A sensory deprivation tank, or a flotation tank or even REST (restricted environment stimulant therapy) as they call it in this century, was something that had been on my to-do list for a while but going into the New Year, I decided to get it over with. It’s supposed to be pretty much a cure for all ills, from stress, anxiety, depression and PTSD to chronic pain, muscle injury, sports recovery and even pregnancy. I like the sound of it, to lie in the dark in hot water and have everything about my life fixed in just an hour or two.
Why had I been putting it off? As bucket list items go, a flotation tank is pretty attainable – it’s not like wanting to go the moon or take five years out of my life to find myself at the bottom of a bucket of alcohol on a Thai beach. This was a thing that would take a couple of hours and maybe I’d have to go all the way to London for the day to do it, but that would be about it.
In the end, I found a tank relatively locally in Southampton, albeit on a very unassuming little industrial estate a fifteen-minute stroll out of the city centre and on the other side of the tracks – literally. There’s a fairly rickety-looking bridge over the railway between the city centre and the industrial estate. Nothing feels more like you’re going to have a life-changing wellness experience like a roller shutter door on the front. I’m not sure whether it’s a red flag but it’s certainly a flag of some kind was that it didn’t have a toilet – if you wanted to go beforehand, or indeed afterwards or during, they gave you a key on a big lanyard and sent you out to the public ones in the corner of the u-shaped estate. Definitely go before. For any kind of wellness service to not have its own in-house toilets seemed odd but especially one that by its nature involves plumbing. Mind you, there wasn’t a lot of space for a toilet. The admin part of the building consisted of a high desk immediately inside the front door and behind that was a small room with a chair in it for relaxing afterwards. The two float rooms occupied what would be the loading bay in any other unit.
I was shown to my tank. The lights were on, blue mood lighting, just enough to not crash into anything, and by this half-light I would undress, shower and get comfortable. Then the lights would go off altogether and I’d be left in the dark. In case of an emergency, the door would be left unlocked but there would be a three-step procedure to the (male) receptionist coming in, each one dependent on me not responding to the last – a knock on the door, a head poked in, coming all the way in and opening the tank’s lid. I had a halo pillow hanging from a hatstand, just enough bench to put my bag on and a little basket containing mouldable silicon earplgs and some sachets of goo to cover any cuts and scratches, which would otherwise sting hideously in the water. Because you’re supposed to feel untethered from your body, it’s very much swimwear optional in your own private tank and while I’m making it sound like this was something I did recently, the New Year I mentioned was 2024 and I was there over a year ago and honestly can’t remember which way I went with the swimwear now.
The water itself was full of at least three kinds of salt and faintly yellow, cunningly disguised by blue lights. It’s supposed to be body temperature so that you stop feeling like you’re in water and start to feel like you’re just floating in space. Unfortunately for me, that’s just too hot. Great for ten minutes in an outdoor hot tub but full-body immersion for an hour with a lid a few inches from my nose was just too much. I can’t relax in the way I’m supposed to when I’m that hot. It was tolerable with the tank’s lid open for some airflow but then a few other things disturbed my sensation of weightlessness.
For safety again, the tank doesn’t lock. Neither does it entirely close. It’s got a hydraulic prop so it slides open and closed very smoothly and quietly and stays up at whatever level you push it to but even when it’s closed all the way, there’s a millimetre or so between tank and lid and I am, perhaps, unusually sensitive to light. Once the lights went off, it was supposed to be pitch black in the water but there was a single tiny green LED over the door to help you find it in the dark in case of an emergency. Most people wouldn’t even notice that LED but I did. And I even noticed it faintly through the millimetre gap between tank and lid. When the lid was open, it was like a mini spotlight but I needed the lid open so I didn’t overheat.
The other problem was floating. Oh, floating was no problem. I’m accustomed to floating in water but this was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. When I float in a swimming pool, certain bits of me sink while others hang on the surface – knees floating while feet dangle or hands floating while elbow sink, that kind of thing. In this salty water, everything floated right on the surface with absolutely zero effort. In fact, it took effort to float in the effortless positions I used in a pool. It was nice, if weird – my arms are not supposed to just float level with my body with zero effort and yet that’s what they’re doing! I remembered what I’d read on the website about how to lie in the water but got scuppered by… well, the fact that I float. Far from floating serenely in space, I found I was drifting around my tank, crashing into the sides and even against the bottom. It’s a big enough tank for the tallest and widest people to fit comfortably in but the downside is that you’ve got room in every direction to drift. The slightest movement, like on a spacewalk, sends you in the opposite direction. No twitching, no scratching, no flexing. Try not to breathe too hard in the wrong direction or you’ll start floating away.
And be aware that certain mucosal tissues will not appreciate saltwater in them. Keep them sealed, in the name of all that’s holy. I had to get out and run to the shower halfway through after five solid minutes of attempting to endure the burning. For things like eyes, there’s a spray bottle of fresh water hanging just inside the tank, so you can rinse without getting out.
But what is it actually like?
What people really mean is “Is it claustrophobic in there?”. Probably, if you’re prone to that. I’m not. I like enclosed spaces. Besides, you’re not supposed to be able to see that you’re in an enclosed space. You’re supposed to feel like you’re floating untethered in outer space. I did not feel that. I felt like I was floating around a too-hot tank crashing into the sides and annoyed by the faint green light on the horizon I wasn’t supposed to be able to perceive.
I also did not start to let go of all my stresses. On the contrary, lying there in silence in the dark, exactly the same thoughts that keep you awake at night come bubbling to the surface. This is an experience that should have Taylor Swift’s Midnights as the soundtrack. You’re trapped in there with your brain and that’s the one thing you can’t escape.
They let you know that your time is coming to an end not by anything so intrusive as an alarm or a door knock but by music fading slowly in under the water and the lights fading back on, to return you ever so gently to real life. Then you get out, get dressed and sit in the relax room with a paper cup of water. The tank water, by the way, drains out surprisingly noisily. It’s not at all serene or relaxing but it does assure you that you’ve had fresh clean water, as will the person after you. Mind you, by now the normal room lights are on, not just the dim blue ones, so you can get a proper look at the colour of that water.
Probably the best way to enjoy a flotation tank is later in the day with a hotel room a two minute walk away – or even better, have the tank within the hotel’s spa complex. All I wanted to do for the next hour was go to sleep, which is not a convenient sensation when you have an hour’s drive home. I went to the pub and tried to wash it away with a cheese panini and a pint of orange juice & lemonade filled with as much ice as a pub has ever squeezed into a pint glass and still felt slightly spacey even after I’d walked back to Southampton Central and taken the train back to my car.
According to the website, floating is quite addictive. You can buy monthly, quarterly or annual passes so you can go again and again. The longer you’re in the tank, the more effective it is so experienced floaters book blocks of up to four hours at a time. I said afterwards that I was glad I’d done it but probably wouldn’t bother again. Now I’m writing it, it’s making me wonder if I kind of do want to do it again. It’s an interesting and unusual experience and several people, hearing of it, immediately “Ooh!’d” or “Aah!’d”, asked what it was like and said they were thinking of doing it. I’d say go for it, if you think you’d be ok lying in a big hot tub with a lid on it in the dark. If you don’t, then yeah, floating probably isn’t for you.
I Am A Polar Bear 