We did an experiment involving rotating test subjects at approximately 60 rpm in a chair. Test subjects positioned their heads in various ways, resulting in some interesting reactions!
I hope you had fun experiencing the disorienting sensations. Please add your comments about the experience here. VIDEOS COMING SOON
Yes, the disorienting sensations were pretty fun. As I was spinning I reached a point where I couldn't tell that I was spinning at all. Once the chair was stopped, It felt like I was spinning the opposite way for a second. I was able to regain my vision after about 10-15 seconds, but up until then it felt like the room was moving from side to side.
-Ode
I had the same experience with the spinning. I had my head parallel to the ground to simulate doing flips. As the chair slowed down, it felt to me like I had stopped. When the chair was stopped, I put my head back to normal and it felt like I was doing backflips constantly. I knew I wasn't flipping, but I couldn't stop my eyes from quickly scrolling up and down. After I had stopped it only took 5 to 10 seconds to go back to normal.
-Strom
I positioned my head similar to the way Strom did. I could tell whether force was being applied to the chair or not, especially at the point when I was leaning to the side and I could feel g's on my neck. At first when force stopped being applied to the chair I felt like I was no longer spinning, and at some point right before I was stopped it felt like I was spinning in the opposite direction. The moment I opened my eyes it felt and looked like the room was doing backflips and I was completely out of balance, which was a weird sensation. After about a second the room was just going up and and down and I had more balance. After five seconds I was back to normal.
-Tom
During this my spin cycle I had my head tilted to the side, held up by my arm. I was spun around at high speeds and while I was being spun around I could feel the spinning except at a moment when I felt like I was not spinning. Then when I opened my eyes, it felt like I was still spinning around in circles. I also had the feeling that I was about to fall backwards and do a back flip. It only took about 5 to 10 seconds before I was able to walk normally and feel fine again. This was a fun experience.
-Jonathan
During my turn in the spin chair i had my head tilted normal and straight up. I could tell which way the chair was spinning until a point where i had felt like i had stopped spinning. I knew i hadn't stopped spinning but my head couldn't tell which direction i was going. There was even a point where my head felt like i was going the opposite way the chair was actually spinning. When i was stopped i was very dizzy and didn't know what was going on for the first couple of seconds. After 10 seconds i returned to normal and everything was fine. This was a really fun experience
-Ryne
Previous to this activity i had spun in a chair before and gotten the feeling that i was spinning the opposite way of the actual direction, and I also felt this for a split second last week when we did the activity. When i first got in the chair, I positioned my head as horizontal as possible in the direction of the spin so that I would feel that I was doing backflips when I stop. However, during the spin, my head started to come back to a normal position, but stopped about halfway there (my head was at about 45 degrees). When I was stopped, everything in the room looked as if it was spinning along a 45 degree axis, which made for a weird sensation. I found it interesting that if the chair was kept at a constant rotational speed, the person being spun would eventually feel as if they were spinning the opposite direction.
-Gus
I did the spinning chair late so I already knew what was going to happen, which somewhat detracted from the fun of the experience. I leaned my head horizontally while spinning and then proceded to point my fingers in the wrong direction. Although I did reach a point where the room stopped turning, the torque on my head caused my body to start falling out of the chair, decreasing the acceleration and continually disrupting the equilibrium in my ears. Because of this, although the room eventually stopped turning, I could continually feel a "pull" to the side (not a "spin"). When I stopped, the room seemed to continually rotate down, which makes sense since my inner ear fluid was being pushed against the top of my head.
-Hallacy
For myself I have already done what seemed to be a similar experiment by simply spinning on a chair and getting dizzy. However this was far from that experiment as it magnified the whole disorientation factor. What made this more disorientating was the fact that I was clueless of my surroundings and situation mainly because I wasn't in control of the chair.
When I started spinning I could definitely feel that I was spinning and the direction, after a couple of spins my brain started to catch up to the spinning and when the acceleration stopped I felt as if the spinning had stopped when in fact I hadn't. When the sudden stop occurred and I opened my eyes, all hell broke loose as I lost all sense of balance and felt as if I was falling, not to mention the fact that my vision was all over the place.
-Diogo
While sitting in the chair I could feel which way I was turning, it was also easy to tell the direction I was spinning because I could hear the people spining me slapping one side of the chair. However after they stopped spinning me I couldn't tell which way I was spinning anymore. When I came to a sudden stop and opened my eyes I felt as if I was still moving and my eyes felt that they were trying to identify the room and people in the room from left to right then right to left. This feeling occured very fast and lasted for about 2 minutes.
-Rob-
When I was sitting in the chair I started with my head down and to the right. After they stopped spinning me I didn't feel like I was spinning anymore. Because of this I opened my eyes, but I was still spinning very fast. Once I stopped, I felt like the room was spinning and flipping at the same time, but this sensation only lasted for about ten seconds. After those ten seconds I was completly fine and could walk with no problem.
-John-
I had my head tilted to the right and could tell i was spinning the whole time the guys were pushing me. After I was spinning for a little while they stopped spinning me and just let me glide and instently I felt totally motionless. When I was stopped I instantly felt as if i was going in the other direction followed by an intense feeling of falling forward. Once I opened my eyes the feeling slowly went away and within seconds of standing up I was fine.
-Daniel-
When I first started spinning I was pretty disoriented, I had forgotten to do use my thumbs so I was not sure which way I was spinning when I remembered to put my thumbs up. I remember actually feeling pretty good while I was spinning I did not feel sick or any thing. When I was stopped it was not sure if I was still moving or not, but when I opened my eyes everything was spinning from side to side kind of like I was staying in the center but the room was rotating around me. Over all it was a pretty good experience but I don’t believe I could be disoriented like that in an airplane.
-Luke-
When is had my chance my head was to the right and they spun my counter-clockwise. At first when I was spining it felt very disoriating. Eventually it felt like I was not spining at all. When they finally stoped me it felt as if my body was being pulled down. It also felt as if I was doing front flips. The feeling went away in about ten to twenty seconds. When I got up I was a little off balance, but quickly recovered.
-Alan-