One of the coolest things from the psychedelic movement of the 60’s that for some reason never really caught on with the mainstream is the isolation tank. It’s an amazing invention by the late, great psychonaut John Lilly. He was trying to find a way to isolate the mind and the thoughts to be completely independent of the distraction of normal sensory input from the body- like touch, sound, sight, etc.
The idea being that if you could get away from all of the normal, natural signals and distractions your mind could function on a much deeper level. What he came up with is a tank filled with water that’s heated to the same temperature as the surface of your skin, and it’s got 800lbs of Epsom salts in it, so that you float on the surface of the water. The water is heated to the same temperature as your skin, so when you lay in it after a while you can’t feel it. Your ears are under water so you don’t hear anything, and when you close the lid of the tank you’re in complete darkness. It’s a really freaky feeling, and at first it’s kind of hard to get comfortable. Your brain isn’t used to the experience, so it’ll start giving you ‘busy work’ – making you think that you’ve got to itch your nose, or move your arm or something, but if you can just breathe and relax you can get past this stage.
Once you learn to get comfortable it becomes amazing how clearly you can think and see things.
4 Comments
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March 18, 2008 at 11:03 pm
This is one of my favs
March 19, 2008 at 12:55 am
I’ve had the experience. Unfortunately, I was with a very Dionysian magickal group at the time and all I remember was uproarious laughter and them dragging me out of it. Evidently I overstayed the time allowed and they had spent a half an hour looking for me.
March 20, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Never tried an isolation tank; my interest was renewed by reading John Lilly’s biography ‘The Scientist’ a few weeks ago. Anyone on here based in Dublin and know where I might find a tank to rent in the city and/or surrounding counties?
March 20, 2008 at 5:34 pm
oops, wait. Just noticed the floatation.com link.