Silence is golden. It can also drive you crazy.

There's definitely such a thing as "too quiet"

Quiet hiker
(Image credit: Courtesy Shutterstock)

It's nearly impossible to find a state of true silence. But some people go out of their way to find it.

Consider this 2012 New York Times article, called "Whisper of the Wild," about a group of scientists led by Davyd Betchkal. In 2006, Betchkal decided to trudge deep into the woods in an attempt to record 60 days' worth of pure silence, or more correctly, natural sound. The team sought a quiet undisturbed by the chafing of nylon snow pants, the crunch of snow underfoot, or even plane engines miles away. They wanted a silence so pure that it proved quite elusive. By the time the article was published six years later, the team had amassed a mere 36 days worth of silent recordings — barely half of the original goal.

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Michael Hedrick is a writer and photographer in Boulder, CO. His work has appeared in Salon, Thought Catalog and various other places across the web. His book, Schizophrenic Connections, is available here.