After many years of proofreading Dr. Davidicus Wong’s Healthwise column, the members of K&K would like to think we’ve become a bit more spiritually open and aware. We’ve gone on to try raising our consciousness levels and/or balance our chakras in a variety of new and exciting ways, ranging from hot power reiki classes, essential oil enemas, combining stand-up paddleboarding with yoga and chai tea with tai chi, and even by licking the occasional toad.
The Courier’s latest neighbourhood profile recently provided an opportunity to follow our bliss even further by visiting a new sensory deprivation tank facility called Float House.
Not to be confused with the floating houses moored off Granville Island, Float House is located on Cordova Street in Gastown. It offers a spa-like vibe with several specialized pods filled with warm water and hundreds of pounds of dissolved Epsom salts that allow you to float effortlessly on the surface.
The owners describe the experience as “an amazingly simple yet powerful tool that can enhance one’s overall living experience. Whether you use it for personal development, physiological benefits, psychological benefits or a combination of sorts, we believe it has the ability to deeply aid and impact anyone who sets forth into the warm, cozy, silky blackness.”
“Floating” has recently exploded in popularity after a podcast extolling its virtues by unlikely champion Joe Rogan, who most people know as the guy who used to make people do really gross stuff as the host of Fear Factor.
The idea is, after donning earplugs and stripping naked, to cut off all external sensory stimulation and relax into a state allowing lucid daydreams or altered levels of consciousness.
“Just lie back as if you were floating in the Mediterranean Sea,” explained an earnest young man who was on duty during our visit. He probably meant the low-lying Dead Sea, whose high saline levels are famous for facilitating floatation.
The trick is to focus on your breathing and allow your mind to wander slip off into a trance-like zone called “theta” — the technical term for the brainwaves pattern you typically experience just before falling asleep or waking. So ideally you probably don’t want to spend the 90 minutes inside the tank thinking about what’s to blame for the Canucks’ sputtering offence, worrying what would happen if the building caught on fire, humming Modest Mouse’s big 2004 hit Float On or mentally writing a column about the experience of floating in a sensory deprivation tank to help pass the time.
And while you may want to keep your Third Eye open, it’s best to keep your other two closed as getting highly concentrated Epsom saltwater in your eyes stings like hell.
Namaste.
