It was called “Samadhi” - Sanskrit for higher consciousness. Lilly developed the first consumer-friendly tank. The first commercial “float spa” opened in 1979 in Beverly Hills, California, a few years after the inventor Dr. I’m a fan of Brooklyn trends with New Age roots (see also: crystals, tarot), and before they floated off into relative obscurity, the benefits of sensory-deprivation tanks were widely lauded (“ Float the pounds away!” “Find God!” “Most people liked it!”) if not totally scientifically grounded. These all sounded like ringing endorsements to me. Most thanked the Universe for the life-changing hour - and the saltwater for softening their skin. Some people wrote that it was just better than taking a crapload of MDMA-spiked shrooms. The more colorful reports compared the experience to dying, being reborn, or dying and then being reborn multiple times in the hour. Some people said they’d hallucinated and had out-of-body experiences. So, as I waited in the Lift/Next Level lobby, I was curious to read the non-cartoon accounts written in the spa’s “guest book.” Some visitors described experiencing intense relaxation, a state that was almost sleep but not. Before I visited Brooklyn’s new Lift/Next Level “float spa,” my entire understanding of sensory-deprivation tanks was limited to an episode of The Simpsons: In “Make Room for Lisa,” Lisa Simpson floats in a coffin-size tub and hallucinates that she’s entered the body of her cat, Snowball.
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