Happy December! Here’s hoping that winter and holiday celebrations/preparations are going well for you. Things here surely are. Many seem to be noticing some stress and anxiety in their loved ones and co-workers, as many gift certificates have been picked up. Soem folks tell me that the intended recipients just really likes the water. Whatever works! With Chanukah almost over, and Christmas just over a week away, it is still high gift-giving season, and every day here reflects that reality.
Last weekend, three seniors from a local high school came in for a float. We have had some younger folks in, but this visit was unique in the social and experimental qualities the experience seemed to have for them. They were off to eat some fast food on leaving, and the float itself seems to have been very much a part of the evening’s entertainment for them. I applaud the exploratory spirit, the willingness to try a new and different approach, the healthy indulgence of curiosity in healthy ways.
For me, floating is fun, and I welcome others open to testing that possibility. Beyond the quest for fun, I think there was, too, an investigational aspect to the venture for those students. Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) is one approach among many to the study of consciousness. The publisher of The Book of Floating, Michael Hutchinson’s definitive popular treatment of the practice, lists the book in its “Consciousness Classics” collection. Pull away the noise, the strife, the screens, cars, books, bags, bother and “ado”, and what is left is you. For some, that is a intimidating proposition, for others, an adventure like no other.
In what seems to be the only current US academic research on floating, Penn State runs a REST lab, for “an ever proliferating list of reasons.” Among them: “What are the mechanisms of the relaxation response induced by flotation-R.E.S.T.? Does flotation-R.E.S.T. offer lasting benefits? Is there a training effect, an expectancy effect, a setting effect? The REST Laboratory is a valid and potent mode of inquiry into the complex negotiations of mind, body, and environment. As such, we are always interested in cultivating colloboration from individuals of far-flung fields of expertise.” My hope is that such serious study, more common in previous decades, continues and expands in the coming years.
The post-float writing questions administered to PSU REST subjects reveal the focus: * How do you feel today? Did the tank affect how you were feeling? If yes, please explain. * Did you have any visual or auditory experiences while in the tank? Please describe. * How would you say the tank affected your experience of your body? * What effect would you say this REST session had on your experience of identity, the feeling of who and what you are? The REST lab’s reference page lists published results of several previous studies, one of which found that floatation REST “was shown to produce a significant decrease in self-rated anxiety and arousal”, and that subjects in a separate phase of research, “experienced similar changes in mood and arousal, [and] reported that autobiographical memories retrieved in REST were more pleasant and intense, and had been more frequently recalled in the past, than those recollected in a control environment.”
For me, floating opens a new way for consideration of what it is to be alive, me, in this body, this world. I often tell people that, on my first-ever float, I discovered an ability to “touch my brain”. That’s just a bit cryptic–the words don’t really speak to the experience, and somewhat blank, quizzical looks often follow. Consider the last time you heard a live orchestra, or maybe a choir–that spine-tingling, pleasantly dizzying rush down the spine as the sound builds, dips and crescendoes. Whatever really happens when I “touch my brain”, it creates that sensation, and I am both thrilled audience and conductor. The ability remains with me, even outside the tank, allowing access to those perceptions, sensations and perspectives I now associate so strongly with floating. Some amount of concentration is required, in or out of the water. It’s worth the effort.
Below is a brief, anonymized response from one of our student visitors last week. It looks as if he’d conscientiously answered the questions put by the PSU researchers. FInally, I share the idea that it is never too early, and certainly not too late, to consider one’s self, one’s life, from the unique perspective floating provides. It’s worth the effort.
I went for a float session on Friday with two of my friends. I’m writing you because you said you liked to hear about our experiences in the tank. For me, it was physically the most comfortable I’ve ever been, I was able to completely relax. I didn’t experience any hallucinations while in the tank but I experienced some really interesting sensations. At the beginning, I felt like I was drifting through the water, like I was being pulled. Other times I felt as if I were spinning. My thoughts seemed much louder and I would hear something and not be able to tell if it was in my head. When I couldn’t distinguish water from air, I couldn’t tell where my limbs were. I thought my hands were touching for a while but when I moved one, I realized that they had been apart. Being so still I sometimes felt as if I wouldn’t be able to move if I tried and I had no desire to try to move. At the very end, my mind drifted off and I felt like I was in this weird dreamy state which I’m assuming is theta waves. When I got out, I felt like I was mentally sharper and a “high on life” sensation which I think was from the endorphins. I’m eager to try it again and I’ve been telling my friends about the experience. After I explained the experience to my parents, they are eager to try it too.
