Today I spent an hour in a sensory deprivation tank.

OK. I'm writing this in case anyone is interested.

For a few months, I have been really curious about the effects of the sensory deprivation tank. I heard the experience was very introspective and somewhat psychedelic. That made me particularly curious. I have always been a little scared of psychedelics, and I thought this could be a good first step. Today I finally tried it for the first time.

This took place in a spa. I show up, and a nice young lady takes me into a room. In the room, there is shower and a huge egg shaped tank with an open door and about a foot of water in it. The girl explains that there is 2000 cups of water and 2000 cups of Epsom salts, which means I will not sink in the water - I will float weightlessly. The water is heated at 87 degrees, which is the temperature of the human body. Inside the tank, you have the choice between a relaxing blue light or total darkness, relaxing music or total silence. There are buttons inside the tank and you can control the music/light. I am to shower before and after my float. After the hour is up, a particular type of music will play for 5 minutes - this means my time is up. She asks me if I have any questions, I don't, she says have a nice float and exits the room.

I take a quick shower, I'm a bit stressed out, but excited. I enter the tank, lie on my back and float weightlessly as promised. I smile. I decide to immediately turn off the lights and music. It's so dark that if I open or close my eyes, there is no difference. It's so quiet that all I can hear is my heartbeat. I start to use my meditation techniques, I focus on my breathing, I try to surrender to the experience.

I soon realize that I am very quickly TOTALLY relaxed. I was a bit worried about being claustrophobic in there, but when everything is quiet and dark, and you are floating, you feel like you are in an infinite space. It's hard to explain, but I don't see how one could feel claustrophobic. It's almost surreal. With my eyes submerged under water, all I can hear is my heart. I am naked as the day I was born, and i can barely feel anything because the water is the same temperature as my body. I can't see. I don't even have a sense of gravity. It feels like I'm just floating in space, in complete emptiness. This may sound strange, but this feels very sensual to me.

I relax some more and pretty much lost the concept of time. I really had no idea how long i had been in there, it didn't feel like long at all.

After a while, something weird started happening. I am very reluctant to use words like ''hallucinations'' or ''visuals'', but I somewhat started seeing very faint white lights (the kind you see where you close your eyes really hard and TRY to see something). If I focused too much on them, they would simply dissapear, but if i just stared into the darkness and let it happen, there was definitely some very subtle stuff going on. The white ''things'' were just slowly moving around and morphing into each other, sometimes growing, sometimes shrinking, almost making me feel like I was going forward or backwards (if that makes any sense). Sometimes they were kinda like ''spiraling'' into a dark hole. I don't know if I imagined this, but I saw what looked a bit like a woman's eye looking at me and it was comforting. Like I said, all verrrrrry sublte stuff, possibly semi-imagined.

Suddenly, as I'm floating around pondering my life, the music comes on and my hour is up. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't really thinking about time, but it certainly didn't feel like an hour. I could have gone for 2! After another shower I came out of the room feeling completely relaxed.

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That's that! I don't know too much about psychedelics, but this didn't feel very psychedelic at all. It was more of a complete relaxation thing. I did think about my life alot and noticed some patterns of thought that I have. Maybe it could be therapeutic if I go a few more times. We'll see!

 

That sounds pretty awesome. Trying that is now on my bucket list. Thanks for the report.

 

this sounds seriously similar to tripping. and i will make the comparison...

i'd be nervous as hell about going in one of those things for a whole hour. and you're telling me that it was relaxing?! well i've never done it, but i'm scared of it, so maybe i never will.

you've never tripped, and understandably are a bit nervous about it. well i'm telling you, that if you do...and you surrender and relax, it can be a very beautiful and rewarding experience. of course it also has the potential to be scary or difficult, just like the tank.

after you went in the tank and realized how great it was, you thought "i could have went for twice as long"

after you take 15 mg of 4-aco-dmt and have a slightly pleasant trip, you just might think "wow, that was awesome, but i could have taken twice as much!"

but anyways, starting low is a decent idea. i addressed it in the other thread, but i think 25 mg is a good starting dose for that compound. that's what i started with and i always start low with new chemicals, and usually continue to dose lower than most HFers.

 

Sounds awesome, Shivaya. I've always been curious about sensory deprivation tanks. I'd like to try it on a low dose of some sort of psychedelic, but I'd like to try the tank by itself first.

 

Very nice, but I would not call that description, "sensory deprivation."

 

Do it!

That makes sense and thanks for the info!

It's pretty interesting stuff man, I'd say definetly try it without because that in itself is an experience.

I agree, but ''distraction removal tank'' doesnt sound very good. What I've heard is that it takes a few times to actually be able to fully ''let go''.

Basically, for me it was kind of like a meditation boost. It takes away alot of the stuff that might be in the way when meditating, but ultimately you still play an important part in the experience.

 

thanks for sharing.

 

Now do it with 7g of shrooms

 

that sounds awesome. sensory deprivation tanks always freaked me out a bit. I never found anything appealing about them, but after your description I think I am going to have to try it!

 

Sounds cool, I have often wondered about trying it.

 

Ya, very interesting review, thanks!. I would however, stay away from the 7 grams of shrooms in there though, ever see Altered States? Scary!!! Ha.
But really, I might look around here and see if there's one nearby. Might be an experience.

 

lol I was just about to mention that this thread is making me wanna watch Altered States again. Crazy movie

 

Very interesting to hear a first hand report. I've always been curious about sensory deprivation tanks but never heard from someone who's actually been in one. I'd like to try one sometime. Thanks for sharing

 

It's my pleasure everyone. It seems because of the movie everybody thinks the tank is a weird freaky thing, but it's actually quite relaxing. Probably one the most relaxing things I've ever done in fact.

 

Ya, thats my understanding too. I think it's only freaky if you take shrooms too

 

just to throw in my 2 cents...initially, the floating causes tightness in the neck for the first ten minutes of the float. the discomfort wasn't too bad.

sudddenly, the tightness in my neck loosened up and i was completely relaxed. the floating without any physical cues made me feel like i was floating in a huge pool. about 30 minutes into the float, i didn't feel like i was in the pod anymore. there were no huge visions like being on LSD. actually, the sound of my heart beat became so loud that couldn't get back into the previous state.

after the float, i had to sit on the couch for about 15 minutes to "recover". i was totally spent (relaxed). sounds funny that floating for an hour can make you feel totally spent.

 

That sounds like a hell of an experience! I would not have even considered it until reading about your experience because I am super claustrophobic.

 

Yeah but its sooooooooooo dark and quiet that it feels like you are floating in an infinite space. You'll see haha

 

Haha yeah, that's the first thing I thought of too, but Shivaya's experience sounds a liiiiittle different. This actually sounds really cool and not frightening at all. I always kinda wanted to try one but had no idea where to find one except at like a research lab at a university or something. That's cool they have them at spas. I would love to try this. I can definitely relate some of your description to moments I've had in silent darkness while tripping, specifically on 4-aco-dmt. Thanks for sharing!

 

Cool experience man

I've never tried a tank, but I occasionally take baths in complete darkness. It's nice, produces the same kind of effects and feelings you mentioned.