Okay, the tease is over.

I had some unexpected free time yesterday afternoon.  And while most people might use a chance like that to do some reading on the couch, head out for some shopping, or catch up on chores/TV, I am not most people.

No, I found my local Sensory Deprivation Chamber of Commerce, and booked an appointment for infinity instead.

Turns out there’s a place about 45 minutes from my house, called “Flossage Spa,” that had an availability for their sensory deprivation tank that afternoon. (I’m surprised by this?)

So I hop in the car and head on over.  And, when I arrived, I must admit that I felt a little trepidatious…

“I might have made a terrible mistake.”

But I steel my nerve and head inside.  And after filling out the boilerplate, “I totally won’t sue you if this kills me” paperwork, they took me back to my room and I was confronted for the first time with this thing:

Behold, The Ovule.

Yep.  That’s it.  That’s the thing that I paid $50 to spend an hour trapped inside.  And don’t think for a minute that I didn’t mark the oubliette qualities of the walls in this room…

An excellent example of neo-Pontrefactianism

But I reminded myself that I had told my mother-in-law where I was going, and that if I should somehow become locked in The Ovule people would, eventually, come looking for me.

The friendly crypt keeper sensory float technician explained that I would need to use their shower before getting into the chamber, which makes total sense for cleanliness purposes.  He bade me undress and drape myself in a robe, then head next door to their shower room to rinse off.

That robe was even comfier than it looks.

Then, once I’d finished, I returned to the private vault, put my earplugs in, cracked open the egg, and clambered inside to begin my 60 minute float session.

“Abandon all senses, ye who enter here…”

Ah yes, “float.”  That part bears explanation doesn’t it?

So inside The Ovule there is a solution of dissolved epsom salt and water.  1,100 lbs. of salt to be exact.  And there’s just enough water in that mixture to turn the salt into liquid.  As you might imagine, this makes an incredibly buoyant solution.  But it wasn’t viscous at all.  It moved just like water would.

It was about a foot deep.

This salt water solution is then heated to exact body temperature, and the idea is that you lay down in it and float effortlessly.   After a time, you should lose the ability to tell where your body ends and the water begins.

And bliss out like Captain Eyebrows here.

They played music for the first 10 minutes while I got acclimated and started relaxing, but it sounded more like a Pure Moods Vol. 7 cover band so I was happy when it eventually faded away.

At which point I turned off that weird purple light and floated there, in pure darkness, for 50 minutes straight.

And yes, let me affirm what you’re already thinking.
It was weird.

At first it was just disorienting, and I spent a long time amazed at just how loud my breathing was with my ears plugged.  But, after a while, my brain started to…do things.

The best way I can describe it is that it was similar to reading in bed at night, when you don’t think you’re tired.  One minute you’re following along with a sentence on the page, and the next moment you realize that at some point you stopped reading and your brain strayed off to an entirely different narrative of its own.  (Usually this is the signal that it’s time to put the book down and go to sleep.)

It was like that.  But for 30 minutes straight.

The scientific explanation for this phenomenon is that you’re moving from the “beta” brain functions that are required of our everyday waking existence, to a fluctuation between the theta and alpha brain waves that happen during deep sleep and/or meditation.  Now I mistakenly hand-waved all this stuff as being “all new-agey” when the technician explained it to me afterward.
Turns out there’s actual data there about the Hz of normal brain function.

Bumbled again.

At some point, though, I did realize that I had drifted away from myself and forcibly snapped myself back to “reality.”  Well, as real as a lightless, egg-shaped bathtub gets, anyway.

Shortly thereafter, the interior light of The Ovule illuminated, the Dollar General Enya music returned, and it was time to shower the salt solution off of me and head home.

So, overall, how was it?

Well I’m really glad that I got a chance to try it. It was a really interesting sensation, and I do recommend giving it a shot.

That said, I don’t know if I’ll necessarily do it again.  Not because I disliked it, but because finding a couple hours to do something like that is a very rare occurrence in my life right now.

Besides…  I’d rather be hanging out with this one, instead.

j.s.