Do you remember the movie Altered States? The one where William Hurt’s character Edward experiments with drugs and flotation tanks, regresses temporarily to the state of a feral ape-man, and at the end turns into pure cosmic energy . . . until his wife Emily grabs hold of him and pulls him back into this mortal coil?
I have a vague memory of specific images from this movie—Hurt’s hair drifting like shorn seaweed, a flash of light toward the end. I have a clearer memory of feeling generally unsettled by the whole vision. I’ve a discriminating palette when it comes to science fiction—far too discriminating, some might say. They’re probably right. I know I too often miss out on the best of this genre because I’m so wary of the worst.
Last Friday, though, I experienced my own altered state. I entered a flotation tank, also known as an isolation or sensory deprivation tank. A trusted friend gave me the gift of a session. She herself received her first session as a birthday gift this past winter. She has returned to the experience since then, and I believe plans to do so again.
We drove to Lincoln Park, where SpaceTime Tanks (www.chicagoflatationtanks.com) is located on the ground level of a building that seemed designed to evoke both a Buddhist Temple and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thank goodness my friend knew where she was going. She led me easily enough through the strangely lit depths to the flotation center, where I immediately felt more comfortable. More yogic than sci-fi, subtle incense perfumed the air, richly patterned rugs covered the floor, and an immense and evocative fish tank made me think: I can do this. I want to do this.
The center’s host oriented me to the little room where my tank was located. The room was made of wood, like a sauna. The tank looked, on the outside, like some kind of big high tech ice chest, only all white, and no see-through doors. There was candle. A nice shower. Ear plugs to keep the water out. And when the host opened the tank’s door: about ten inches of water in which 800 pounds of Epsom salts had been dissolved. As an article in the Chicago Tribune said: “The density of the saltwater makes anyone float like a cork.” “No fear of drowning,” the host reminded me. “Just try not to get the salt in your eyes.”
I nodded. Hard.
“I’ll knock three times on your tank when your hour is up,” the host said then, as he turned to go. “Don’t worry if you fall asleep or achieve a kind of waking dream state. I’ll knock again if you don’t respond. But if you could respond, knocking three times back, that would be great.”
I nodded again. He nodded back, and left.
Okay, so I was suddenly a little nervous. An hour lying in saltwater in an 8-foot long, pitch-black space, barely wider than a coffin? Stripped of almost all sensory sensation?
I stopped thinking. I got in.
It took me a while to settle. (A while? Actually I don’t know how long. I’ll say a while.) I lay with my head away from the door, because the host had mentioned that there would be a light draft down there, so the tank wouldn’t get stuffy.
The tank, to my relief, didn’t get stuffy. Instead, it got really, really quiet. Beyond quiet to the center of still. Unless I sloshed, and I did sometimes, testing the position of my arms as I became aware of pain that I hadn’t known I was carrying, particularly in my right shoulder and elbow—all this writing, I guess. Except for those soft, self-induced splashes, the only sound I heard was the sound of my breathing. And as time passed even that quieted. I wondered if I was breathing at all.
Time passed. I found that it was a pleasure to float with my arms angled at 90 degrees, on either side of my head. There are photos of me sleeping like this as a child—sometimes with a book fallen open over my face. Sometimes just me sleeping, perfectly still, completely vulnerable. My own children slept this way.
For once, though, my mind didn’t circle toward my children. It circled back instead through my own history. Specifically, my physical history. I’ve been praying, through and since Lent, prayers of gratitude. As much as possible, I’ve been trying to say thanks instead of please. In the tank, I found myself feeling profoundly grateful to my physical self. I’m not kidding when I say this: I saw glimpses of my physical life, passing before my eyes. Thank you for carrying me for so long, doing this, doing that, working so hard, I said to the whole of me sometimes, and sometimes separate parts. I’m so glad that you can be buoyed up so tenderly in this place.
When the host knocked, I came to, as they say. Surely it hadn’t been an hour. But it had. My time was done. I pushed open the door and stepped out into the light that showed the host had left me alone in my little room. I stepped out, dripping. Not ape, or pure cosmic energy, but lighter.
