Flotation tanks are dark, soundproof pods in which people float in warm water for hours at a time. They have been a niche interest of various new-age and hippy communities for decades, but in recent years the number of people using them in the UK has grown, writes Tom Ireland.
"The sensation is one of no sensation - your mind becomes untethered from your body. There's nowhere like it on the planet."
Gary Mossman is a 26-year-old tattoo artist in Basingstoke.
He has started to use flotation tanks to explore what he refers to as the "theta-state", a drowsy or trance-like state which he hopes will help him be more creative with his tattoo designs.
"It's about making a blank canvas in your mind so you can then picture something completely original. It's a little like the stage just before falling asleep, where you have a really vivid imagination and things just appear in your head."
[...] Now a growing number of researchers are studying sensory deprivation's effects again. In 2015 a laboratory dedicated to studying flotation tanks was set up at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Early work has suggested that floating - referred to as Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy - could be useful in treating stress and anxiety-related conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. In Sweden, where patients can be referred to a float tank centre by their GP or employer, there are more tanks per person than anywhere else in the world.
Have any Soylentils done this?
[Editor addition.] Noted physicist Richard Feynman documented his experiences in what was then called a sensory deprivation tank in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday February 12 2016, @05:45AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday February 12 2016, @06:01AM
Even more so after reading this [thethousands.com.au]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @01:52PM
What is this "normal" of which you refer?
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Saturday February 13 2016, @08:43AM
You should be able to recognize "normal" instantly by the nightmarish feeling will create in you.
I guess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Friday February 12 2016, @03:21PM
That's how the fish must have felt when it first left the oceans of prehistoric earth.
Now I want to try it, too!
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday February 13 2016, @03:40AM
Was the water in the float tank spiked with LSD?
(Score: 2) by goodie on Friday February 12 2016, @12:20PM
I've hear some spas or other places have those for people to use actually, no?
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday February 12 2016, @03:37PM
Around here there's a few places that just offer float tanks. Between the cost of buying one and the fact that they're extremely heavy, most people just don't have the option of owning their own.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday February 12 2016, @02:45PM
I've done it a few times. Fell asleep once, which is a danger I would guess, but the other times were pretty cool. I felt *extremely* relaxed afterwards, yet very 'aware'. I've described it as a two week vacation in two hours.
Even when I fell asleep, it was a really restful, deep sleep. The operators were worried because they couldn't wake me up. I'm a pretty deep sleeper.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Friday February 12 2016, @03:17PM
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday February 13 2016, @08:40AM
I'm safe then, I didn't
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by Sir Finkus on Friday February 12 2016, @05:58AM
...and I regressed into an ape-like creature and and eventually a primordial mass of energy. Luckily my wife was able to pull me back from the brink.
I'd highly recommend it.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @06:07AM
Only if your wife comes to assist too, otherwise I'd be too afraid.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday February 12 2016, @08:33PM
Sounds like it was a failure in your case. You had freedom within your grasp, only to have it snatched away at the last second, and had to return to a life of abject misery.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @06:15AM
John Lilly invented the flotation tank and so any attempt to understand what it is used for has to be rooted in its history.
Believe it or not, back in the 1950s there were people who thought that consciousness was a function of sensory input. Cut off the input, so the theory went, and you would cut off the consciousness.
John Lilly built the first isolation tanks with a grant from the NIH, where he was doing research, IIRC.
This was all well before I was born, but I refer you to Lilly's book, The Deep Self, for details on the history of isolation tanks.
Watercourse Way, in Palo Alto, had one, the last time I checked - but that was decades ago, I don't know if they are even in business any more. Understanding oneself is so yesterday.
So, why do isolation tanks?
It gets rid of physical distractions and allows you to be Pure Mind for an hour or so.
References:
• John C. Lilly [wikipedia.org]
• Human Biocomputer [wikipedia.org]
• The Deep Self [amazon.com]
• Programming & Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer [amazon.com]
~childo
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday February 13 2016, @03:45AM
A friend of mine tried to talk me into it ($$$), but from some preliminary reading of the effects it sounds like the same could be achieved through meditation. I read multiple reports and the common factor in all of them was that it put you into a meditative state. In the end I wasn't convinced that it was worth heading into the city and paying a pile of money to achieve the same state of mind as I could sitting on my deck (I live outside the city in a very quiet area) and meditating.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday February 17 2016, @09:19PM
Hard to blame anyone from stepping away from "understanding oneself" after reading the Wikipedia pages. Sensory deprivation is interesting on its own but it seems like Lilly went downhill fast after prolonged LSD use and then the ketamine finished the job of turning his mind into pulp :|
I say that as someone who loves PKD & Erdős (both were junkies).
It is (or should be) a big warning sign when every single thing which happens (or doesn't) is interpreted as something incredibly significant and/or of cosmic/universal importance (and that sums up Lilly and so many else).
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @06:42AM
This nonsense also gave rise to a rather atrocious Ken Russell film, "Altered States." Surprisingly, some people actally like this film. But then, some people like these tanks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @07:23AM
But if some people
, some people actally like this film
it is quite probable that some people also like altered spelling. Arctually.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @08:20AM
I prefer The Spirit Molecule
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @01:04PM
That's your hatred for Bob Balaban talking!
(Score: 0) by garrulus on Friday February 12 2016, @11:12AM
but they are rather expensive 30k or so for a good one at home
I couldn't come to rest in other peoples or rental tanks
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @01:01PM
at least if you do it at home and you get stuck inside, you can die peacefully without some annoying attendant disturbing your metazeta statamind. or smth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @02:04PM
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1070936311/zen-float-tent-first-affordable-isolation-tank-for/rewards [kickstarter.com]
30K? Nah. About $1500 for the tent plus salt.
See. Kickstarter can be good.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday February 12 2016, @03:33PM
I doubt those offer true isolation. I'm sure they can block all the light, but an isolation tank needs to be able to block sounds as well. And a good one will maintain a decent temperature.
They cost $30k in part due to technical specifications, but a lot of it comes down to them being high precision and low volume products.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @01:46PM
Because it is a fucking fad. This stuff always is. In ten years it will disappear again.
If you have cultural or actual memory longer than, say, 30 years, you see this stuff (just like fad diets), pop up all the time. We're probably about 10 or 20 years away from a resurgence in "oxygen bars" or something else stupid like that.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 12 2016, @03:02PM
It seems like that, but it isn't. I remember watching Altered States in the early 80's and thereafter reading about people doing the flotation tanks. Then in the late 90's I met a sub culture of masseuses in Chicago that were crazy about floating (it's what they did to relax after a long day of massaging other stressed out people). Here 20 years later is another article about it. So it's less like a fad than something that has a following that has stabilized just below the radar, occasionally bumping up into view. Kind of like the Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies [wikipedia.org] were, a phenomenon with groupies who followed them around like the Grateful Dead but never hit it big, only a couple blips on the radar here and there.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @01:58PM
If you're going to put in a tease about what Feynman thought about these things, either summarize it or provide a link [fsu.edu] (go to "Altered States" - I can't tell you the page because the useless PDF viewer in Safari isn't showing me what page I'm on).
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Friday February 12 2016, @02:35PM
I get most of my best ideas in the shower, because it is the only place where my mind can go completely blank with no discernible outside stimuli to interfere with the process.
I think this would be another such place, and more controlled one, and one where I am not limited in duration to the amount of hot water in my tank (In the U.S. we use boilers which keep the water hot/warm, so it can run out until the new batch becomes heated).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 13 2016, @01:06AM
Try a more efficient showerhead. I live on an island off the coast of Mexico we use gas for cooking only and electricity costs make an electric tank cost prohibitive.
The weather here stays about 75f year round, sometimes drops as low as 55f to 60f.
We have a 30gal water tank on the roof because city water is suplemented by rain fall. No boiler at all, yet I have a hot shower almost every day and it doesn't run out after 30 or 40 minutes. When I first moved here, I noticed the sun will heat the tank quickly by about 9AM and by noon it can be be scalding. If I take a shower in the evening after work, about 6 or 7 I can go an hour or two without running out of "really freakin hot!" water.
My shower head is ultraefficient although I did have to install a small electric booster pump in order to increase the pressure, but that might just be because water pressure in Mexico is a joke in general. With this showehead we're talking about using a gallon every 15 mins or so.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday February 13 2016, @04:52AM
I get most of my best ideas in the shower, because it is the only place where my mind can go completely blank
Isn't that what your desk at work is for? I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @04:44PM
Tried it in a dodgy looking place under the main railway lines into Waterloo station, London. It was sort of ok, but I can't in all honesty recommend it to most people. It didn't do much for me, but I am not the kind of stresshead that needs to be isolated to get some perspective back in their life or to think creatively, my girlfriend, who is exactly that kind of person and has to have some kind of background noise at all times, was in a tank down the hall at the same time and found it more beneficial than I did. One problem that I had was that the tank wasn't big enough to really float and feel apart from the world - I'm only a little over 6-foot tall and my head or feet bumped into the sides every few seconds, which brought me right back to local awareness every time.
So basically, it might work for people who are easily stressed or very 'external', but I'm not sure that it offers much for anyone fairly chilled or who is comfortable being more introspective or being in situations without the need for external stimulation.
(Score: 1) by bucket58 on Friday February 12 2016, @06:22PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFM1SiXgr8A [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday February 13 2016, @05:01AM
In lieu of trying to find a flotation tank, you can also try one of the many other altered states of consciousness.
The most common are drug-induced. Alcohol, maurijuana, LSD. Try to stick with one without heavy long-term negative effects.
You can try lucid dreaming. Guys have an advantage with the easy-to-use penis band (not sure if it was successfully funded and manufactured). Women will have to stick with the old-fashioned dream diary approach. I recommend flying for your first lucid experience, it's a memorable experience.
As a substitute, you can go snorkeling or diving. Not quite a flotation tank, but a unique experience nevertheless.
On the aural side of things, why not try some ASMR or noise canceling headphones? If you've got the money, you can try an anechoic chamber, I hear it's quite unnerving.
For those who demand the maximal experience, I suggest exiting the mortal coil via continuous helium inhalation to displace oxygen.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday February 17 2016, @09:33PM
For those interested in lucid dreaming (and perhaps struggling or not too keen on it like me) I recommend dreaming that you want to and become all powerful/undefeatable (doesn't have to be lucid as long as you remember it). Only recommending it because it's the most boring thing ever, I think I actually woke up out of boredom XD
Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))