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In a room in a modest concrete building in a leafy Minneapolis neighborhood is silence exceeding the bounds of human perception. Technically an \u201canechoic chamber,\u201d the room is the quietest place on the planet \u2014 according to some.\n\nWhat happens to people inside the windowless steel room is the subject of wild and terrible speculation. Public fascination with it exploded 10 years ago, with an article on The Daily Mail\u2019s website. The article left readers to extrapolate their own conclusions about the room from the short, haunting observations of its proprietor, Steven J. Orfield, of Orfield Laboratories.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ll hear your heart beating,\u201d Orfield was quoted as saying. And, \u201cIn the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.\u201d\n\nMuch of the lore about the chamber\u2019s propensity for mind-annihilation centers on the concept of blood sounds. Hearing the movement of blood through the body is supposedly something like an absolute taboo, akin to witnessing the fabrication of Chicken McNuggets \u2014 an ordeal after which placid existence is irreparably shattered.\n\nDespite this, Caity Weaver, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, wanted to give the chamber a go.