If you're lucky, maybe you'll drop into "the zone." Photo by Shanti Hudes
The inside of a sensory deprivation tank feels exactly the way it sounds: like absolutely nothing.
It’s been over an hour and I’m floating at Be and BE Well in a dark chamber filled with water and 800 pounds of Epsom salt—literally as much salt as the water will hold. There is nothing in here to see, hear, smell, taste or even feel. The water and air are heated to 98 degrees, so it’s hard to even tell the difference between your skin and your surroundings.
For Shanti Hudes, co-owner of Be and BE Well in Ben Lomond, floating is a spiritual experience. She frequently speaks in metaphors and says she has little control over how people will go into the experience. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” says Hudes. “You have to make the water so delicious the horse will want to drink.”
In the beginning of my float it’s just nice to stretch. It’s amazing what elbows, shoulders and knees can do when they’re not contending with gravity. But my mind is running through to-do lists: work to catch up on, things I need to pick up at the store, what I’m going to do if I ever escape this soggy, vacuous tube.
Slowly I begin to relax and focus on more important things, beginning, of course with the San Francisco 49ers’ breakout 2011 season (well, you’ve got to start somewhere). As that fades, I see the visions of faces and friends that matter to me and warm memories. If nothing else, the soak offers a quiet, mind-relaxing meditation on what’s important in life.
When my hour and a half are up, I shower and get dressed. Shanti’s husband Jai Hudes is sitting in the sunlit living room. “So… did you drop into the zone?”
“I don’t know,” I answer.
“That’s the no answer,” he responds, barely disappointed. “It doesn’t happen every time.” Jai, who spent much of the 1970s grappling with hard drugs, says he can now relax to the point where a second in the tank can feel like an hour, or an hour can go by and feel like a quick flash.
“Coming from an addictive background,” he says, “now I’m addicted to something very positive.”
