The idea floating in a sensory deprivation tank has always appealed to me. I’m a big fan of fancy spa sessions and most things ‘woo-woo’, and floating – a service that invites you to submerge your body in super-salty water after dark, abandoning your senses in favor of an anti-gravity experience – sounded like the ultimate meeting of the two. Spa-like mindfulness! Good for my skin and my mind! Sign me up.
But the morning of my appointment I’m not in the mood. It’s 37 degrees and drizzly outside and I want to stay in bed. I’m definitely sullen and Sunday sleepy when I arrive at the floating establishment. So take what I say with several grains of salt – or 1,000 pounds, which is the amount of Epsom salt apparently in my sealed bathtub.
At check-in, the very friendly and gentle employee shows me the ropes, but not before talking about the power of a good float. I will glow. I may even have visions or lucid dreams. In any case, I come away feeling relaxed. He emphasizes that although standard sessions last 90 minutes, you can safely stay in the bath for as long as you like.
“Some people sleep in the tanks when they are in town, instead of paying for a hotel room,” he says. Inwardly I recoil at the thought of waking up in a dark tank, perhaps as a new species of amphibian. Outwardly I say, “Wow!”
I have two tanks to choose from. One is a rectangular room filled with 10 inches of water and a wooden door that sticks when my guide opens it. The other is a white pod that looks like it belongs in a science fiction movie. The round door, like that of a space station, opens into a small capsule that appears to be Vantablack. As my eyes adjust, he explains that there is about as much space outside of what I can see as the rectangular room.
Both options come with a shower and some blue lighting that’s probably meant to calm down, but instead makes me feel like I’m the center of an experiment gone wild. I can’t bear the thought of locking myself in that pod, so I head for door No. 1.
The online instructions state that everything I need will be provided, but in reality all I get is a towel and some earplugs. These are important. Without them, I’m told, the salt could cake my eardrums. My shampoo, conditioner, comb, etc. are all in the house, and I accept the reality that I will re-enter the winter morning with damp, tangled, semi-salty hair.
A pre-rinse rinse is required. As I wait seven minutes for the shower water to become slightly warm, my float time ticking away, I reflect on my life choices. How clean is it here anyway? I’m sure there are practices that keep 11 year salt water sterile. I have no idea if that’s true. All I know is that when I finally enter the sensory deprivation tank-slash-water room, I wish it was just a little warmer than about 33 degrees.
Floating in a sensory deprivation tank
And so I float. The salt makes it impossible not to float, with bits of my skin and stomach naturally rising above the water’s surface.
Unfortunately, I recently saw a show called Quirky on Netflix it involves both a partially flooded room and the backlit outline of a door, together and in a horror context, and both are very present here. Like the only things here. I spend a few minutes letting go of these associated images, along with the feeling that I am a specimen in an alien spaceship, and welcome relaxation.
Relaxation comes about 10 minutes into the chat. The weightlessness is undeniably cool and I embrace the buoyancy, closing my eyes and chasing the deep blue light I always seem to find during meditation. It’s a bit cold, but I’m getting acclimatized. Maybe this is just as worthwhile as I thought it would be. Maybe I’ll gain access to a new level of…
My body abruptly collides with a wall, startling me wherever I was. I put my foot off the wall, which is fun, so I bounce around the room for a while. The movement causes one of my moldable earbuds to dislodge, allowing a thin stream of salt water to infiltrate my ear. I sit up in the bath to readjust and acknowledge where I am: naked, knees to chest, in a strange wet room. I don’t like it here.
Maybe if I was in a better mood. Maybe if this room was a bathtub in the middle of the woods. Or if I had gone with the pod. Or if the entire facility seemed just a little cleaner. Or if I was a less judgmental person. If I were better at meditating. If I hadn’t read so many science fiction stories. Then I might like this. But I don’t really think so.
Not wanting the guy at the front desk to think I can’t hack it, or that I’m less enlightened than him (I certainly am), I sit in the lukewarm water for a while before pushing open the door and beginning the long process of heating up the shower. By the time the Indian drums meant to wake me from my floating meditation start, I am well rinsed and almost clothed.
“How was it?” he asks.
I touch the wet knot at the back of my head and smile. “So good.”
He nods knowingly about something I don’t know and tells me there is a membership program. Fascinating. I rush out of there, still a full-fledged mammal. For now, I’ll keep my meditation on dry land.
#floating #sensory #deprivation #tank #thoughts