Published January 28, 2026 12:44PM
The idea of floating in a sensory deprivation tank has always appealed to me. I am a huge fan of fancy spa sessions and most things woo-woo, and floating—a service that invites you to submerge your body in super salty water in the dark, ditching your senses in favor of an anti-gravity experience—sounded like the ultimate meeting of the two. Spa-ish mindfulness! Good for my skin and my mind! Sign me up.
But the morning of my appointment, I am in no mood. It’s 37 degrees and drizzly outside and I want to stay in bed. I am positively surly and Sunday sleepy as I arrive to the floating establishment. So take what I say with several grains of salt—or 1000 pounds, which is how much epsom salt is apparently in my enclosed tub.
Upon check-in, the very kind and soft-spoken employee shows me the ropes—but not before gushing about the power of a good float. I will glow. I might even have visions or lucid dreams. At the very least, I will emerge relaxed. He insists that although standard sessions run 90 minutes, you can safely stay in the tub for as long as you’d like.
“Some people sleep in the tanks when they’re in town rather than paying for a hotel room,” he says. Internally, I recoil at the thought of waking up in a dark tank, perhaps as a new kind of amphibian. Outwardly, I say, “Wow!”
I have two tanks to choose from. One is a rectangular room filled with 10 inches of water and a wooden door that sticks as my guide muscles it open. The other is a white pod that looks like it belongs in a sci-fi film. Its round door, like that of a space station, opens into a small pod that appears Vantablack. He explains, as my eyes adjust, that beyond what I can sort of see, there is about as much space as the rectangle room.
Both options come with a shower and some blue lighting that is probably meant to be calming but instead makes me feel like the center of some unhinged experiment. I can’t stomach the thought of shutting myself in that pod, so I go with door #1.
The online instructions state that everything I need will be provided, but in reality, all I get is a towel and some ear plugs. These are important. Without them, I am told, the salt could cake my eardrums. My shampoo, conditioner, comb, etc., are all at home, and I accept the reality that I will be stepping back into the winter morning with damp, tangled, semi-salty hair.
A pre-soak rinse is required. As I wait a solid seven minutes for the shower water to become remotely warm, my float time ticking away, I ponder my life choices. How clean is it in here, really? I am assured that there are practices that keep the 11-year-old salt water sterile. I have no idea if that is true. All I know is that when I finally step into the sensory-deprivation-tank-slash-water-room, I wish it was just a little warmer than around 93 degrees.
Floating in a Sensory Deprivation Tank
And so, I float. The salt makes it impossible not to float, bits of my skin and stomach rising naturally above the water’s surface.
Unfortunately, I recently watched a show called Wayward on Netflix that involves both a partially flooded room and the backlit outline of a door, together and in a horror context, and both are very present here. Like, the only things here. I spend a few minutes letting go of this associated imagery, along with the feeling that I am a specimen in an alien spaceship, and welcome relaxation.
Relaxation enters the chat for about 10 minutes. The weightlessness is undeniably cool and I embrace the buoyancy, closing my eyes and chasing the deep blue light that I always seem to find in meditation. It is slightly chilly, but I’m acclimating. Maybe this is as worthwhile as I thought it would be. Maybe I will be able to access a new level of…
My body abruptly bumps into a wall, startling me out of wherever I was. I push off the wall with my foot, which is fun, so I ricochet around the room for awhile. The movement causes one of my moldable earplugs to dislodge, a slim stream of salt water infiltrating my ear. I sit up in the tub to readjust and acknowledge where I am: naked, knees to chest, in a weird wet room. I do not like it here.
Perhaps if I was in a better mood. Maybe if this room was a tub in the middle of the forest. Or if I had gone with the pod. Or if the entire facility seemed just a touch cleaner. Or if I was a less judgmental person. If I was better at meditation. If I hadn’t read so many, many science fiction stories. Then, maybe I would enjoy this. But I don’t really think so.
Not wanting the front desk dude to think I can’t hack it, or that I’m less enlightened than him (I definitely am), I sit in the tepid water for a while before forcing the door open and starting the long process of warming up the shower. By the time the Indian drums meant to stir me from my floating meditation begin, I am well rinsed and nearly dressed.
“How was it?” he asks.
I touch the wet knot at the back of my head and smile. “So good.”
He nods knowingly about something I do not know and tells me that there is a membership program. Fascinating. I scurry out of there, still a full-fledged mammal. For now, I’ll keep my meditation on dry land.