گفت‌وگو

So I can’t believe it, I actually found a float tank in Franklin, Indiana, in my family’s little small town.

Yeah, that’s really shocking, actually. I know they have them here in San Francisco. I don’t know that much about them but to think of them being in a small town, that’s… that’s, yeah…

Yeah, I mean it’s such a strange thing and to be in this little, little town in Indiana, y’know, I know they’re becoming more popular in big cities, like you said, here in San Francisco, the Warriors…

Right.

players made them famous, I think.

Yep, yep, exactly.

Steph Curry and I don’t know who else on the team uses them.

Yeah.

So I finally did it. I did it. In fact, I had a lot of sessions. So this summer visiting my family in Indiana, didn’t have a lot to do there because it’s such a small town. So I was going to the float tank, two, three times a week. I loved it.

So, it’s… I know a little bit about them. They’re very meditative, right?

Yeah, so…

Relaxing as well?

They used to be called sensory deprivation tanks.

Okay, yeah, I’ve heard that term before.

And I think that scares people so now with the marketing they call them float tanks because people think “Sensory deprivation, augh!” Y’know, deprive my senses…

Yea.

but that is really what it is. So the idea is that it’s going to turn off or lower the input into your senses, primarily your eyes, your ears, and your sense of touch, feeling.

Mm-hm.

So what it is, is you get in this little pool, it’s pretty, quite shallow, I don’t know like 1 or 1-1/2 feet deep. So you can just sit in it, y’know? It’s not deep. But what they do is they fill it with concentrated Epsom salts, so super, super, super salty…

Yeah.

so you very easily float on top of it.

Oh?

So you get in there and you… you just lay down and you float. And then they have the temperature at something like 90 degrees so it’s almost the same as your skin temperature.

Oh, okay.

And the reason for that is the idea is that you won’t really notice the feeling of the water so much.

Uh-huh.

Then…

No separation between you and the water.

That’s the idea.

Yeah.

I mean you actually can feel a little bit but it’s not… not noticeable. If it was cold water you would notice it…

Right.

all the time. But since it’s quite warm water, you don’t quite notice it after you’ve been laying in it for a while.

Uh-huh.

The big one, I think that scares a lot of people, is it’s totally dark.

Oh.

I mean like dark like you’re in a cave under the earth. Zero light. Completely zero light.

And quiet, I imagine.

And then you wear, you put in little ear plugs and then also the room is soundproofed so that the idea is that it’s silent as well.

Oh.

So no sound, no sight, completely dark, and not much in terms of touch, feeling.

Mm-hm.

Now, it was kind of pioneered by a guy named, was it John Lilly, I think John was his first name, Lilly is his name, Dr. Lilly. And he did all kinds of crazy experiments with these tanks and he did it to explore… to explore the mind, to explore his own mind. He also used other people who would get in these tanks and they would stay super, crazy long amounts of time. I mean like, y’know, a day or something, two days.

Oh my god!

Crazy! Super intense. And see what happens is, y’know, as you’re… if you go in there really long then really crazy stuff can happen. But for me, I was in there about an hour, hour and a half.

Wait, wait, when you say really crazy stuff, you mean like hallucinating?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yea, so those experiments… so that was my image because I’d read about those experiments.

Right.

And I didn’t realize they were in for so long. So those guys were having, y’know, hallucinations, very, very intense hallucinations and all kinds of like images and sounds and just, of course, there’s actually nothing there but their mind was creating all that stuff.

Mmmm.

So I was a little scared about going and doing it because I’d read about this and heard about it.

Yeah.

And I didn’t realize they were doing it for so long. So it’s not like that when you’re in it for just an hour or two… I did two hours was my longest one.

Oh, okay, I didn’t realize that. I thought 90 minutes was kind of what you were doing regularly.

It was. That’s what I mostly did but I did one two-hour session just to try it.

Is that the longest you could do it?

No, the woman who owned the place was encouraging me to go for three hours. I was like, I don’t know… actually, after doing the two-hour one, I probably could have done three hours. The main problem is I would eventually have to go to the bathroom.

Right.

Y’know, and just… I mean just physically got a little tired of laying in the water.

Sure. But what was it like?

So it was… it’s like a deep, deep meditation. So, y’know, I’ve… you have, too, I know. We’ve both done, y’know, Vipassana courses. Like intensive, 10-day meditations, right?

Yes.

And they’re really great, y’know, but you’re meditating all day long and after the third or fourth day it can be very deep and intense, right?

Right.

Well with the float tank, it’s like you get in there and in just 15 minutes you can be in that same deep level of meditation.

Wow, really quickly.

Right. And without such… some of the pain involved with, y’know, with sitting meditation for me, like my back would hurt sometimes and just physically my body, it felt a little tough just to be sitting still so much.

Right. It’s very… it’s very rigid.

Yeah.

A rigid posture that you’re sitting in for a long period of time. Yeah, my legs would start aching and…

Sometimes get numb, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Well, it kind of takes that away because you’re just laying on your back floating in the water so… so, it has so many beneficial effects. So physically all your muscles just completely relax. You don’t need to use any, y’know, power or muscles or tension to keep yourself sitting up, nothing. It’s just like you’re laying in the softest bed there is. And then because, y’know, it’s completely black, there’s no sound coming in. It’s like your mind just completely deeply relaxes very quickly.

Oh. So were you noticing any benefits outside of doing it then? Because you were doing it pretty regularly, right?

Yeah, I was. I noticed many different benefits. Physically I noticed benefits. I was just starting to exercise again, more intensely.

Yeah.

And I know this is why some athletes use these tanks. I recovered faster, right? So let’s say I do a really hard sprinting workout one day. And so that’s very tough on your body. And it gets your muscles kind of tense and tight sometimes. So I would go to the float tank and I could, I could almost feel my muscles just letting go and relaxing.

Uh-huh.

And plus, you’re soaking in Epsom salts…

Yeah.

which are also supposed to be good for recovery for relaxing your body because it’s a magnesium salt which is alkalizing for your body and has other benefits.

Uh-huh.

So physically I noticed I was just relaxed. I mean immediately when I came out I… like all my stresses were gone. I just felt completely physically relaxed. And then mentally and emotionally I would notice feeling much more relaxed than usual for a day, two days, three days afterwards.

Oh, that’s great

Yep. I noticed my creativity increased. Sometimes when I was in there, y’know, I was trying to keep my mind quiet…

Yeah.

using meditation techniques but sometimes just ideas would pop into my head about things and it was kind of cool actually.

yeah, I bet. I bet it helped your… well, I don’t know if you have problems sleeping, but I can imagine it would help somebody who has issues with falling asleep at night.

Yeah, I would think it would be a great thing to do kind of in the evening and then go home and go to bed.

Yep.

The woman who owned it, she told me that she also has a lot of artists who do it, exactly for creativity. So they’ll come in and they’ll do long sessions, like she said she had a musician that would come in and do like three hours at a time and then he said that he always got all kinds of great ideas afterwards for the next week or two.

Oh, that’s so cool

Yeah, yeah, very cool. I did it more as kind of like a spiritual practice. I would go in there, like I said, and use different meditation techniques.

Yeah.

Calm my mind, and I just found that I could calm my mind so much faster in there than trying to meditate, y’know, out in the regular world.

Well, it sounds easier in many ways.

Yeah, so anyway, if you get a chance check it out. You should try one.

Yeah.