It probably won’t shock you to learn I’m not really a “chilling out” kind of guy–I’m known among my unusually high number of massage therapist friends for, when injury has forced me to avail myself of their services, being unable to enjoy it because I feel bad that they’re working when I’m not. But over the weekend I did a sensory deprivation tank, and it’s pretty OK?
I’ve actually done these tanks a couple times before, when I first got sober back in 2019. Back then, I was troubled to discover that the day is full of hours after 5pm, which were distressingly hard to fill without drinking. I responded to this situation by being willing to do basically anything that came my way until it was late enough to go to bed. One day, I caught The Simpsons episode about sensory deprivation tanks, and I thought “are those a real thing?” I looked them up and not only were they, but there was a place that did them near my house. Since it met the criteria of being something that wasn’t drinking, I did it.
It was a neat little diversion that was a bit too expensive to do often, and I didn’t think about it again until last week. Things haven’t been that great for me lately between the election, the unexpected death of a close friend, and the general stress of my life. While sitting around being crunched by the terrible vice of my own brain, I remembered that, way back when, the tank place had sold me a promotional pack of sessions, one of which I hadn’t used. I was shocked to learn that the straggler hadn’t expired, so I booked an appointment.
On Sunday morning I biked over to the nicely-appointed spa-like place near my neighborhood, dealt with the anxiety of having to remove my shoes in public, and entered what is basically a very large bathroom with a giant plastic pod in the middle. You shower before you use the tank, which is full of skin temperature water and enough epsom salt to make it basically impossible to sink. You close the lid and are in a sealed off chamber; you can leave the lights on or play music, but you can also turn them off and be immersed in complete darkness.
It isn’t like The Simpsons; there’s nothing inherently psychedelic about it, like Lisa’s experience in the episode. But it’s also not terribly dissimilar from Homer’s experience either; this time around, I actually found it hard to manage a position where I could lie still and not go drifting around banging into all the walls. People who are into it tout all kinds of creative and spiritual benefits, but I am way too uptight and literal for that. Instead, it was nice to have a space to relax where no one could see me and thus judge me for doing it (This is how my brain works! It’s terrible in here!), and it was nice to bob around in the dark with nothing to do, experiencing how my sense of space changed without any physical or visual reference points. I was worried I would think about how bad everything is and just cry the whole time (which would bring the added complication of, you should very much not get the tank water in your eyes!), but it actually felt good to let a couple bouts of intense grief wash over me and then let them fade again.
The most useful part for me was actually kind of a silly one: at various points, I started wondering how long it had been and preparing myself to be startled by the session abruptly ending, or I panicked that it had been too long and, like The Simpsons, something had gone wrong or they’d forgotten about me. Obviously, I knew neither of these things were true (the pod is on a timer, and a voice recording and lights gently let you know when it’s over), and as I reminded myself of this fact, I realized how long it had been since I felt like something in my life was someone else’s responsibility. It felt really nice to tell myself “someone else is worrying about the time, so you don’t have to,” and it made me aware of how much I feel like I’m carrying on my shoulders. While putting some of that down is a taller task than just deciding to do so, it was a reminder that the vigilance and responsibility I bring to a lot of things isn’t always as necessary as my brain likes to tell me it is.
At the end of the hour, the lights go back on, and you open the tank and take another shower to wash all the salt off. The place I went has a whole lounge with tea and stuff where you can hang out after, but that would require chilling out within the eyeline of other people, so I didn’t do that. Instead, I went about the rest of my day not feeling profoundly transformed or anything, but definitely feeling a little more chill than I had before I went.
One of the most shocking things I learned in early sobriety was that there is just so much going on in the world outside of the bars and liquor stores that defined my life for so long; even though I don’t drink anymore, I can still get a bit trapped in my grooves if I’m not careful. So while I don’t ever imagine sensory deprivation tanks will become a regular feature of my life, going back to one was a good reminder that there’s a whole big world outside of me and my habits and the stories I tell myself about my life. I wouldn’t say you have to check one out or anything, but if the opportunity ever comes along, it’s kinda neat!
