This is the story of how I managed not to follow the instructions ‘just lie there’, got sea-sick without leaving land, and yet still managed to get somewhere else.
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Over the years I’ve had a few friends tell
me about their experience of ‘floating’ in tank. I was intrigued, and there’s a
lot of very interesting
research surrounding it, including some interesting reported benefits for
mental health.
My wife had bought me a session for my
birthday a couple of years ago, but owing to various lock downs, I was only
finally able to give it a go at the start of 2021. With a baby on the way, our
lives were about to change and it seemed like a perfect time, as spending an
hour floating in a tub might be a bit unrealistic for the first few months of
having a new-born.
My first surprise was the detailed
information given me in advance to read. This wasn’t like a massage – a kinda
‘just lie there and enjoy it’ experience. This was something you had to come
to, prepared in many senses of the word. For example, being told “don’t eat a
heavy meal beforehand”. They also said it might ‘take a few floats’ before you
really started to notice the difference in yourself. My first thought was ‘what
a money-making scam’, as each session costs roughly what you’d pay for a
massage. I was wrong. I also got a few other things wrong on my first float.
Before
Beforehand, we’d met a friend for lunch and
I’d sat down to a lovely big meal, had a thick chocolate milkshake and also
helped finish our friend's chips, because no one likes food to go to waste.
When it was time to walk to the float
centre, I was quite full, and was running slightly late, so I adopted a brisk
walking pace, using my phone to navigate there. On the way, I met a blind
person who needed some assistance navigating a complex pedestrian crossing. For
those unfamiliar with Australian pedestrian crossings, at a meeting some time
ago, it was agreed that giving a green light to both pedestrians AND traffic
turning left at the same time could have absolutely no issues whatsoever. It is
with some alarm as both a driver and a pedestrian when you learn this the hard
way for the first time. So after helping the person cross, I found myself on
the wrong side of a complex intersection and managed to get myself thoroughly
lost, and running even later.
I broke into a jog and managed to arrive at
the floatation place out of breath, sweating and with mild indigestion from my
big lunch, and a little stressed.
They calmed me down, gave me some water and
I sat next to a worldly early-20 something guy who exchanged a smile with me
and asked ‘was it my first float?’. He informed me that he floats at least once
a week, and finds it essential to his wellbeing. Suddenly the ‘you might need a
few floats’ claim was starting to sink in.
I was taken into the float room (see photo) and shown a $30,000 machine that looked like a futuristic cross between spaceship and a cryogenic time machine. I was given a quick safety brief where they explained the light controls, and showed me where there was a water spray and small flannel, should you get the water in your eyes. If that didn’t work, he showed me the panic button. I thought he was joking, but no, there is a panic button, which I suppose makes sense as you voluntarily entomb yourself in a pitch black water filled plastic coffin. I quietly thought to myself ‘You’d have to be in a bit of a pickle to consider even using that!’.
What you might not know about floatation tanks is that the buoyancy is achieved by loading the water to almost maximum saturation of magnesium salt. Think the Dead Sea times ten. The water literally can’t get much saltier.
Float
So I settled into my float, with some music
piped in and the lights fading down after 10 minutes or so. It was very
pleasant – but – as the whole point of these things is to help bring you into
awareness of your body, all I could notice was my stomach moving in quite an
agitated way reminding me it was very very full. Now I understood the ‘don’t
eat’ instruction. Normally such digestion wouldn’t draw much attention, but in
a body temperature pool of water where you can’t feel the end of your body and
the start of the water, and you are effectively experiencing zero gravity, your
breathing (and digestion!) suddenly come into sharp focus.
Sadly, the digestion process was only just
getting started and I started to feel quite warm and airless. It’s usually
considered indelicate to discuss flatulence, but it must be said here that
while I didn’t know much about the ventilation systems in these machines, I
could instinctively tell it wasn’t keeping pace with the rate that heinous
gasses were being expelled by my gut bacteria, and subsequently, me.
I popped open to lid to let in some fresh
air and in doing so accidentally dripped some of the water into my eye.
Remember how I said it was salty? Stinging doesn’t start to describe it. I
reached for the spray and flannel and in doing so, made some small waves in the
tub. After I was all cleaned up I lay back down to try and relax again, yet the
small waves I’d created were still bouncing around in the dark, and with zero
visual references, I somehow managed to make myself seasick. With a frankly
huge lunch barely down my oesphogus, and me not having a great track record of
not being sick, I thought it prudent to not vomit in the floatation tank, as this
might somewhat kill the vibe for me, and everyone else planning on using it
ever again.
So I got out, sat on the edge, took some
deep breaths and felt better. I recovered and felt ready to get back in, closed
the lid – and instantly felt seasick again. I had to call it, I was done.
After
Somehow, I managed to make the quite simple
activity of ‘get in a tub and lie there’ into an ordeal of my own making. But on
the plus side, I didn’t hit the panic button, or make the tub into a
multi-coloured stink pond.
All that said, the parts of the experience
where my eyes weren’t suffering mild chemical burns and my inner ear wasn’t
simulating a bad landing in a Soyuz spacecraft, I really did enjoy it all very
much and can’t wait to do it again. You truly do lose all sense of your body,
and I can completely see how, with some breath control and some basic
meditation skills, it could be a profound and rewarding experience for the
non-claustrophobic.
That said, we now have a lovely little
three-month old daughter and Melbourne is settling into a seemingly
never-ending lock down while the Federal Government of Australia quietly
oversees a shambles of a COVID vaccine roll out. So I have to wait for my
second float, and for now, feel grateful for my monthly bath, which doesn’t
even need a panic button.
