A Reflection by Mitch Van Acker
Before entering the sensory deprivation tank I had to sign a waiver agreeing not to float while on drugs or alcohol, or while diagnosed with claustrophobia, schizophrenia, or any other conditions that would be “adversely affected by deep relaxation.” As far as I know, I have no irregularities that bar deep relaxation, and having read the waver the night before my float, I made no designs to chemically disorganize my mind.
I could easily see how certain mental illnesses would make for a bad float but I was surprised by the drug stipulation. I had always heard of sensory deprivation tanks spoken of in the same circles where liberal use of pot and psychedelics are recommended to enhance the effects of many activities. Indeed the sensory deprivation tank was originally designed to test the perceptual qualities of certain drugs and qualify their effects without the influence of a certain environment. Tanks today originate from the psychonaut John C. Lilly’s 1954 design. Joe Rogan, who many float enthusiasts credit with the deprivation tank’s new-found mainstream appeal, suggests eating edibles before use. Drugs aside, the deprivation tank has drawn the attention of the medical establishment for relieving anxiety and chronic pain, yet their proximity to alternative medicine and exploration of inner space, still seems to court a culturally-left-skewing clientele. I wouldn’t expect to find many float centers in Middle America.
I was in a slightly contracted state of mind when I arrived at Neurofitness in Ann Arbor. I’d been a few minutes late on account of traffic and worried that I might put them behind schedule. It was around four and the sun gave the landscape during the first part of my drive a baroque quality before leveling out above a dreamily vacant-feeling strip mall off Zeeb Road. The exterior was simple and clean and the inside of the wellness center had a slick minimalist look with a few mainstays of alternative medicine paraphernalia: salt lamps, bronze desk fountains, framed reproduction paintings and Eastern motifs. On top of two sensory deprivation tank styles, they offered other cognition and holistic-based treatments like neuro-modulation and cryotherapy.
After checking in, the hostess pointed me to a bathroom where I took a much-needed pre-float piss. When I was finished I met her back at the front and she guided me down a curtained-off hallway where my pod was waiting—I’d chosen the “pod-style” tank option because it provided a more singular, isolated experience.
She showed me to my room and gave me instructions. I was to shower and wash my hair before entering. I’d have six minutes to wash up and get ready and then an automated voice would notify me when my hour began. She made sure to remind me to use the foam ear plugs they’d provided to keep out water while inside. I could enter or exit the pod whenever I felt comfortable and the voice would let me know when my hour was over. After which the pod’s massive filtration system would boot up and I’d have thirty more minutes to shower again to remove the salt from my skin. I would then change and exit the room so it could be prepped for the next guest.
I asked the hostess what the worst incident they’d ever had was. “Usually nothing worse than a few lost items,” she said in a reassuring tone.
The pod was a large plastic orb with an egg-shaped lid that closed with a slight pull down and would open automatically—I was assured—with the slightest push. The tank held a foot of water kept at body temperature and over 800 pounds of Epsom salt to buoy you up. It recalled images from a seventh-grade textbook I had seen of old men loafing on the surface of the Dead Sea reading newspapers. And like those images I had seen, the tank’s dense brine easily lifted me to the surface when I lowered my body into the fluid. To my right were two buttons that controlled the lighting and the volume to the music. You could keep a red, blue, or green light on or opt for total darkness. I chose darkness. They played an ambient relaxation track that would crescendo at certain moments during the hour which I kept it on at low volume.
It took a few moments to ease into the float. I had a foam halo that helped support my neck but my back and limbs still tensed amid the weightlessness. It took what I’d judged to be about twenty minutes for my joints to unlatch themselves. To surrender to it. The darkness and the music created a sense of spaciousness. Whether I closed my eyes or opened them in the dark, the roof of the lid looked like the crown of a vast starless sky. The soundtrack buzzing around my skull gave this sensation variety and depth. I retained a slight sense of having my limbs intact but tried like in many meditation practices to relax my notion of the shapes of my body parts, picturing them—feeling them—as if they were a mass of vapors instead of solid flesh. The fact that both the water and the air nearly matched the temperature of my skin aided this disembodied state. Even as my notion of having a nose began to dissolve, my mind groped for a flickering virtual image of my nose, face, and body and projected it before the crux of my awareness—wherever that was. At the moments of deepest relaxation my body appeared more like a pattern seen on the inside of your eyelids after you’ve stared at a certain wallpaper for too long. When I’d stretch my arms and legs they’d register as a redistribution of energy from one locale of undifferentiated space to another, like I’d been given access to the inner life of a blind amoeba.
Every once in a while I’d graze the side of the tank and suddenly come back to myself for a second. I used these occasions to push off from the edge and glide over the surface which, at the right moment, felt like sailing over immeasurable distances at speeds that confounded time and matter. It was the most I’d ever felt like a soul.
The rest of the time—the majority by far—I spent fielding disruptive thoughts. Like in the many mediation sessions I’d done, my attention was seized by every sort of idle thinking. Had I locked my car? Will this drive me insane? Has it been an hour yet? Let’s try counting your breath. One—out, Two—, No. Not working. Will I have to pee again? Is the hour almost over? In the pod these thoughts showed up like a physical appearance, like a pain or a soft touch, something you could localize as if they were in your body, all other bodily appearances being paired down. I felt then as I do now that my untrained attention gave me a much lower-resolution grasp of the experience. The more profound impressions of spacelessness and deep connection came when my body grappled with it’s new, void-like environment on its own, unmediated by my mind’s detours.
The pod had won the trust of my body where it failed to gain the trust of my mind. I was too preoccupied with my mind’s random fluctuations and lacked the patience of my body, which enjoyed a bone-deep relaxation for a few hours afterward. I could see how pot might reconfigure attention in a way that would massage the mind while floating, though I think the initial frustration of my first time offered me a valuable awareness of my everyday inattention. The true lesson of my float was a rediscovery of the primacy of the body. I was able to glean how vast the phenomenal world is by noticing a greater amount of the infinite particulars of a single breath and all the ways my mind and its unhealthy habits constrict these experiences while foraging like mad for input. Presence requires practice. And I found that this first float highlighted the body’s unique interface with life.