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Comment by stinos | Hacker News Reader

What I do not completely understand here, or seems counter-intuitive to me: it's called sensory deprivation, but you're floating in water. To me that sounds like a sensory impulse (to the skin, possibly vestibular system to a lesser extent), at least that is what it feels like when I'm floating with eyes closed and fingers in my ears trying to block sound (which might not be perfect though - also I've never done this in water which was almost completely still). Yet in these reports I don't read much about how that floating feels, or whether that feeling is even present. Would be great if someone who tried this could comment on this aspect.

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Once the water settles and you’re completely still, it feels like absolutely nothing on your skin. Zero change from moment to moment in any kind of signal. Sensory deprivation is apt. When you move slightly, you can feel the water.

This. When you're still, it literally feels like you're floating in space. I've been in tanks many times, and every time I feel like I'm spinning in outer space i.e you don't know which way is up or down.

It's a totally unreal experience (think the highest level of meditation you've had now times it by 100), but sadly I've never achieved the feeling of OOB.

Which is one of the reasons why many of the business where you can rent tank/float time highly encourage people to float naked - the feeling of the swimsuit can break the experience.

Makes perfect sense to me.

Yeah! It's crazy when everything becomes totally still. For me it felt like I was in a bubble being swallowed by outer space. It was really hard to calm myself down and trust that I wouldn't drown.

I’ve been in a sensory deprivation tank. To your question, the first thing you realize is that there’s no chance of drowning so it’s easier to let go. It’s not like you’re into a pool or out in the sea where it’s harder to relax because you’re exposed to externalities or you’re afraid that you might drown. You can’t drown in a tank because there’s like 20 cm of water in there. Once you let go you don’t feel anything. Everything is pitch black, you can’t hear sounds, and of course you don’t feel the water because there’s no movement on the water. You’re inside a controlled environment. It’s also easy to panic and a lot of people do which makes the whole experience extremely uncomfortable, especially if the water gets in your eyes because it’s highly salinated and hurts like a motherf*cker.

Aside from that it’s like meditation once you get the grip of it. But it’s easier than meditation because it doesn’t require a lot of exercise to make it work.

on the contrary, I have been in one too and maybe it was just a shit deprivation tank but I most definately felt the water. It was not a perfect match to my body temperature and with nothing else to focus on, I focused directly on the feeling of the water. Any subtle movement would create waves that were definitely noticed.

That was my experience too. Pretty underwhelming, and uncomfortable.

Maybe depends on the tank, but when I was floating I was motionless and after 3-5 minutes the water gets still and you stop feeling it. Until you do some movement you don't feel your limbs. I was mostly concentrating on my thoughts, so maybe that impacted my experience.

The temperature has to be perfectly matched between air and water - the water has so much salt in it you really are floating (like dead sea ++); it's pitch dark and perfectly still.... you really are "sensory deprived"... it's up to you to calm your mind.

The water is at 35.2°C, the temperature of the outer skin. This minizes the input via skin.

Thanks (and to the sibling commenters as well), makes sense!

Somebody who really enjoys it gave me a trial package once and I did a few sessions. You're absolutely right, I mostly had the sensation of floating in water.

In the end I determined this isn't useful for me, but there's probably people who are less sensitive to this kind of sensation.

You can feel the water but only if you're moving or the temperature isn't controlled well enough between the air and water and you can feel the border.

This is what I mean by different people having different sensitivity. I fully believe that this is true for you and many others, but it's not true for me.

So you believe you have more acute sense of temperature and pressure? There is an element of meditation involved

I can definitely notice the water, yes. Even regardless of temperature and pressure, there is no way to make absolutely no movements (unless you're dead, and even then ...) which means the water will be in motion, which is very obviously noticeable on body hair.

> There is an element of meditation involved

Sure, but this is a different statement - it's more like saying "yes, the sensation is noticeable, but the point is to learn to ignore it" which is different from "there is no sensation".

My point is everyone notices that to some degree, unless they're dead like you pointed out. Having an expectation on absolute 0 sensation is unrealistic. The purpose of a deprivation tank in this scenario is to reduce/deny as much sensory input as possible, leaving just mental stimulation, aka mediation.

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