Floating away, alone in the dark

Darkness. That’s the first sensation. Overwhelming darkness. Then silence. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing. I spent 90 minutes in utter silence and darkness floating in about 25 centimetres of highly salted water in a new shop called The Float House on West 4th Avenue in Kitsilano. It’s supposed to be the new panacea for what ails us in modern life, a way of drowning out all the excess clutter and noise, of soothing aches and pains. After showering, I gingerly climbed into the enclosed steel tank — imported from ( where else?) California — closed the door and lay floating in nothingness. At first I laughed at myself. How ridiculous! Then I am guessing at about the 30- minute mark — it’s hard to tell as the world becomes timeless in an enclosed tank — panic set in. How was I going to cope with being in this enclosed dark space for so long? Then I had to ask myself what I was so afraid of. I was free to leave at any time. I could even open the door a crack if I chose. I didn’t do either. Not sure what I was afraid of. The unfamiliar? Of being rather than doing? Of allowing buried thoughts and emotions to float to the surface? Again, I don’t know. I did what I always do at such times. I took long, deep breaths. The panic subsided. All I could smell was salt. It wasn’t unpleasant. My right eye started to sting from the salt. Again, a touch of panic. I remembered that the nice man at the front desk had explained there was a face cloth for just such problems but to fetch it, I would have to exit the tank. Instead, I closed my eye, and the stinging vanished. I float, float, floated away … and my 90 minutes sped by rather quickly. Finally, the soothing song Suni- aa by kirtan singer Snatam Kaur wafts into the tank. That means times up. In the darkness, I grope for the door to the tank. I climb out and into the shower, washing the salt away. Then I gird myself to head back into the world. For more information, visit the Float Tank Association website, floatationtankassociation.net, which has links to relevant research papers.