therapy Drifting off with flotation

Flotation therapy: a cure for anxiety and sundry other ills, or a very expensive bath? By Finlay Renwick

Naked as a Christmas goose, I lie floating face up in unrelenting darkness, salt water lapping gently against my temples, a sense of calm and dread in equal and incongruous measure slowly carving through the sludge of my Monday morning brain. Then my arms go numb.

Far from the ketamine fever dream it might appear, I’m starting my week sober inside a sensory deprivation tank, a treatment that’s experiencing a boom among the stressed, the sore and those looking for the next big “wellness” trend, enticed by its promise to cure everything from chronic anxiety to sciatica.

Inside the reception of The Floatworks, a dedicated centre in

Vauxhall, south London (the waiting list for an hour’s pod time is around a month), I begin my journey to watery enlightenment by signing a form confirming I absolutely do not suffer from schizophrenia or epilepsy.

Flotation therapy was pioneered in the Fifties by John C Lilly, an eccentric American neuroscientist out to discover what would happen when a human was submerged in water equal to normal body temperature without the distractions of light and sound. Rather than publish legitimate research, Lilly documented his experiences taking hallucinogens inside the tanks — free-wheeling experimentation that saw him shunned by the serious scientific community, while adding a certain wacky lore to its practice. Another of Lilly’s studies involved trying to talk to dolphins while high on LSD. (They couldn’t understand a word he was saying.)

“You won’t be needing those,” says Floatworks community manager Kathy, a beatific Canadian in a T-shirt with a Ram Dass quote, as

I clutch my swimming shorts in pathetic query. I’m shepherded into a blue-lit room containing a shower and the “i-sopod”, a 2.6m by

1.6m white plastic egg — very 2001: A Space Odyssey — with a hatch containing water loaded with 550kg of Epsom salt (its magnesium has healing properties, says Kathy) and heated to 35°C, the average human body temperature.

I rinse off in the shower. Maybe I should just do this for 60 minutes? But that giant Kubrickian nightmare egg isn’t going anywhere. A tentative step forward, then feet dipping into water the temperature of blood.

I close the hatch, body slipping awkwardly down into the salt and darkness, scepticism flooding my over-stimulated headspace.

“Floating is a very effective technique for reducing the effects of stress and fatigue, such as muscle tension and strain, minor pains, headache and insomnia,” says Dr Peter Suedfeld, professor emeritus at the psychology department at the University of British Columbia and a world expert on “Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy”, or “flotation Rest”, as he calls it. “It enhances creative thinking, memory and the impact of visualisation. It improves athletic performance. There is some evidence it reduces arthritic pain and increases motor control for people suffering from muscular dysfunctions,” he adds.

Bobbing in oblivion, I feel the tension drain from my shoulders. The colour saturation of my thoughts grows sharper. Jumbled memories go from hazy to acute. After what feels like 30 minutes, lying naked inside a plastic egg doesn’t even feel that strange any more. I give myself over to a new existence inside the black infinity of time and space. The flutters of panic and claustrophobia grow fainter and fainter.

“It’s so rare,” Kathy says later, “for people to have an hour with zero distraction. You’ve got to really want to look at emails or Instagram to get out of the pod.”

In a study from February 2018, Justin Feinstein, a clinical neuropsychologist and the principal investigator at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, took 50 people suffering heightened anxiety and depression, with conditions including PTSD and agoraphobia, and had them float for an hour. All 50 reported a significant improvement to well-being and happiness, contentment and energy levels. More than 75 per cent said floating had been more effective than any other conventional treatment they’d experienced.

Alas, spiritual and physical transcendence has a price (£50 an hour) and my time is up. Spa music tinkles into my pod before blue light creeps in from a neon bulb, rousing me from my serenity. I blink like I’ve been in a cave for 1,000 years and begrudgingly exit.

The scepticism around floating, says Dr Suedfeld, is because, “People connect it with New Age mysticism, partly due to fictional depictions and partly to some of the musings of John C Lilly. For most people, floating is a pleasant period of self-reflection, daydreaming, fantasising, and time-out from daily hassles.”

Stumbling out the door, the summer brightness is jarring and confusing.

I’m nearly run over by a van. On the train, Zen fading fast, the rattle and stench of city life pierces my clean being. I clench my eyes and wish I was back in my dream egg. That John C Lilly was on to something. floatworks.com

Bobbing in oblivion, I feel the tension drain from my shoulders. Thoughts grow sharper, my memories more acute