As a gift for Christmas I was given a floatation experience. This might sound like some sort of stock market training course but it’s actually designed to be a relaxation tool. The company, Floatworks, which claims to be the world’s biggest flotation Centre based at London Bridge, was fairly hidden by a little green door.
After I was buzzed into the doorway I ventured down the steps and waited my turn in the water coffin. The tanks are filled with a super-saturated salt-water solution, which creates a similar environment to the Dead Sea and allows you to float. After taking a shower to some soothing music I entered the tank and closed the lid behind me. Now, older readers will remember a 1980 film called ‘Altered States’ where William Hurts character uses a floatation tank to de-evolve into a primitive man. I however was aiming for something a little less drastic and more down to earth, I wanted some long overdue relaxation.
There was a big button inside the tank to turn off the light and in total darkness I floated, truly weightless. The water is warmed to body temperature and for a short time it was really relaxing. I noticed my feet or arms touching the side and I was clearly drifting gently around the environment but I had no sensation of it, which was a really nice experience. Then I mad my first error. The receptionist told me to put Vaseline on any cuts I might have to avoid any irritation. Now, I didn’t have any cuts but while relaxing in my artificial womb I had an itch on my cheek, which I decided to scratch. Having had a shave a few hours earlier the newly smoothed face of your writer began to burn like someone putting a thousand hot needles into my face and lips, which had become covered in the solution which was without doubt the same fluid as the ‘Alien’ uses for blood. The more I tried to ignore the acid melting my face off the more I knew that I need to take drastic action, otherwise all my family would have to remember me was a pile of clothes on a chair besides the alien egg I was now being melted away in.
I tried to get out of the tank but I kept successfully floating away from the release handle and the more I struggled the more fluid I got on my face. This was not as relaxing as I had hoped for despite my initial experience. I eventually opened the door to the egg and to ensure total relaxation, the room was also in total darkness. However this didn’t matter as my face was now on fire and creating its own light. I staggered to the shower and forced my head into the stream of soothing water. Panic over. I had a fair amount of time left and re-entered the tank and made sure that my face didn’t get anywhere near the solution again. I found myself having fun with the weightless effect and could even lay sideways and stretch into different poses without sinking which was an incredible feeling. When I decided to return to the relaxing stage I had created some waves inside the bloody thing and I then started feeling seasick for goodness sake. Up and down, up and down my stomach started to sink with the feeling of being on a boat. It was the same feeling I had once before while mackerel fishing in Cornwall. I’m the only person who can’ t catch mackerel which are well know for committing suicide on a fishing line. I digress, back to the floatation experience. I had to sit up in the tank more than once until I felt the sensation of Mackerel fishing had passed. The whole experience lasted for an hour and for me, some of it was actually spent floating and sort of relaxing. After everything, I’m glad that I did it as its something I’ve been interested in for some time and in the most part it was fun, however, I can’t say that I’d do it again in a hurry. Not without taking Sigourney ‘ Ripley’ Weaver in with me first for some protection anyway…
M
