I carefully step in to the tank, one foot after the other, into the super thick and unusually slippery water. Once the lid is closed, I’m immersed in complete darkness. As I lay back, my body is forced upward, floating on the surface of the water. I’ve done this a few times now and my mind seems to know exactly what this is. Like a meditation, I relax immediately and focus on my breathing.
It’s all part of a new hobby I’ve undertaken called “floating.” Inside this so called ‘float tank,’ I cut myself off completely from all sensory input. Float tanks (sometimes called sensory deprivation containers) are basically very large bathtubs filled with salt-water where physical stimulation like light and sound are minimized.
I feel confident this will soon become a popular technology for both recreational and medical use. However, my interest is more eclectic. Extended and repeated use of the tank offers what can only be described as a profound mystical, even religious experience. But first, let’s discuss what floating is exactly.
The Floating Experience
Just like the Dead Sea, the salt concentration is so high, users will float when lying on their backs. Both the water and air are heated to skin temperature (93.7 degrees to be exact). This eliminates the feeling of water or air against the skin. Air is circulated through vents on the walls or ceiling of the tank.
When I describe floating to people, the reaction is almost always the same. They say: “I couldn’t do that. The darkness would make me nervous,” or “I’d be claustrophobic.” Both of these fears are lessened by pointing out that float spas often provide waterproof lights to help people become comfortable with the tank environment. The tanks themselves range in size, but the smallest tanks are fairly spacious, about 8.5 feet long and 5.5 feet wide. The ceiling is high enough that you can sit upright without hitting your head.
Without any sensory input, the mind is free from having to constantly process a physical experience. Dr. John C. Lilly, a medical doctor and biologist who developed the modern float tank, notes that they are really more like “think tanks” which allow users to explore “inner realities.”
Today’s constant distractions make it difficult to ever truly be alone. Even if you can get away from all the cell phone texts, internet gossip, and family life, the body itself is a distraction. Your aches and pains, emotions, and anxieties about life crowd out your sense of perspective. The tank makes it easy to be truly alone in a way that is difficult or impossible for most people. Truly isolated, you can ask yourself questions and get better answers.
Float tanks has been used to treat a number of ailments including PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Studies show the high concentration of Epsom salt can relieve headaches, lower blood pressure and even improve the body’s ability to use insulin. In addition to being a relaxing recreational activity, it’s vastly improved my quality of sleep. I’ve never slept better in my life than after a float session.
The Stages of Floating
There’s no way to prepare for a float; in fact, preparation and expectation often retards progress. However, with repeated floats and practice, the experience becomes deeper and more profound. To have the best result in the tank, you need to learn to “let go.”
Initially, users will enter a float tank slightly anxious, but this quickly passes. It’s much like taking a warm bath. After a short period of relaxation, users might become fidgety and have an urge to leave. The body is so relaxed that even minor disturbances can be upsetting, like sudden twitching of the muscles or bouncing off of the walls of the tank. Sometimes, your breathing or heartbeat seems obnoxiously loud. However, those who power through soon enter an even deeper state of relaxation.
For some, this is where the experience ends, but there are deeper states achievable for people willing to delve deeper. Float spas rarely emphasize these possibilities, partly because it is difficult to describe. Doing so creates expectations, which actually makes it more difficult to have these experiences. But you’re reading this to learn, so I’ll describe some of these possible states briefly.
Total darkness in the tank can give way to the appearance of a dark, three-dimensional space leading to mild hallucinations. Users who relax even further and spend more than two hours in the tank can have even more radical experiences (more on this later). There are several theories that try to explain why sensory deprivation produces such interesting experiences, but the most logical explanation to me is that without external stimulus, the internal or unconscious programing becomes more dominant and expressive — like a waking dream.
When you leave the float tank, you feel elevated. It’s not like getting a high — though that’s a close description of the physical feeling! Rather, life is placed into a new perspective. The things we once identified as central to our self-worth are no longer so immediately important. You feel more like a blank slate, happy and pure. In this respect, floating is like a light religious experience.
Extended floating is said to help dissolve the constraints of the ego, putting life’s challenges into perspective. It is similar to meditation, where it is possible to achieve some really fantastic experiences, but it might take a great deal of practice to achieve. With the aid of a float tank, even amateurs can have these capabilities.
Prices vary depending on the concentration of float businesses in the area. In California, where float centers are plentiful, prices can be as low as $40 for a 2 hour session. Where competition is less fierce, prices can be more than double that. While most people who float go to a spa, many have bought float tanks for their homes, which range anywhere from about $2,000 to well over $15,000. This enables them to remain in the tank without a pressing time limit.
Those who spend hours and hours in the tank often report altered states of consciousness. Lilly speculates that it is possible there may be hundreds, perhaps even thousands of varying states people experience in the tank. A few experiences Lilly describes are as follows:
— normal dreamlike or lucid dream states
— exploration of strange places
— an alternate or alien sense of self
— the fusion of self and surroundings
— becoming like a void, utter nothingness
— becoming like infinity, one with everything, omnipresent
The list goes on. Basically, what we think is real becomes blurred in the tank. The experiences Lilly describes are not dissimilar to what I’ve read of near death experiences, alien abductions, LSD trips, ayahuasca ceremonies or any other experience where the mind is separated from the body – though floating is considerably less intense than all of those. Still, there are enough boundary challenging components that make me think of floating as a slightly mystical experience.
Entering the Cosmic Cave
While float tanks are only about 60 years old, isolation to address the self is as old as human societies. Many cultures have stories in which people enter a cave to examine and shed their old lives. For example, the Iroquois and the Mi’kmaw tribes have stories which describe a boy trapped in a cave. He makes friends with the animals around him, eventually taking on the identity of a bear. At the end of the story, the boy returns to his village with a newfound appreciation for animal life.
This idea of going into a cave to renew the self is explored in the Star Wars series, specifically in The Empire Strikes Back (1980). While training to join the mystical order of the Jedi, the Luke is told by his mentor Yoda to enter a mysterious cave. When he asks what is inside, Yoda replies, “Only what you take with you.” There, Luke has a vision of Darth Vader, who he kills. When Vader’s mask is removed, it is Luke’s own face staring back at him. The symbolic message is that he effectively killed himself.
The cave theme is part of what scholars call the “hero’s journey.” The hero penetrates the “innermost cave,” which can be real or psychological. Inside they encounter an ordeal, die, and are resurrected to be better than before. Psychologist Carl Jung argued that these story tropes are so common, they must be a part of the collective unconscious of humanity. There is something inherently human about escaping to a dark, secluded place, where a trial (by violence or of peaceful contemplation) reconfigures one’s relationship to the natural world.
This is also the underlying philosophy behind floating. You enter this dark, isolated cave to reconfigure your relationship with yourself. You emerge better, more patient, more relaxed and with a better sense of what is important in life.
I’ve already written about the importance of having darkness in our lives. You can read my full essay on that here. To summarize: being comfortable with the unknown helps to engender humility and to develop real meaning in our lives. The modern world is obsessed with control. It tries to shine a light on everything it can, not because it wants to understand life, but because it wants to control and dominate it.
Floating is largely about learning to let go. You can have anything if you don’t want it, but the moment you want something, it becomes elusive. Our typical sense of chronic neediness is self-destructive. When you learn to let go of the old self, a better one takes its place.
Caves and float tanks don’t just separate us from the outside world, but ultimately from everything that we normally associate as us: our bodies, our physical sensations, our emotions and if we’re relaxed enough, eventually even our sense of self disappears. Meaning ceases to have meaning. Separated from those things, we metaphorically let those things die.
Surrendering to the Death of Self
Floating is by far the least demanding introspective activity I’ve encountered, but it meets the criteria for letting the self “die,” or at least rest for a while. When you come out, you’re a bit more centered, more of a blank slate unburdened by life’s absurdities. This kind of rebirth is a common theme in religious experiences around the world.
The Bible is filled with commands to let the self die. So core is it to Christian theology, it may be the single most important teaching Jesus gives. Jesus says that anyone who wants to follow his path must “take up his cross” – which is ultimately an acceptance of a physical death. (Matthew 16:24) He continues:
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” (John 12:24-25)
Jesus isn’t saying we need to literally die before we can have any kind of spiritual truth – that would be pointless because everyone dies eventually – but instead, he means that we must deny the entrapments of the self. This is echoed by Paul who in Corinthians notes that in his pursuit of a higher state of being, he “dies every day.” (Corinthians 15:31) He also writes that we can reject our nature and instead “put to death the deeds of the body.” (Romans 8:12-13)
Many religions suggest we do this through occasional fasting, celibacy, and other rejections of bodily desires. But prayer, meditation, and isolation are also valid methods to achieve a connection with God. The Hindi call this state Samadhi, a yoga practice in which one achieves oneness with the divine. Jewish mystics call it Yechida or the core identity. Others like ayahuasca churches induce a psychedelic condition where one must accept their own death as a path to achieve enlightenment.
Regardless of the method, even after the most profound religious experience, the self is soon reconstructed, just as our daily worries return to us when we wake from a peaceful sleep. Without the use of illicit substances, floating is a lot like a waking sleep, complete with dreams and a possible avenue for self discovery. The intent of all these activities is not to permanently dismember our psyches, but to provide perspective to life’s troubles, and that’s what I believe long term floating has the potential to do.
Further Reading:
Check out this brief biography on Lilly to understand just how radical this man was.
Joe Rogan’s description of the tank experience
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