The theme for my vacation is doing things I have never done before.
As we all know, I started out with a trip to the beach with friends. All new travel partners for me. You’ve read all about how that turned out. It was a wonderful trip.
The rest of my vacation will be at home. So I am going to do some new things, because…why not?
This morning I did a 90 minute float in an isolation tank. It’s something I have wondered about since seeing the movie ‘Altered States’ in high school. It’s basically a tank with a few feet of heavily Epsom salted water in a completely dark, quiet environment. Generally, some sort of a pod or enclosure. In this case, the tank was not quite as wide as my arm span. Probably about 7 feet long. I could stand up in it, but I didn’t really notice how tall it was.
There was a shower next to the tank, and a bench with towels and a robe.
You take a shower, turn off the room lights, and then get into the tank and shut the door. When you are ready, you shut off the light in the tank.
The salinity makes you float on top of the water with no effort at all. Because they balance the air and water temperature, the theory is that the boundary between the water, your body and the space around it begins to break down.
The water is almost syrupy from the salt. Viscous. It feels more like oil, slippery to the touch. For some reason, your skin doesn’t get all pruned up, even after 90 minutes.
It is very comfortable, and I relaxed into it very quickly. I would have loved for it to be just a tiny bit warmer, but it was not uncomfortably cool at all.
It didn’t feel like an enclosed space to me, but more like being in space.
The only things I could hear were my own breathing and heartbeat. At times I would see blobby, pulsing colors. Sort of like a lava lamp. All in my head, I suppose. Maybe your eyes really want to try to make something out of all the blackness.
It was very calming and peaceful. The time went quickly. At the end, they pipe in some musical tones at gradually increasing volume to let you know your time is up. Shower, shampoo, and out you go.
I felt a little spacey, but very peaceful at the end. When I got out to the lobby, there were a ton of people there. The place stays busy, running 6 tanks 24 hours a day.
It would be really interesting to be in the tank on any sort of psychedelics.
Sadly, I did not turn into a monkey man like William Hurt did in the movie.
It was interesting enough that I may do it again.
Next up? A flight in a hot air balloon.
At 0600. That is too too early.
Why can’t the wind be still in the evening???
