It is often said that silence is golden. But the quietest room in the world is so quiet it could drive people crazy who spend more than an hour there.

The silence there is said to be so disorienting to the human senses that it can cause short-term psychotic episodes and hallucinations.

The anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, USA, is designed to allow precise measurements of sound levels produced by various test items, with extreme soundproofing measures taken to prevent sound from entering or exiting.

It comprises a large masonry and concrete chamber lined with 10.5 cm thick steel plates, inside which there is another, smaller steel chamber supported by vibration-damping springs. The interior of this space is covered with a thick layer of insulation covered in fiberglass shims that extend 85 cm into the space.

In 2021, it broke the world record held by Microsoft to become the quietest place on Earth, recording a sound of -24.9 decibels.

To put this into context, a regular whisper would be around 30 decibels, while a person breathing normally would be around 10.

The room took about two years to build and sits beneath six layers of concrete that block sounds from the outside world reaching it.

If a jumbo jet took off outside, noise is unlikely to penetrate the thick, soundproof walls.

Company founder Steven Orfield told MailOnline: ‘When it’s quiet, the ears adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear. You will hear your heart beating, sometimes you will be able to hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly.

“In the anechoic chamber, you become the sound.”

It is extremely rare for a human being to experience 0 decibels, let alone silence below that level.

Things that human beings consider quiet are closer to 20 to 40 decibels, like being in a quiet library or being able to hear your own heartbeat.

Exposure to calm below 0 decibels can therefore be extremely difficult for the other senses to adapt to.

Peter Suedfeld, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia who has studied sensory deprivation, explains the impact that prolonged time in the room could have.

He said: “We are used to every sound producing a little echo of the world around us. In these rooms there is only dead noise. It’s like walking into a dark room, at first we don’t see anything but over time our eyes adapt.”