Tag Archives: experience

Drifting to peace: a claustrophobic seeker learns to float

November 16, 2015Float Experiencesanxiety, claustrophobia, epsom salt, experience, meditation, psychological, relaxation, yogaSara

Ali Mischke is a Structural Integrator and Registered Yoga Teacher based in North Cambridge. I love Ali’s description of her first float because it’s a classic early awkward experience. (Our Beginner’s Package is three floats in part because there’s a non-zero chance that one of your early floats will be less than perfect.) I’m impressed with her for overcoming her fears, and proud of her for coming back and giving it a second shot. – Sara

Drifting to peace: a claustrophobic seeker learns to float

I first encountered Float Boston before it opened, down a side road somewhere on my Internet travels. I had heard about floating for years and was intrigued by its potential to help overcome the psychological, physical, and spiritual effects of our over-stimulated modern environment. I love the Cambridge area, and I’m also acutely aware of how far the concrete and chaos takes us from our natural, centered state.

After meeting Sara, I quickly signed up for my first float. Continue reading Drifting to peace: a claustrophobic seeker learns to float →

A story of depression, anxiety and PTSD

September 12, 2014About Floatingaltered states, anxiety, benefits, consciousness, depression, experience, flotation REST, meditation, psychological, PTSD, relaxation, science, sleep, wellbeingcolin

“I remained happy, and carried with me the positive feeling into the next two days. It was almost a ‘celebratory’ feeling. One that has not been produced by any other medications, therapies, or methods of dealing with the individual diagnoses I live with. I didn’t feel the need for the anti-anxiety medications for nearly two days. Which, in my current state, almost never happens.” —Andrew

“Andrew” is a real person, though that’s not his real name. Over the last two years he’s been clinically diagnosed with Treatment-Resistant Major Depressive Disorder, PTSD, and Anxiety Disorder. He has worked with trauma therapists and all the resources in the Boston area, including MGH and McLean hospital. He’s even gone so far as to participate in clinical studies at MGH for current drug trials that are being studied for his particular diagnosis. To date, nothing has significantly improved his quality of life, and is left with very few options short of electroconvulsive therapy.

“Chopsy - Peaceful Warrior” © Galilla S (flickr), CC-BY-SA — “Chopsy – Peaceful Warrior”
© Galilla S (flickr), CC-BY-SA

He contacted us, wanting to know if he could try floating before committing to anything so drastic as ECT. Sara and I gave it a little thought and said, you know what, helping someone like this is exactly why we want to open FLOAT. We offered a series of three floats over three weeks, if he would write up his experiences before and after so that we could share them here.

[After my third float] I felt calm and happy, an experience I can’t remember having in a long time. So much so that I was unfamiliar with it, and didn’t know what to do with the positive happy feeling. I know how to take care of myself in the dark troubling times, but over the last few years, have lost the innate knowledge of how to feel happy, and what to do with that time.

This is an anecdote – one person’s experience, and no kind of clinically controlled trial. Please interpret with caution. Still we were thrilled with the results, and are excited to share them here.

Continue reading A story of depression, anxiety and PTSD →

In floating, the mind follows the body

July 7, 2014About Floatingaltered states, anxiety, benefits, consciousness, depression, experience, feedback, flotation REST, focus, mantra, massage, meditation, mind-body, physiological, psychological, PTSD, relaxation, yogacolin

One of our guest floaters, Joshua, came out of the tank with an interesting comment that he had found the sense of relaxation he obtained to be quite different than his experience of massage or yoga. We asked him what he meant, and he wrote us a great discussion. With his permission, we’re sharing it here:

Many people compare floating to the relaxation available from meditation or yoga. In quick simple terms, I found floating to be the exact opposite of these two techniques. In floating, the mind follows the body. In yoga and meditation, the body follows the mind.

I also experienced a marked difference in the type of “quiet mind” that the other two techniques produce. Having said that, once familiar with the experience of floating, even when going back to meditation it became easier to “get there” and easier to “stay there”.

Continue reading In floating, the mind follows the body →

First reactions

January 17, 2014Float Experiencesaltered states, consciousness, experience, meditation, muscle tension, relaxationSara

After we got our float tank up and running, we started having our friends come by and try it out. They’d helped us in numerous ways, including actually hauling the thing into our basement and maneuvering it into place. We were excited to share floating with them, and they were excited to try it out! Here are some of our friends’ thoughts after floating for the first time.

Continue reading First reactions →

Media roundup

October 13, 2013Float Experiencesart, awareness, benefits, energy, experience, flow, media, relaxation, yogacolin

The media has been full of floating this month! Some great articles.

“In the Tank”, The Nation: “Some of sensory deprivation’s sublime attraction seems to lie in the way it fortifies the floater against the perceived harm of twenty-first-century culture.”

“Floating into Hoop Flow”, hooping.org: Katelyn Selanders lost touch with her art, and got it back in the tank. “As she continued to float, the feeling of Hoop Joy swept over her, that magic energy you feel when the hoop beats rhythmically across your core, when you shoot it off your body up into the sky like a shooting star, and when you break the hoop against the beat and don’t know or care what your next move is going to be. Without even being aware of it, she had floated back into her flow.”

“Why Yogis Should Try Isolation Tanks”, My Yoga Online: “Pratyahara [withdrawal of the senses] is considered by BKS Iyengar to be the ‘hinge’ or pivotal point in the yogic journey, because it is the step where we move from our behaviors and action in the outside world, to diving deep within in order to ‘gain knowledge of the self’.”

Silent Spectrum from Mel Be on Vimeo.

Continue reading Media roundup →