What Is an Isolation Tank or Floating?

The isolation tank is the most effective tool I have ever used to sharpen the mind, deepen reflection, and nurture personal growth.

The tank is filled with water warmed to match your body temperature. About 45 kilograms of salt is dissolved in the water so you float effortlessly and relax. Because the water matches your body temperature, after a while you no longer feel that you are in the water at all.

I can compare the whole experience to peeling an onion. The first time you start using the tank, you may only scratch the surface or shed a few layers. At the beginning it is hard to reach the very center, the part that matters most. Letting go of who you think you are feels difficult. As you become more skilled and more at ease with the experience, you can release more and more. You begin to let go of letting go itself. You even release the feeling of release until there comes a moment when you simply disappear. As that happens, a thought appears, such as I do not believe I am disappearing; that brings you back, and then it all begins again.

Our bodies can generate remarkable energy, and the sensation of tension melting away after a few hours in the tank leaves you lighter, more oxygenated, and vividly alive because the strain has quieted. It is extraordinary.

The first twenty minutes, at least for me, feel like a seminar on my own life. It shows me situations I do not like and need to improve, highlights what troubles me, and moments I could have handled differently, including places where I let myself down. Then I see where I am on the right track: this is good, keep going, keep thinking that way, keep exploring those ideas. When this passes, the clutter of life clears and a larger picture begins to unfold.

After that I drift into complete ease, a state in which my body is fully settled into the experience. What remains is pure thought. It is as if the mind is entirely unbound from the body.

Then I start to think about everything. I think about the universe, about the role each person plays in any given situation for an individual, and how it all accumulates into a single specific event. I contemplate very bold, very unusual ideas, without a body to pull my attention away.

Even in conversation, when we sit on a sofa, look at one another, glance at computers, and hear the sounds they make, all of that distracts us. The body constantly receives a flood of information and has to process it.

If the tank were a device you could wrap around yourself that guided you through a course on reaching the center of your awareness where neither body nor mind intrudes, it would be the star attraction in any world class spa. The queue for that experience would stretch for miles.

People often invent reasons not to try this. Yet it matters. Everyone should use the tank. You will learn more about yourself there than in almost any other way. If you feel an aversion to drugs, which makes perfect sense if you believe they are risky and potentially addictive, that concern is valid, especially if you do not fully trust yourself. If the idea of taking substances does not appeal to you, the tank can still open introspective, psychedelic like states. Everyone should at least try it, because it offers an extraordinary way to think.

When I am working on a concept, I usually do two things. First I sit down and write everything that comes to mind on the subject. When I finish and feel confident that I have explored it well, I then go into the tank and think it all through again.

Sometimes in the tank I also examine other standpoints. I consider different views on the topic where I may not have been sufficiently sensitive to other opinions. I can see everything as an observer, almost from outside myself.

A great deal of thinking happens in the tank. A great deal of growth happens there. It is as if you cannot step away from the process inside it, because there are no distractions. There is simply nothing else. Everything is thought. It is a remarkable environment. We need facilities like this in schools. Every university should have tanks, and they should be available to all students. This is one of the greatest tools for inquiry, reflection, and for exploring the way we think.

Think of it as a kind of audit of your private thoughts and ideas, especially the ones you cling to out of ego or because they work for you. They become lodged somewhere inside. This is so fascinating, and yet so few people use it.