Have you ever wondered what a person is capable of for the sake of fame? Imagine a dark pit teeming with thousands of spiders and a volunteer who agreed to spend three days there.
It sounds like a horror movie script, but it's a true story.
The craziest record
In 2023, an unknown enthusiast broke the world record by living for 72 hours in a confined space with dangerous arthropods. Why?
The answer lies in a strange mixture of excitement, thirst for recognition and psychology. It turns out that extreme challenges have become a new trend among those who want to prove to themselves that they are capable of more.
What happens to the brain and body under such conditions
How does fear turn into excitement, and adrenaline into addiction? And most importantly, why do thousands of people follow such challenges as if they were sports matches?
We figured out how such experiments change our understanding of human capabilities and what the ancient survival instincts that lie dormant in each of us have to do with it.
1. The first hours in the pit are pure adrenaline. Your heart beats as if it wants to burst out of your chest, and every cell in your body screams: "Run!"
2. But after 6–8 hours, the “energy saving” mode is activated: the body understands that the threat is constant and stops wasting energy on panic.
The brain begins to look for ways to adapt - for example, a person notices that most spiders are not aggressive. They crawl on the walls, weave a web, ignoring the "guest". This is the moment when fear gives way to curiosity.
The participant in the experiment later said that he began to distinguish between the species of spiders, observed their behavior, and even gave them names. “By the end of the second day, I felt like I was part of their system,” he admitted.
But the night changed everything. In the darkness, when vision was useless, hearing and touch became more acute. Every movement of paws on the skin was perceived as a threat, and the brain again switched on panic.
3. It is interesting that it is at these moments that many participants in extreme challenges begin to see hallucinations - the psyche tries to “complete” a reality that it cannot recognize.
What happens after you exit the pit
It turns out that the "return" is more difficult than the test itself. The body, accustomed to constant stress, falls into apathy.
The participant described it as a “soul hangover”: the world seems too bright, people are intrusive, and ordinary problems seem insignificant.
But here lies the main secret of such experiments. They do not so much test endurance as reboot perception. After 72 hours in hell, even a traffic jam or a quarrel with a colleague seem trivial.
Neuroscientists explain this by the “contrast effect”: the brain that has experienced extreme stress stops responding to everyday stimuli.
But there is a downside - like a drug, adrenaline requires a new dose. Many record holders admit that they are planning a new challenge in a month, because ordinary life becomes "bland".
Why are viewers so crazy about this?
The answer is mirror neurons. When we see someone overcome fear, our brains respond as if it were happening to us.
This gives a false sense of being involved in a feat without risk to oneself.
Moreover, in an era where most challenges are virtual (deadlines, loans, social media), physical challenges are becoming a way to experience reality. People are tired of abstract “victories” like a 5% salary increase.
They want to see a living person fighting spiders, cold or hunger - this takes us back to the roots, where success was measured by simple things: surviving, getting fire, protecting the tribe.
Modern challengers are the new shamans who, through pain and fear, remind us that we are still alive.
