, but also excessive stimulation or overstimulation. So, for example, all the time it was under light. You couldn't see any patterns or colors, but some vague light or you could hear only a vague sound all the time. Well, the first results, effects mostly described as unpleasant and distracting, visual and hearing hallucinations, disturbance of perception and cognition, mood swings, disorientation, increased suggestibility, increased stress and anxiety, and most participants aboard their stays prematurely. If I ask you why, if I ask you why, I think you could answer yourself. Imagine you are this participant, you are this guinea pig. How long would you survive these conditions? Well, it, so it was, I call it a perhistoric milestone. There was methodological anarchy. They used different equipment, terminology, definitions, methods. Overstimulation, which I already mentioned and monotonous stimulation, was very often mistaken for which we called later sensory deprivation. And also there was a theoretical unclearity. So, this era stopped and era of sensory deprivation began. This era too, I called informed perhistory. Not, not like the first one, this was better because it was more rigorous. The research was more rigorous. It is 1960s and 70s. And there were over 20 laboratories in the United States, Canada, Japan and Germany. And emphasis was put on darkness and silence. Basic research oriented on questions of human need for stimulation, excitation, nature, and its relation to environmental stimulation, cognitive effects of isolation. Proven effects on physiological functioning were thinking, perception, memory, motivation and mood. So quite a broad range of effects on human psychology and physiology too. And first hypothesis of possible therapeutical effects appeared. But still it was something like what I call blind alley of perhistory. But why was it a blind alley? Because sensory deprivation was wrongfully connected with brainwashing and contactless torture. It was the era of Cold War. And researchers and their families were harassed and attacked, both physically and mentally, by militant students. And also tragic death of John Petterszubek, the leading figure of that era, went to end of usage the term sensory deprivation. Because it got a very bad reputation those days. Here you can see a sensory deprivation chamber at the University of British Columbia. Again, I hope you can see the mouse track. On the left side, there's a bed. Now it's more comfortable. If you can see the prior picture, this is more comfortable because you don't have only the bed in the very small room. You have also a dry toilet and a fridge for keeping some beverages and meals cold to make it last longer. You have also a chair with a desk for completing some cognitive tasks or personality tasks just after completing the stay under these conditions. Well, and this is to clarify why sensory deprivation and research of sensory deprivation was connected with contactless torture. And as you can see in this picture, which is from 2004, a hooded Iraqi detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison appears to be cuffed at the ankle and chained to a dog handle while being made to balance on two boxes. This is why it was connected, sensory deprivation and contactless torture. But if you think about it, probably you will find that sensory deprivation is not what is the main problem in this picture. But the main problem is that really this is a prison who is tortured in a specific way. And what we can call sensory deprivation that he has a bag over his head. It's only for emphasizing the bed situation he's in. But this is not about sensory deprivation. It's used for strengthening the negative effects of the situation. But it's like with everything in the life, you can use the advantages or disadvantages or everything. You can use almost everything to do good or evil things. We can move on to 1970s and 1980s. And this is the era of new terminology, restricted or reduced environmental stimulation followed by the word technique or therapy. It depends on the focus of the research. So the terminology moved from sensory deprivation. And from now on, we will use more the abbreviation rest, which stands for the title of this screen. Just a funny note, maybe not a funny note. John Lilly suggested that this abbreviation could stand for restore energy safely traveling. And I can imagine that many of you, especially a few floaters, would agree with this terminology and maybe you would like it. But we will stick to the academic form of the terminology. So restricted or reduced environmental stimulation technique or therapy. Two major branches. Let's forget about immersion rest. It's more complicated and as far as I know, it's not researched anymore. We have chamber rest and floatation rest. One more sentence I will say about floatation rest. And then I will let others to speak about floating all the time. Floating rest was recognized that it is effective for changes in autonomic nervous system and stress response changes. Unlike chamber rest, which was recognized for changes in central nervous system and behavioral or habitual changes. So more deliberate, more conscious changes. An increasing attention towards improving memory, perception, motor coordination and creativity. So now, from now on, we will talk only about chamber rest. And I will deliver you summary of findings from the researchers and authors like Seuthfeld, Barabash, Bori and others. Here you can see the chamber at the University of British Columbia. And it is a Peter Seuthfeld's laboratory. Or it was, it doesn't exist anymore. Not only the picture is colored, but you can see again, bed. This is totally important when you spend not only several hours, but sometimes day or several days in this environment. So you need to have a bed, then some comfortable arm chair and again an intercom, some communication device for communicating with the operator, the observer, the researcher. Here, because Peter Seuthfeld is the most, is the, he's not the only one, but he's the most important person for the rest terminology or rest research. And also for me personally, because it was Peter who invited me to the Portland float conference 2015. So this is why I'm mentioning him and thanking to him also. Now, the four major areas which were recognized that chamber rest has impact on them. It's really, really from stimulus overload, increasing stimulus hunger, memory improvement, and increasing cognition and behavioral flexibility. So these four areas we are going to talk a little more. The first one, stimulus overload. The essence of chamber rest is drastically restriction of environmental stimulation and information. And application of this principle could be, for example, neonatal intensive care unit for prematurely born children. It's not for psychology, experimental research, but it's actually the application because this NICU unit uses the, sorry, I can't remember the word, it's using actually some mild form of chamber rest of this reduced environmental stimulation, where you can observe reduction of cry, muscular dysfunction and other bodily symptoms. And also for isolation or exclusion of distracting inappropriate and violent individuals, because the solitude and low stimulation brings stress overall relief. Also autistic children. Now I'm describing specific experiments during 1970s and 1980s, all these results, all these findings. Don't imagine that they put autistic children under complete rest conditions like complete darkness and solitude. They didn't want to torture them at all, but they put them into a mild, moderate form of rest, which meant solitude and less light, not darkness, only less light and more silent environment. And they put also a control group or control group where autistic children are normal pediatric unit. And the experimental group in the moderate rest conditions showed improvement on various levels like social interaction and autistic behavior, and without observed signs of stress, which is important, otherwise it would be a torture for them if we could observe a stress. Then, for example, we had children, so now elderly people or very, very, very old people, specifically patients with dementia of Alzheimer type. Now it was in a form of instructions for staff and visitors to reduce excessive stimulus in the institution. Probably the stimuli in the institution wasn't excessive for people in normal age like me and you, but for the old people it became to be excessive. So there were instructions and it led to, in the disoriented patients, as you can see, 81 to 94 years old, that they showed significant improvement in ability to cope with everyday activities. And they showed decrease of restlessness, weight gain, trending towards mental and emotional characteristics improvement. When the staff and visitors were following these instructions to lower the stimuli in the institution. Then, point number two, stimulus hunger. The natural consequence of staying in rest 24 hours and more leads to intensive, intensive reaction to stimulus. Just imagine it as you know it. Now we are talking about mental stimulus hunger, but maybe, maybe all of you, definitely me, I know what is a normal hunger. When I'm too long on a diet, for example, at least three hours for me, three hours, it's quite a long diet for me. It happens that when I'm exposed to some food, this is my stomach. This is my stomach and inner child, which is enjoying and totally looking forward for the food. And how can we use it? We can use it actually in a very similar way to our mind, because the principle is actually maybe, it's very similar. For example, for phobias, and with some addition for weight reduction, for phobias, for example, fear of snakes, one experiment, five hours of chamber rest conditions, complete darkness, solitude, silence. I sometimes, I don't mention the word silence, but silence is also very important for the reduction of stimuli. Five hours of chamber rest and subsequent visual exposition, picture presentation, followed by exposition in vivo, in reality. When control group showed no effect, the experimental group with five hours of chamber rest and then subsequent visual exposition of snakes, which they wouldn't prefer normally to watch snakes on pictures, why would they do that? If they hate it, if they fear of it. But after five hours of mental diet, of stimuli diet, they quite liked actually the pictures of the snakes. And then in real exposition, they were able to approach real life snakes much closer than before the experiment. So this was the improvement, the ability to get much more closer to the feared stimuli, which was, which were snakes. And weight reduction. It's a little bit complicated, not much, but a little bit. It's connected with concepts like overbordom, overlearning, and aversive function. And it was used for a reduction of problematic, favorite food consumption and fat loss. When your favorite food is some greens, grass and vegetables, it's not a problem. But when your favorite food is something like McDonald's and other junk food and greasy food. When you try to over eat it in your normal life, you probably don't want to eat it for some period of time. But when you are exposed to chamber rest conditions and your hunger becomes much more obvious, much stronger, and you become, let's say, overboard, then when you put much of some specific stimuli like this food, that it makes you sick, then you over learn of the stimulus and then the aversive function, then you don't want to see it and eat it again, is much more persistent. And they showed, the participants showed fat loss after it. Now, point number three, memory improvement. One experiment just very briefly, 24 hours of chamber rest, verbal and non-verbal methods. And in both methods, the participants showed improvement, like improvement in memory after 24 hours of rest. I made an experiment with 48 hours, then with three days and four day long stays. And I can say that it's different. It seems that when you spend 24 hours in chamber rest, your brain is really relaxed and prepared for the challenges. But after two days, three days, four days, it becomes also a little bit lazy and you need some time to adjust to the normal world. So after two, three and four days, basically, you don't see an improvement. But after one day, it showed like that. And experiment number two is connected with electroconvulsive therapy. So the electroconvulsive therapy for depressive patients with subjective memory loss after the electroconvulsive therapy. One note to it, this is about an experiment three, maybe four decades ago. Nowadays, the electroconvulsive therapy is still being used for very hard pharmacoresistant depressions and some other problems. But today, it's much more modern and is much more gentle than it used to be. So I'm not talking about contemporary research, but research back in 80s and 70s. And those days, the patients had quite traumatic impression from electroconvulsive therapy. And when after electroconvulsive therapy, they were put under moderate rest conditions, something like the autistic children, they showed less traumatic impression from electroconvulsive therapy, even though it was no not supportive in objective tests, but the subjective experience was less traumatic, which is also important. Well, now and the second, the fourth area, which I think is actually the most important, but it's not the only one important because the all areas they work together. But as as itself, this is the most important one, cognitive and behavioral flexibility. Many chamber studies are based on discoveries that the rest environment reduces thinking and behavioral petal pattern rigidity by measuring reactions related to attitude and problem solving. We can say that it was found that influencing thinking flexibility happens even without new information exposure, because you can add some you can put some information into the darkness and silence. For example, you can you can tell some information to the people which could change their attitude. You can give them some new information. For example, that greasy food, junk food is not healthy for you, that smoking is not healthy for you, and that you can have some more benefit health beneficial habits. But also without exposing to any new information, the thinking flexibility is influenced. And what is the most important, you can see also behavioral change in the people. And specifically nicotine habit breaking by unfreezing rigid structures of thinking, emotions, motivation, and behavior supporting the habit. Of course, it has to be in compliance to clients wish to change or abandon the habit, but it's like any other kind of therapy psychotherapy. You need to decline to be compliant with it. Sometimes it was in combination with all the audio records related to the habit, as I briefly mentioned a few seconds ago, a few seconds ago. And most effective combination is of various interventions, like self management training, hypnosis, supporting groups and consulting and with the rest procedure. And low level of relapses is specifically low level of relapses is while combining rest procedure with other interventions. But also some side effects were found. Normally, we don't want side effects where we take some medicine, drugs, pills, we don't want these side effects like nausea, death, and you know, very, very broad variety of negative symptoms. But side effects during chamber rest are quite different. Normally you seek for a required result. It could be reduction or elimination, a problem, or a problematic behavior of the client. But what was not expected, it was found that time in the course of procedure is spontaneously spent by deeper reflecting on self life issues. And solution which was found, which is found is often successfully applied later. Increased frequency of health beneficial behavior, like more exercise and less greasy food. Solution of interpersonal issues in family and work is often fine, found. Muscular tension, hypertension, neck pain, anxieties tend to get better. And this applies mainly for flotation rest because it's mostly connected with autonomic nervous system and stress response changes. Then some changes in life view. And again, some specific effects sleeping without medication, more adaptive reaction to partners, death, and increase assertiveness, etc. And all of these weren't expected. The assumption is that mood improvement, improvement of self efficacy, self confidence, and optimism can ease up these are changes. But also some disturbing and negative thoughts, feelings, and memories may appear during the course of the procedure. So like some risk of it, potential risk. Well, so the results seemed to be quite promising. But still, the chamber rest research, very similar to flotation rest research, disappeared for decades. But now, flotation rest research is flourishing. It has been flourishing for the past decade or two, especially in the United States of Canada. And chamber rest is much more slower in it. Because there were and there are some application obstructions. First was a version to the rest, because still it was mistaken for prior sensory deprivation researches, which were connected to contactless torture and brainwashing. Then there were issues related to the procedure. And it's still, you know, how is it to operate a flotation rest, a floating tank. And for the chamber rest is maybe even more complicated because you need a special facility. I will show you pictures afterwards. And in the facility, you can have one man at a time. And also problems related to the client, because not every client wishes to spend one day, two days, maybe seven days, under complete darkness, silence, and solitude. This is definitely not for everyone. The same as floating is not for everyone, but still floating is much more accessible to more people, I would say, than the chamber rest procedure. The conclusion is many clinical applications are based on solid experimental data. Meta analytical study conducted by Kendall has shown in chamber rest studies mild effect. The effect size was 0.45 for the chamber rest itself. It was slightly bigger, 0.51 in combination with other procedure and lower rate of relapses and only 0.25 in a non-rest procedures. And I think and I believe that replications in present time and conditions are required. If you ask me why, I think so. I think so because the time is completely different now and the conditions are completely different. The motivation of the clients is completely different and etc etc. So now I will show you the last part of this presentation. And it's today's design and terminology, what is academically known as chamber rest is in the popular terminology and about about common people known as darkness therapy. It is what I used mostly and also with the abbreviation DT, then sometimes darkness retreats, more connected with some spiritual retreats, meditation, etc. Also the word Dunkeltherapy, a German word from Holger Calvite, who is actually the, let's say the father of the western chain darkness therapy, as we know it for some decades. And please don't confuse it with dark therapy. In 2015, in my own talk, I used the term dark therapy, but actually it existed before and it's a terminology from James Phelps. And it's connected with using goggles for blocking blue light wavelength and using it experimentally for treating bipolar disorders patients. So it's different. It's connected with only virtual darkness when you still can see, but for example during six p.m. till six a.m. the next day, the blue light spectrum is blocked and doesn't reach your eyes, but it's completely different than the chamber rest. So not dark therapy, but darkness therapy. The facility in which you can undergo the procedure, I will show you two types of facilities in the Czech Republic. This is, let's say, type one, which is a bigger and more comfortable one, and also one under medical background. This one specifically in Beskidi Rehabilitation Center, Čeladna. So you can see it from outside. Now you can see the inside. When you enter it, there are two separate entrance door to make maximum blockade for the visual and the hearing stimuli. Then you have the empty chamber where your food is delivered and also where you can find enough drinking water, what you need for surviving in there, because you have a food delivery and beverage delivery on a daily basis and you don't suffer from this kind of diet, unlike you want it. Of course you can be also on this diet too, if you want. Then you can see a shower room and here you can see the air condition, air recuperation unit, which serves the whole facility with fresh air. It takes out the odor and it brings you the fresh air. Here you can see the main room, the main living room with a bed, comfortable armchair, some exercise devices. This is under complete darkness. This is what is, as I mentioned, your stay could be, for example, seven days. Actually seven days, one week long stay, every single minute under complete darkness and out of silence. Still, you can make your own noises, sure. And solitude, but the solitude is interrupted once a day, unlike you wish it a different way. So normally, once a day, your guide, therapist, comes inside and talks to you, talks to what are your needs, how are you dealing, how are you coping with the environment, and he could also be your therapist. You could discuss specifically this man in Beskidir habitation, Cevatna. He's a psychologist, so he's having psychology sessions with you under complete darkness. Under complete darkness, this light is only for the photography purposes, but everything is happening at the same conditions all the time. Only once a day for five minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, it depends. You have the visit of the therapist. So another photo of it, and this is the floor plan, and I would discuss the floor plan more in depth in the workshop section, and some illustrative photography of how you can spend the time in the course of procedure. And this is Dr. Andrew Urbis, the psychologist from this center, as I mentioned before. And now the second type of darkness therapy or rest chamber in the Czech Republic, which is the most common one. Types like this, we have around 20, or we have around 20 providers in the Czech Republic with rest chambers like this, and some of them has only one, some of them has two chambers, some of them has up to four chambers. So I guess it for around 50 apartments for chamber rest stays in the Czech Republic. So you can see it's quite a nice nature in Beskidir mountains, wooden head, wooden cottage, at the operator's place at his garden. And now I'm showing you two separate facilities, two separate apartments, and on the left side you can see the empty chamber of one, and on the right side you can see the empty chamber of the second one. And as you can see, what is normal is to have a toilet, then to have a sink and a shower. And sometimes you have a bidet, because it could be, the hygiene could be easier while using a bidet during the chamber rest. Here you can see again some armchair, on the left side is a bed, and you can see a CD MP3 player here. For my studies, I forbid to use MP3 players, it's not available. In the type one, the bigger rehabilitation center Chaladna and its facility, it's also forbidden, but for many operators of chamber rest or the darkness therapy providers, their attitude is you pay for the procedure, and if you want to listen to some music or to some audiobooks, it is up to you. Now again, an armchair and some exercise facility, the bed again, some fresh fruits, delivered on a daily basis, as I mentioned. And this is how it looks like during winter. Quite nice, isn't it? Well, and all of this was approved by Peter Seutfeldt and his wife, Feliz Jürgen, when we visited in 2014 Dr. Andrew Urbisch's place in Chaladna, and just four kilometers from that place, this one in Kuzlovice, at the provider Roman Bartak. Now could be a place for our questions and my answers, but I think it won't work right now, and it will be, but we will be able to discuss all this topic more in depth in the following workshop section. So, thank you for your attention.