Anyone Else Climb, Naked, Into a Tank of Saltwater During Lunch Today?

Let me explain.

About two years ago, Ben, Justin and I talked about sensory deprivation tanks. Well, as luck would have it we found a place in Chicago called SpaceTime Tanks, and off we went.


Fast forward to today. Justin has a year-old coupon with a bunch of “floats” left on it. Five to be exact. Well, the expiration date is today and so Ben, Chris and I take a longer lunch and decide to go spend a bit of time floating in a tank of saltwater.


I wonder if this is the newer tank, the saltwater one.


Chris filling out the first-timer’s form, Ben getting a bit of hydration prior to.


The tank I was in last time is broken, so I went into a new room. The room itself is pretty small, with the tank taking up about 80% of the available space. What you can’t see, to the immediate right of this shot… is the open-air shower.


Taking the plunge…

I thought about what I wanted to post here, and to be honest… I wasn’t feeling all that inspired today. Looking over the entry I made some two years ago, I think that summary does the experience justice.

Compared to the time I was here before, there was a ton more water in this particular tank. Where I was a bit cold last time, I didn’t feel any of that at all this time. It took me a good while to get really relaxed, but I was able to get more at ease faster than my first time. As expected, I kept slipping in and out of sleep, and couldn’t really tell which was which while it was happening. Mostly… I’d catch myself “waking up,” and then realize that I had been asleep.

I didn’t hallucinate all that much. I saw a few things, but mostly colors and vague shapes – mostly due to the fact that, within a totally lightless environment, the mind will create things to be seen. One thing I recall was a rose-colored, wavering shape, a bit like a sea anemone with exaggerated tendrils. At other turns, I kept visualizing the walls of the tank, and kept second-guessing where my body was in relation to the front and sides.

One particularly weird “vision” I had was where the top/ceiling of the tank extended away from me at a sort of angle. You know those space movies where a rocket is re-entering the earth? Imagine that you’re falling back into the world. but the part that you’re currently over is all ocean blue. Now imagine that the world is slightly above you and, if you look down, there’s just blackness and space and other stars. You’re falling, but you’re falling up into the world.

Falling is a misnomer here, as there wasn’t any real movement. But in that rocket analogy above… that’s how I perceived the ceiling of the tank. In that total darkness, my mind constructed this weird, angled vista I was looking over… not of any actual land mass or continents, but just a vague expanse of color (mostly a pale, propane gas blue).

Throughout the experience, I kept hearing my own heartbeat – which made me incredibly self-conscious. But as a plus, because I could hear it… I made it a point to try to slow myself, to calm myself more. Once I started to breathe deeply and slowly, I immediately became more relaxed and the entire experience became much more pleasant.

I was pretty quiet the whole ride back to work, thinking a bit about how this time compared to the last. It’s a really calming, relaxing experience – something I’d recommend everyone try at least once.

And here’s something I noticed – even though I had eaten lunch right before this… I walked out of that tank feeling rather hungry. So if you decide to give sensory dep tanks a whirl… chalk in some time for grub afterwards. It’ll be a good way for you and your friends to talk about the whole thing.

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