Why I love the nothingness inside a float tank
aeon.co
aeon.co
From his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"[1].
Kind of odd to throw that out as an affirmation of this man's eccentricity, when billions of human beings consider this absolutely normal.
Strassman (2001) reported that “about half” of the 60 volunteers entered
what he described as “freestanding, independent levels of existence” of a
highly unusual nature. These places were inhabited by what volunteers
described as intelligent “beings”, “entities”, “aliens”, “guides”, and
“helpers”... ...Strangely enough, reports of these kinds of beings seem
to be unique to DMT, as Strassman was unable to find anything similar in
the research literature on other psychedelic drugs.
There were some consistent themes in experiences of entity contact.
Participants frequently reported that the beings seemed to be waiting for
them. Volunteers were subjected to an examination by these beings in what
appeared to be a technologically advanced setting. Volunteers felt
like their mind and body was probed and tested, or even modified in some
unexplained way. The beings communicated with the user through gestures
...Strassman noted the striking parallels between these entity contact
experiences and accounts of alien abduction.
Intriguingly, many volunteers refused to believe that these experiences
were hallucinations or dreams, as they seemed too real. Strassman reported
being initially quite baffled by and unprepared for the frequency of these
entity experiences among his volunteers...
If it just you or a small handful of people, you're crazy or eccentric. If it's a few hundred you start getting into the cultist region. Pass a few thousand and you become religious.
Yes, those number were pulled out of thin air, but the sentiment remains.
Also, I'm working on a VR setup to use in the tank. Still in its infancy, but shows some promise!
I figured out he was just very much biased toward things that are exciting. Things like the moon landing being fake, or bigfoot being real, etc. And while he gave that stuff probably too much benefit of the doubt, he isn't immune to evidence or rationality.
For instance, Bigfoot and the moon landing conspiracy stuff are now dealt with in a politic "I personally can't disprove it, but it seems pretty unlikely, and all the evidence tends to come from people who are thoroughly full of shit".
And since the SyFy show, he seems to take a much more skeptical view on new assertions.
Except when it comes to Graham Hancock, Randall Carlson, et al. They still get a lot of slack. But even then, he tries to steer it toward the tangible archaeological/geological data and away from the woo-woo conclusions.
So did you manage to float with the headset ? How does it feel ?
Forget sitting meditation. Flotation therapy is the easiest way to get a brain and body massage. There are also heath benefits from the Epsom Salt used inside the tank to make you float.
I wrote a bit on this topic few years back here: http://www.theroadtosiliconvalley.com/local-california/float... and why it's a perfect tool for engineers to let go and relax after a busy day of coding ;-)
It was a great experience and 1 hour is definetely not enough to understand it all, but there is a lot of potential there.
The physical sensation itself is really interesting - you feel like a fish and you want to move like a fish in there (doing S movements with your body), then you hear the sound of your bones cracking and liquids moving through your body. The most disturbing was the sheer noise that I constantly have in my ears - a kind of tinnitis which resembles the sounds of a modem and it felt like the noise amplified as I was thinking about emotional things.
You also realise just how much sensorial input our mind processes at any point and how much of reality is filtered away automatically.
I had just a couple of instances when I really 'floated away' for maybe a couple of seconds, but then my mind would always jump back and take control of the situation.
I suppose if I go to more sessions, I will learn how to extend them and go deeper and deeper into the meditative trance state.
The feeling of not having all this sensory input made me feel small, almost microscopic to the point of wondering - who am I, really ?
And that is a good question to ask yourself.
35 EUR/hour is a bit expensive though - but they have sliding prices if you buy more sessions so I'm probably going to do that.
In Buddhist lingo, that's the Self, always clinging to sense-impressions, trying to manipulate them and mistaking them as something personal.
Apparently Feynman enjoyed them, and even smoked marijuana before entering them on a couple occasions. Not something I'd do, but, I can imagine that would add to the effect.
One warning if you try the tank: the water is extremely salty...so if you get an itch anywhere on your face, be sure the water doesn't contact your eye... man does it burn.
Why not lie down?
1. Mind racing, everyday worries at hand (~45-60 minutes)
2. Thinking through actual concerns and whats important (~30 mins)
3. Complete relaxation
It's an incredible experience if you devote the time to it, but to really feel it you need to get through the first stage which can take over an hour. I left happier and more peaceful than I had been in some time.
1. Mind wandering (~5-10 minutes)
2. Sleep (~whatever time is left)
What keeps you awake all that time?
Along with avoiding water in the eyes, also be cautious of any open cuts or wounds (from shaving or blisters) - they sting just as much!
Err... John Lennon died in 1980. The Eagles lost the 1981 Super Bowl. What other inaccuracies might be in the article?
The Eagles did lose the 81 Super Bowl, but maybe it's a typo for "made it to the Super Bowl", which is considered an achievement in itself in sports? (particularly if the team had a poor track record the years prior)
I saw the movie as a kid on late night TV. One fine day just a couple of years ago, I suddenly remembered it, googled for a while (not remembering its name) and watched it again.
The movie contains a Jeckyll-and-Hyde trope which is so laughably impossible that the screenwriters don't even bother trying to weave in a shred of a plausible explanation for it that a seasoned sci-fi aficionado could swallow. If you can get past that, the film as such is decent and entertaining. Certainly enough to impress a twelve-year-old kid into looking for it thirty years later to watch again.
Also, I meditate very easily and prefer a whitenoise environment for meditation. And I'm very happy in my own head and used to being alone. So the whole thing was not much a novelty in any respect, and the lack of whitenoise made it suboptimal for meditation.
I wonder how people's response to these things varies as they move along the extroverion-introversion scale. It seems plausible that extroverts would find them a much more novel and disturbing experience than introverts.
Having tinnitus drives me crazy. Not in literal sense, it's not like I focus on it all the time. But at night when I hear the crickets and other nightlife, I mourn the lack of silence in my head.