Floating Tanks (sensory deprivation)

[sstealingvanity]

Re: Sensory Deprivation Float Tank

My advice, and I hope you're still reading this thread and replies to it despite the majoritorily negative comments of members who seem to have no experience using the tool known variously as an isolation chamber, sensory deprivation, or float tank.

There is a bit of misinformation that has been thrown about in the above statements. I will try to clarify as much as I can, but I encourage you to ask questions and research it on your own. A great resource for the history of floatation or sensory deprivation is in the The Book of Floating, by Michael Hutchinson.

The first thing is, before you decide to go building or buying your own tank, is that you should probably find someone or someplace local that has one and try it out. A tank is relatively inexpensive to buy ($10-30K) and even cheaper to build ($500-8K), but it does require some maintenance and lots and lots of salt (800-1K lbs), which is very caustic to floors and home furnishings. Which is why most tanks are installed in or with a shower. There are lots of float centers around the world, so chances are you probably live close enough to one to try it out first. That being said, GO TRY IT OUT. There's no substitute for your own experience, and considering that most people here are willing to tell you what to do even though they've never experienced it means you should probably take all advice from internet forums with a grain of salt unless you fact-check every word.

Secondly, a sensory deprivation chamber is a specific type of tool. It seeks to provide a space where the constant inflow of sensory input to the body is ceased, or diminished (because like he says, we would die with NO input) so that the body can read itself. The water is warmed to average skin temperature (93-94 degrees, which is slightly lower than blood temp), and has more salt than the dead sea (epsom salt, so your skin doesn't prune) and you float. This experience of weightlessness is really key, since the only other natural place on earth to get that feeling is the womb. In such a space, without the stimulus of light or sound, and without the need for the muscles to tense up to keep one from drowning, one is able to experience a kind of total relaxation, a feeling of "floating in space." But, to be clear, the point was never TOTAL sensory deprivation. Just an environment that allows the body to form its own natural homeostatic balance.

This stimulates the production of theta waves, allows the body to "degauss" in a sense, and deep meditative states are able to be reached without years of practice. It is not exactly like the drug trip experience that some people say. So I encourage you to try it if you can, or if you did, and let us know how it went!

 

[anart]

Re: Sensory Deprivation Float Tank

Hi stealingvanity, how did you find this forum?

 

[The_Seeker]

Re: Sensory Deprivation Float Tank

Alright,

I am now able to comment from a better perspective, on this thread that I started so long ago. My friends and I have after much labor, created and used our flotation tank. I have logged about 25 hours so far. I started out doing 20min, then immediately upped the time to about 45min, as the sorter runs did not really seem like enough time to clear my mind. Since then I have been doing anywhere from 1hour to 1.5 hour sessions. We decided against (at least so far) adding anything for stimuli as we had originally thought about doing. The biggest reason is the positve results we are seeing with just the assisted meditation. I can personally say so far it has really affected me in a positive way. My meditation outside the tank is a much fuller experience now and I am able to clear my mind much quicker, it seems my body has become adapt to that 'state' of meditative peace.

We built the tank in my friends garage, and you were right about the salts.. wow. It takes a bunch to keep the body perfectly buoyant, and they are not a fun thing to spill. I would personally recommend looking into this if you have the cash and the time to do the appropriate amount of research on it. Another thing... I have begun to sleep much more peacefully, especially after a day with at least an hour in the tank. So far, nothing bad to report, but I am still keeping an open mind and if I start to notice anything unpleasant I will surely bring it to the forum. Thanks for all the comments everyone.

Just wanted to share my experiences with you guys,
Thanks, The_Seeker

 

[Bo]

Since this is the only thread mentioning this. I am posting it here.

For some time I have been very interested in trying this, and next friday I will be going for a session of 60 minutes. In combination I will be doing pipe breathing while floating and listening to the prayer of the soul.

I will report back here on my experience with it next friday.

 

[Bo]

Friday around 6 PM I went floating for the first time and it was an interesting and funny experience.

First when I got there they told me it's best if I first try it without any music so that I could test for myself how the experience went, so I decided not to use the meditation POTS. The guy guided me to a room where there was this big room where you could take a shower and there was a seperate room where you could float on the water.

So I first took a shower then went inside the floating room and closed the room. After that I layed down on the water and turned off the lights and I was kind of shocked lol. Because it was absolutly pitch black. You couldn't see a thing. It was only you floating on water. Not even my own bedroom could get that dark. So it was very interesting to me.

In the beginning while floating on the water I noticed I was quite tense as my head felt very heavy, so I decided to ''let go'' so that my body became more relaxed and I immediately noticed my entire body was now comfortably floating.

Then I tried to do the pipe breathing but then accidently moved a bit to much and got a bit of the water in my eyes and it burned. So I was splashing around in total darkness. Then finally around 15 minutes I got the hang of it and I was floating comfortable again and I was able to do the pipe breathing which was extra comforting. After another 15 minutes of pipe breathing I played around in the water as it is quite fun to float in complete darkness and slowly moving arms and legs around. Then another 30 minutes I was sleeping I think before some relaxing music started to play that it was the end of the floating session.

Overall it is really something you need to get used to. I think I will go for another 2/3 more sessions since I got the hang of it now, but next time with POTS.

 

[Renaissance]

Hey Bo, there is a thread on this and it looks like it could be a dangerous thing. The C's have also said some words of caution on the subject too. Here is the thread where it is discussed:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,23435.0.html

 

[Bo]

Hey Bo, there is a thread on this and it looks like it could be a dangerous thing. The C's have also said some words of caution on the subject too. Here is the thread where it is discussed:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,23435.0.html

Woah! thanks, I missed that!

 

[Bo]

I did some more digging on this, and came upon the following articles. Very scary...I am glad you brought it up Shane. This should definantly be avoided.


An unusual death involving a sensory deprivation tank.

Deaths involving sensory deprivation tanks are very rare. We describe a unique case in which a previously healthy 50-year-old woman apparently died while floating in a sensory deprivation tank at her residence.[/b] Autopsy failed to reveal definitive anatomical abnormalities pointing to the cause of death. A thorough scene investigation, full medicolegal autopsy to include toxicological analyses, and a complete investigation into the equipment at the scene, were conducted. Blood toxicologic studies were significant for the presence of ethanol (0.27%) and a mixture of over-the-counter sedating medications and prescription drugs. The cause of death was ruled as acute mixed drug and ethanol toxicity combined with probable environmental hyperthermia; manner was accident. This case report will help the forensic community understand the intended use of flotation tanks, as well as possible risks associated with improper use.
© 2010 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

_http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20533982


Out of LSD? Just 15 Minutes of Sensory Deprivation Triggers Hallucinations

Psychologists stuck 19 healthy volunteers into a sensory-deprivation room, completely devoid of light and sound, for 15 minutes. Without the normal barrage of sensory information flooding their brains, many people reported experiencing visual hallucinations, paranoia and a depressed mood.

“This is a pretty robust finding,” wrote psychiatrist Paul Fletcher of the University of Cambridge, who studies psychosis but was not involved in the study. “It appears that, when confronted by lack of sensory patterns in our environment, we have a natural tendency to superimpose our own patterns.”

The findings support the hypothesis that hallucinations happen when the brain misidentifies the source of what it is experiencing, a concept the researchers call “faulty source monitoring.”

“This is the idea that hallucinations come about because we misidentify the source of our own thoughts,” psychologist Oliver Mason of the University College London wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. “So basically something that actually is initiated within us gets misidentified as from the outside.” Mason and colleagues published their study in October in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

“Sensory deprivation is a naturalistic analogue to drugs like ketamine and cannabis for acting as a psychosis-inducing context,” Mason wrote, “particularly for those prone to psychosis.”

We still don’t know why some people are more likely to have hallucinations than others, but Fletcher says that some researchers consider the phenomenon particularly important because it suggests that symptoms of mental illness occur on a continuum with normality.

“Perhaps this reflects different ways of dealing with sense data, which under certain circumstances might be advantageous,” Fletcher wrote.

Next, the researchers hope to study how sensory deprivation affects schizophrenic patients and people who use recreational drugs that increase the risk of psychosis.

“There are claims that schizophrenic patients paradoxically find that their psychotic symptoms such as hearing voices are improved by sensory deprivation,” Mason wrote, “though the evidence for this is very long in the tooth indeed. What happens to people who already hear voices when in the chamber?”

_http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/10/hallucinations/


Sensory Deprivation

an article in "Floating", Fall 1987.

There are many who claim that if a person were so deprived his brain would cease functioning. This altogether reasonable belief holds that sensory stimulation, in addition to having its normal function of bringing information to the individual, serves to keep the briain active, alert, and alive."3

The McGill studies were actually studies in "monotonous stimulation" which fit the needs of the Canadian Defense Research Board. Years later, 1961, Hebb published an introductory note in the book "Sensory Deprivation" which shed light on the true original purpose. "...The work we have done at McGill University becan, actually, with the problem of 'brainwashing'. We were not permitted to say so in the first publishing. What we did say however, was true – that we were interested in problems of monotony on the man with a watch – keeping hob or other tasks of that sort. The chief impetus, of course was the dismay at the kinds of confessions being produced at the Russian Communists' trials. 'Brainwashing' was a term that came a little later, applied to Chinese procedures. We did not know what the Russian procedures were, but it seemed that they were producing some peculiar changes in attitude. How? One possible factor was perceptual isolation and we concentrated on that."

Nowhere in any published literature is there any evidence showing that the McGill group had ever established any meaningful linkages between 'brainwashing' and 'monotonous stimulation' conditions they had investigated. There have been allegations that the U.S.A., C.I.A. Sponsored some of the early research.

_http://www.floatation.com/deprivation.html

 

[Z...]

FWIW to me this sounds like a lot of hassle for dubious results. IMO deep meditative states shouldn't be sought with shortcuts.

 

[transdimensional]

Hey Bo, there is a thread on this and it looks like it could be a dangerous thing. The C's have also said some words of caution on the subject too. Here is the thread where it is discussed:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,23435.0.html

Unfortunately I get this message when trying to follow the link:

The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.

It's a pity.

 

[anart]

I get the same error message, so the link may be the problem. Shane, can you try to find the thread again and re-link it?

 

[Bo]

It was this thread that it was linked too. There were 2 seperate topics on this matter of floating tanks. And shane linked me to this one.

So a moderator must have put these 2 topics together.

 

[Renaissance]

It was this thread that it was linked too. There were 2 seperate topics on this matter of floating tanks. And shane linked me to this one.

So a moderator must have put these 2 topics together.

Yes, I think that must have been the case. Posts from the thread I posted are mixed in with Bo's. There were only one or two posts in the thread Bo initially posted in.