Inside a Samadhi Tank

Back in the early eighties, the samadhi experience was a minor fad, mostly in Southern California, where I was living. The whole trend was started by Dr. John C.Lilly, a physician and neuroscientist, who was well-known for his LSD research and his experimentation with other mind-bending phenomenon. 

Lilly came up with the idea for the samadhi tank as another way to experiment with human consciousness. As the image below shows, a samadhi tank is slightly larger than a bathtub. It is soundproof and completely enclosed.

Inside there is a foot of water maintained at body temperature. The 800 pounds of epsom salts dessolved in the water allows one to float effortlessly, with one's face comfortably above the waterline.  

Another term for the samadhi tank is sensory depriviation tank. That was the whole idea...to isolate a person's mind as much as possible from the other senses...sight, sound, and touch.   The door of a tank is unhinged, a concession to the claustrophobia that sometimes goes with extreme isolation.

Anyway, I was eager to give the samadhi experience a try.  There was a place on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles that gave the venturesome an hour in a tank for about $25. I went for it.

So, you go there, and they assign you to a tank, which sits by itself in a room the size of a bathroom.  After stripping off and showering, you climb into the tank naked, stretch out on your back, and close the door. 

I don't remember my early time in the womb, but I'm guessing there's a bit of kinship with the tank. You float effortlesssly. No sound. No light; just the sense of being enveloped in body temeperature water.  At first, it does seem a bit claustrophobic, but after a short time the mind - at least in my experience - calms. I wouldn't call it hallucinating, but having one's consciousness isolated like that is seriously strange. It's also quite exhilerating. After an hour of floating in isolation, gentle music - Pachelbel's Canon, as I recollect - tells you its time to return to reality.   After showering to get the salt off your body, and dressing, it was time to go back to my mostly mundane everyday life.  

One thing did stay with me for hours after a samadhi experience. Floating in a tank causes all of the body to relax in the most profound way. At the same time, it's also invigorating. I've never experienced that wonderful combination of being relaxed and energized in any other circumstance....not before, not since.

As for the isolation tank inducing mind-altering trips, I have to say, I did experience something like that on at least one ocassion.  I distinctly remember a time when I saw myself leaving my body. I felt like I was one with the infinite universe.  Really. I did. It was bizarre, but very cool.

I did the tank a couple of times a month for about eighteen months, then other priorities took over.   Would I do it again? Hell yes. You can still buy a samadhi tank and set it up in your home. Prices start at $8300.00. If I had the money and the space in our home, I would get a tank and trip in it regularly.  Nothing beats it for relaxation, and there's always that potential for visiting other parts of the universe.


Here is a link to some 'tanker' testimonials 

http://floatforhealth.net/customer.htm


Turns out, there is a place in Portland, East of Downtown called Common Ground Everett House, where you go go and rent a tank for an hour.  Here is the link...

http://www.commongroundpdx.com/Floating.html


Here is a link to a company that sells samadhi tanks...

http://www.samadhitank.com/index.html