Still in pain from having my ass thoroughly beaten the day before, I force myself to continue on with experimentation. Usually, I'm a nice guy. Some say my experimentation on PLUR Fairey isn't kind or a very “PLURry” thing to do... but people, you have to realize: This is science! It's for the benefit of us all, and somebody needs to make some sacrifices. PLUR Fairey was lucky enough to be chosen as the person who will make those sacrifices.

Today, though, is special. Today I'm not a nice guy. PLUR Fairey kicked my ass yesterday, and I'm not above revenge. Experimentation is moving on to my own version of Chinese Water Torture. It is well known that different versions of Chinese Water Torture could take as long as 5-6 days to complete, but the victim usually died of thirst around the 3rd day. Not wanting to lose my test subject quite yet, I will only be carrying out this experiment for 2 days, followed by one day of observation.

I recently received a large donation of money for my experimentation from ACJA (Anti-Candy Junglists of America), so I will be able to indulge myself on this experiment. I contracted a small business to build a sensory depravation tank. For those of you not familiar with these tanks, it is a water-proof, light-proof, air-tight, shock-resistant, and sound-proof tank that is about the size of a tall coffin. The tank is partly filled with water which is super-saturated with over half a TON of magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) making the water over 5 times more dense than sea water. The water is then heated to about 93.5 degrees (skin temperature). Laying on this water creates a sense of weightlessness... you don't really feel the water unless you play with it a lot.

I had the contractor install a few gadgets in the lid of the tank: A microphone, a silent infrared camera, and most importantly...the drip. After sedating PLUR Fairey with a tranquilizer gun, I stripped it down to it's Winnie the Pooh boxers and Smurf's T-Shirt and fitted it with a light-weight immobilization unit. The unit gently locks all of PLUR Fairey 's joints in place so that it cannot move it's arms, legs, and neck. To reach the greatest amount of sensory depravation, no skin-to-skin contact is allowed...so the immobilization unit was a must. I then waited for PLUR Fairey to revive and while I dragged it into the tank, I explained that it was time for a bath. Seeing someone float on water like this really is an amazing sight. PLUR Fairey asked if it was a hot tub and if I could check in one of it's socks for something for it to eat first. I told it no, and no. I have no clue what type of things PLUR Fairey may hide in it's socks that it would want to eat while in a hot tub. You? Closing the lid and sealing it shut, all sound from inside disappears.

I give PLUR Fairey about an hour to stop screaming and adjust to the environment. Approximately 90% of the work your brain does is processing the input from your 5 main senses. In this tank, sight is zero. Smell is limited only to a slight sense of brine from the water; sound...only that which you can make yourself; taste...zero; touch...near zero. It doesn't take long before your brain becomes accustomed to those few bits of sensory information and stops thinking about them. Why have I put PLUR Fairey in this tank? To make the torture that much better!

I started the drip above PLUR Fairey's head. One drop of cold water to land exactly 1/2 inch above it's eyes, just above the nose, every 8 seconds. In a sensory deprivation tank, you lose track of time. The drops may have seemed only a second apart, or minutes. Either way... PLUR Fairey wasn't doing well.

For the first 20 minutes, every drop frightened PLUR Fairey. I could hear it whimper, gasp, or even scream in fright every time a drop hit it. Someone being that honestly frightened that intensely for that long is very upsetting. Never before have I come so close to letting PLUR Fairey lose.

With the infrared camera, I could see that there was as much warm water on it's face as cold water, telling me that PLUR Fairey was crying. By the end of the 20 minutes, though, the whimpers, the gasps, the screams... all gone.

I theorize they became increasingly loud with it being deprived of it's senses so; probably so loud that to PLUR Fairey, even a normal voice could be painfully loud. The tears poured in the silence.

Several hours later, still twitching at every drop of water, eyes dry and tears long gone, PLUR Fairey starts whispering: Single words; Every drop, a new word.

" PLUR" (drop) "Vics" (drop) "Digweed" (drop) "Trance" (drop) "Love" (drop)

This goes on for hours. Over the course I speed up the drops....by the end of the first day, I have it up to 180 drops per minute...still having no sense of time, and twitching at every drop, PLUR Fairey looks like it's dancing to some “Happy Hard Core”.

They say after an hour in a sensory depravation tank that you begin to forget about your body. All feeling disappears, you become a weightless, bodyless, thinking entity. After 10 hours, many claim to begin communicating with extraterrestrials. Still bruised a bit from my encounter with PLUR Fairey two days before, I don't mind in the least bit that PLUR Fairey is thinking at least 9 times more efficiently and every bit of thought possessed by this poor Candy Raver is revolving around each and every timeless drop that falls upon it's forehead. But something has changed since yesterday...

There are no drops! I forgot to fill the reservoir last night before I went to bed! But PLUR Fairey is still twitching; strange. Observing PLUR Fairey for a while, it seems as if it's stuck at jerking in some random way 180 times ever minute...that's 3 times every second! Unreal!

One problem, though...PLUR Fairey has been in this sensory depravation tank for too long to even know that it possesses a body. All PLUR Fairey knows is that it once had a body, and it all disappeared...ending with it's forehead, which phased in and out with each drop over the course of an untold amount of time. This is all theory, of course, but there isn't much else PLUR Fairey could believe. No dream, no acid trip, no k-hole could make one believe this fully that it doesn't exist.

It had to open the hatch, and only 4 hours into the 2nd day. I have to let PLUR Fairey out of the tank before further damage to it's consciousness occurs. I unseal and remove the lid...PLUR Fairey remains afloat, twitching. I drag it out, still twitching; at 180 BPM. I remove the constraints, PLUR Fairey lurches from the floor, back into the tank, and starts pulling the lid on top of the tank! I try knocking it unconscious, to no avail. PLUR Fairey is too sure that it's body does not exist; sensory overload.

I take the lid back from PLUR Fairey. An easy task considering that PLUR Fairey barely knows how to use it's body. Still twitching at 180 bpm, I let PLUR Fairey absorb all the light, smells, and sounds around us. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch. Amazed by everything, PLUR Fairey is like someone on their first acid trip, and they just ate half a sheet. I relocate to the observation room and watch.

PLUR Fairey can speak again. Naked, and chewing on it's pacifier, PLUR Fairey is gazing, in awe, at HIS foot. Yes, PLUR Fairey is a male. PLUR Fairey touches his foot; talks to his foot; tries to start a fight...with his foot. His foot kicks his ass; he laughs, I laugh. This is some funny shit to watch. Ever seen Fight Club? Yes, somebody can kick their own ass. PLUR Fairey, still amazed that he has a body, thoroughly examines each and every part of his body; some longer than others...one shorter than the rest. Umm, never mind.

I bring PLUR Fairey some food. He asks if the steak was once living, I affirm. He starts crying as he eats the steak, the poor cow which lived it's entire life in a fence, to die, be sliced, and eaten by a prisoner. Once the steak is consumed, he voices proudly that now the cow can live it's life through him. "Mooooooo" he exclaims.

Maybe I should spend some time in that tank.

After a while, PLUR Fairey has re-clothed himself saying that even cows deserve to be warm. He begins making candy bracelets again... all in earth tones, so the cow in him feels more at home. I think I'll feed him some chicken tomorrow.

That's all for now, folks, sorry it was so morbid... I'll be releasing the results of further experiments in the near future. Feel free to send comments, concerns, or SUGGESTED EXPERIMENTS to clayton.smith@gunter.af.mil.

Past Experiments:
No Candy-Candy. (No plastic jewelry, ~4 days)
Enjoy the Silence. (No music, 5 days)
I know Kung-Fu. (No sweets, 4 days... shortened to ~20 minutes)
Sweet Revenge. (Chinese Water Torture, 3 days)

Upcoming experiments:
Subliminal messages.
Jungle music.
Body part transplants.
Starvation.
Anti-PLUR propoganda.
Radiation.
Noisecore.
History Channel, A&E.