Yesterday was the first time I went to a sensory deprivation tank.

Here is a not so good picture of the tank. I had done some research about this but I was not fully prepared for what the experience entails. The place I went to had the option to have lights and music on but I opted to turn those off. There were these dim overhead lights that I didn’t have control over that stayed on for a little while I thought of them as the golden eyes of a black panther until they eventually turned off and suddenly everywhere I looked I was in complete darkness. I had lost my sight lost my sense of touch as the water is matching your body so you seem to forget where you body and water connect and I wore ear plugs that were provided, causing me to lose hearing effectively dulling all my senses. I could not tell a difference between having my eyes opened or closed but opted to keep my eyes open. Pretty soon I would start to have mild visual hallucinations. The shades of black would work together and work to paint little pictures in my mind, orbs of grey and white floating around not unlike what you experience when rubbing you’re eye. These eye tricks eventually stopped as I began to think of what I should do with my time. I struggled between using this as a time to think a lot or to go the opposite way and think of nothing at all. I finally decided that there is never a time in my life where I am awake and have no external stimuli so I decided to choose the latter, using the rest of my time to become nothing. It was hard to achieve mental neutrality, your mind seems to want to fight it at all costs, but in those moments you will achieve an incredible, calming, inner peace. It felt to me as like the whole universe had ceased to exist and there was nothing in this entire world, but me floating thru space in a water tank. A thought occured to me and I was reminded of an old parable by Lao Tzu about an empty boat, the sparknotes is that a man, traveling on a river on a boat may get upset and yell if he collided with another boater but even the most unpleasant seaman will not be bothered by a collision with an empty boat. The lesson is to make you yourself an empty boat as you float on the river of life. The person that is commanding your boat is the ego and the boat is just the vessel (your body) and the river and it’s currents are going to take you were ever they wish but when you release the ego (the captain of the ship) you become a vessel that is empty becoming in tune with the ebb and flow of the river. A boat with out a captain (ego) can still go many places and will not be bothered by collions with unsavory sailors in life and still float on thru lifes thunderstorms and changes in current. I really enjoyed my encounters with nothingness and felt a post float glow not unlike the post glow one might get after a psychedelic trip. Although I did have some hallucinations which I wasn’t they were extermely mild and only lasted about 15 minutes the entire 90 minute float. I enjoyed becoming nothing, I struggled to reach this state of nothing for more than moments at a time, your mind will resist the stillness by all means and it is a fight but when you achieve this stillness in the mind it is a truly enjoyable and peaceful experience that I’d recommend to everyone.