Postcards From the Edge of Consciousness
I am fresh from the shower, wrapped in just a towel and smelling of mild herbal soaps (both shower and soaps are required), standing at the door to the tank. It resembles a shower door—knee-high, sliding—and opens to reveal a tub bigger than a bathtub but smaller than a hot tub, with a bulge in the middle. The tub is molded from a pale blue material that reminds me of above-ground Jacuzzis from the ’70s. The walls are padded with soundproof material. Overhead, the ceiling looks low enough to touch. There are no windows. Sam Zeiger had this tank built into his Chelsea apartment nearly 30 years ago and he is currently down the hall, in the living room, which has been modestly closed off from this half of the apartment by a folding screen. I am not uncomfortable, though I am, perhaps, in a state of nervous anticipation. This is my first float.
Leaving my towel outside, I step in and slide the door shut behind me. The air is humid and close. The smell reminds me of the inside of an old sailboat—salt and weathered fiberglass. The water is loaded with more salt than the Dead Sea, and both air and water are kept at skin temperature, so that as you float it is hard to say where body ends and environment begins. Once the lights are off, the darkness is total. The tank offers a reduced sensory experience as close to nothingness as you can get.
Slowly, so as not to disturb the water into motion, I lower myself down. The water feels thick. Slippery with salt. I lie back and feel for the big round button I’ve been told will be on my left. When I press it the lights go dark, and I begin floating.
You’ll hear things that you don’t normally hear,” Zeiger had said as he prepped me in his living room. “Your heart beat, your blood flow. A lot of people report hearing a quiet, high-pitched whine, which is your nervous system.” The proprietor of Blue Light Floatation, Zeiger is neither scientist nor clinician, but for the past 29 years, he has hosted a steady stream of floaters and attained something like cult status. The flotation community leans a bit New Age, and Zeiger’s living room, which smells pleasantly herbal, features floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined with titles such as Indestructible Truth, You Are the Eyes of the World, and The Attention Revolution. Tibetan prayer flags are draped over a lamp at one end of the brown leather couch. I have come because flotation has seen a popular resurgence in recent years, with commercial tank operators popping up across the country, and I’ve heard stories both fantastic and mundane about the reduced stimulus experience. It can cure terrible, lifelong phobias. It helps with chronic pain. It is a portal to other dimensions. It is relaxing.
Research suggests that something rather remarkable happens when sensory stimulus from the external world
