Lately, it seems like everyone has a problem with this fight in flight.
Air travel optimizers swear by the latest bizarre trend to take hold in airline culture: “raw dogging,” in which passengers endure a long-haul flight with nothing to occupy their minds but their own. But the benefits of the enforced boredom are still debated.
The provocative term flooded social media charts this summer as fame-hungry travelers, mostly men, boasted about spending half a dozen hours or more in silence on an airplane in a display of physical discipline and mental endurance.
“Just survived a 7 hour flight (new personal best),” Wudini, a British DJ, boasted to his audience in a TikTok post with over 13.2 million views. “No headphones, no film, no water, nothing.”
“Incredible,” he added. “The power of my mind knows no bounds.”
Seven hours is child’s play for Instagram user Damon Bailey: He shared his personal best with us: 13.5 hours between Shanghai and Dallas, without any form of entertainment.
“It’s pretty tough, to be honest,” the 34-year-old from Miami, Florida, told BBC News – although he added that he has no plans to stop. “I like the challenge, for sure.”
Even real athletes do it, including Manchester City football star Erling Haaland, who boasted that he “easily” lasted seven hours straight “without a phone, without sleep, without water, without food.”
Proponents of bareback dogging say the phenomenon was inspired by Idris Elba’s character Sam Nelson from the Apple TV+ series “Hijacked,” who survives a nearly eight-hour flight from Dubai to London without amenities after his plane is hijacked by crooks.
Despite Elba’s enviable status as a screen hero, critics of real-life dogging have denounced the “psychopathic” practice, while some experts warn of the dangers of sleep, food and water deprivation on airplanes. The dry environment on a plane leads to internal and external dehydration, which is why it’s so important to stay hydrated during air travel, according to travel experts who recently spoke to the Daily Mail. They added that there’s also no point in skipping out on snacks or sleep when your body is telling you it needs these vital things.
But this trend towards ascetic flying has its advantages too – from a mindfulness perspective. Business psychologist Danielle Haig claimed it can provide “an opportunity to mentally recharge and gain new perspectives,” she told the BBC.
Haig believes that interest in bareback dogging reflects “a collective yearning for balance as people seek to reclaim their mental space and build a deeper connection with their inner selves.”
On a related note, psychology scholar Sandi Mann, author of The Science of Boredom, argues that long periods of silence can be a good thing for those of us who spend all day staring at screens.
“We need to reduce our need for novelty and stimulation and the dopamine rush and just take the time to breathe and stare at the clouds – literally when we’re on the plane,” Mann told the BBC.
However, she admitted that overzealous raw feeders would have to expect diminishing success: “For a two-hour flight, this is not ideal.”
