11 Super Curious Life-Changing Experiences

Upon hearing the word ‘experiment’, many people imagine a stereotypical mad scientist with glasses in the middle of a smoky laboratory. It’s just that the protagonists of our post are not scientists, but ordinary people who like to perform extreme experiments on themselves. Some of these daring guys turned their lives around by embracing continuous research.

O awesome.club he is still impressed by the courage one needs to have to venture to carry out such audacious experiments.

Russian film director Ilya Khrzhanovsky shot a realistic film about the famous Soviet physicist Lev Landau. To do this, he created a “Secret” Soviet Institute of Theoretical Physics, inside which, in complete isolation from modern society, 400 people lived for 3 years (from 2008 to 2011).

The fashion, vocabulary and atmosphere of the former USSR were retained inside the Institute, and the interior decoration and setting reproduced the life of that era down to the smallest detail. The lifestyle was also imitated in an orderly fashion:

The wearing of modern clothing was not allowed; only people dressed in Soviet clothes could enter the Institute’s territory. Neither the Internet nor cell phones were used. All residents of the institute received a salary in Soviet rubles. Nobody ate for free: the actors bought food with the money they ‘earned’ at the Institute.

In the words of the executive producer, Martine d’Anglejan-Chatillon, people’s lives at the Institute were real: they fought, became friends, fell in love and even gave birth (14 children were born in 3 years).

In 2015, 6 volunteers, 3 men and 3 women, lived for 365 days in an autonomous complex on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano (Hawaii). They remained in conditions similar to those on Mars. The group was observed by scientists throughout the day, with the help of online transmissions from cameras and medical sensors placed on their bodies.

The complex consisted of a 2-story building: the first imitated a scientific laboratory, and the second had tiny rooms. The participants in the experiment were allowed to go out once a week and only wearing special clothes. They ate canned food and water was rationed.

The aim of the simulation was to understand how people would behave in conditions of prolonged isolation, what psychological and medical problems they would have and how the relationship between team members would develop. According to NASA (organizer of the experiment), the team showed good results and a reasonable capacity for survival.

Pavel Sapozhnikov settled on an isolated farm and saw for himself what everyday life was like in Russia in the period equivalent to the Middle Ages. The aim of the project was to find out whether a modern person could survive in medieval conditions while maintaining a lifestyle that was at least tolerable.

During the entire project (which lasted 6 months, from autumn to spring), Pavel was visited only by the camera operator and only for a short period, as was necessary for filming. He was forbidden to speak. The hermit kept a diary of all his days.

There were many curiosities and dangerous situations during the project: Pavel’s hut was full of mice and a fox was stealing chickens. Despite life’s difficulties, the man was satisfied with the experience: “I love it when something is difficult”.

Amish families and communities (followers of a kind of conservative Protestantism) do not accept modern technologies: telephones, computers, cameras and even cars and live in isolated communities. But some of the representatives of this closed world sometimes open their doors to strangers.

One of the communities, located in the State of Pennsylvania, in the United States, invites all who wish to reside temporarily in its congregation, where several mini-hotels have been organized. This experience allows you to practically submerge yourself in another era.

The Amish wear clothes and hats of certain colors and ancient styles. They travel in horse-drawn carts and plow the land. When the weather is hot, children and women go barefoot. They don’t take pictures, they don’t drive cars and they don’t fly planes. They don’t have computers, or television, or wristwatches.

Hotel guests have the rare opportunity to communicate with a true Amish family, consisting of John, Sarah and their 5 children. They have their own farm, horses, chickens and a big garden. In short, a real paradise for those who are tired of civilization and life in modern society.

Rob Reinhart is an amateur chemist who is struggling with the problem of world hunger. He created an alternative to solid food that contains the same nutrients. The resulting liquid mixture was called Soylent (the name was inspired by a fictional food from a film of the same name).

The food substitute is similar to a protein shake, except that, in addition to proteins, it contains fats, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins and trace elements. The ingredients are selected based on the calculation of an average person’s consumption of approximately 2,000 kcal per day.

To prove that his theory works, Rob lived for 30 days consuming only this product. According to the results of the experiment, the chemist’s health did not change, nor did his emotional state.

German Heidemarie Schwermer found a way to actively travel, help the poor and not deny herself anything. In short, lead a new lifestyle.

Previously, Heidemarie was a teacher and psychotherapist. In 1994, inspired by the idea that people don’t need money, but the feeling of being needed, she created an exchange network give and take 🇧🇷Gib und Nimm, in German). The idea was not to establish commercial relationships based on money, but only on the exchange of services and objects.

After 2 years, the woman was encouraged to carry out an extreme experiment: to live one year without money and without her own property. She traded food, lodging, and vital things for her services. Heidemarie cleaned in a supermarket and they provided her with food, walked a hairdresser’s dog in exchange for a haircut, did housework, looked after children, watched over houses and, in return, received accommodation.

A year later, the theory that a person can live without money was confirmed in practice and the German woman decided to continue the experiment, which lasted until 2013. Based on the results, she wrote the book living without money 🇧🇷Living without Money🇧🇷

Colin Wright is 29 years old, runs a blog, does business, designs his own branded t-shirts, and travels constantly. Every 4 months he moves to a new country. And the destination is chosen by the readers of your blog, through voting.

He began his travels in the United States, then moved to South America and then New Zealand. He has been to Thailand, Cambodia, Iceland and India and has returned to North America. In 60 days, he visited 48 of its 50 states.

Journalist Jay Jacobs tried for a year to follow every rule and guideline he could find in the Bible (and there were over 700 of them). For the first 9 months he followed the Old Testament canons, and for the remaining 3 months he focused on the New Testament.

The result of the experiment was the book A year lived biblically 🇧🇷The Year of Living Biblically🇧🇷

Jay’s experiments didn’t stop there. He hired a group of people from India to live his life. The Indians answered his emails and phone calls, communicated with his wife and read fairy tales to his son at night, while the experimenter took the time to read and watch his favorite movies. He published the results of this experiment in the article My subcontracted life (Outsourcing my life).

In the year 2000, American Daniel Shellabarger refused to continue using money and went to live in nature. The man settled in a cave in Utah, USA. As a kind of hermit, he eats mushrooms, bathes in streams and rivers and sleeps on a bed of stone. The man was not a debtor, delinquent or mentally ill: he simply proposed to live his life without ‘the conscience of barter’. In the past, Daniel changed his place of work very often because he experienced something like a vague depression and felt uncomfortable. Taking into account that a new life had begun, he chose a new name: Daniel Suelo.

Several films were shot about his life, the most famous being The Man Who Quit Moneyin 2006 and Zero Currency, in 2009. Daniel doesn’t even think about going back to his previous life: “becoming a bum, being homeless and turning it into art, that thought conquered me, I know that you can live without money and in abundance”.

For 30 days, Morgan ate fast food 3 times a day and filmed it on camera. As a result, the documentary was born. Super Size Me — The Clown Diet (2004), which, by the way, in 2005 received an Oscar.

At the time of the experiment, Morgan was 33 years old. He was a healthy man, in good physical shape and weighed 84 kg. In just 30 days, he gained 11 kg, but that wasn’t all.

He began to experience pain in the liver area. His sleep and mood deteriorated. The director began to suffer from a terrible depression.

Morgan needed 14 months to lose the weight he gained and regain his mental state.

In August 2017, a Russian named Jay put the most essential things he owned in his backpack and left. He had the equivalent of 15 dollars and a great idea: to help all the homeless in the world. He records his new life and shares it on Instagram.

At the same time, life as a pauper seems incredible: he wears designer clothes, walks with a cane and sometimes wears a hat. “If he is a normal person, don’t change his habits. Even if he doesn’t have a home, that doesn’t mean he has to stop being a person with options,” says Jay.

The main purpose of the experiment is to show that anyone who has lost their home can succeed and start life from scratch. Jay has already taken a job as a courier and takes care of a local homeless man who dreams of working as a cook.

The experimenter’s final idea is utopian, but very…