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But maybe the cerebral types, the writers, academics, and creatives should tune into this one. It happens again. What is going on in here? I look around to try and get my bearings but there is nothing to see. The remainder of my float is a blur. When the music comes back on to signal the end of my hour, I'm sleepy and disorientated - I feel like I'm upside down. But I really, really, don't want to get out. As well as being pitch-black and soundproofed, flotation tanks are filled with extremely salty water, so that users stay completely buoyant, even if they fall asleep.
The air and water are warmed to the exact temperature of the skin, making it possible to lose all sense of the body's external boundaries. With almost nothing to see, hear or feel an hour in a flotation tank induces a deeply relaxed state, similar to the effects of meditation. But this near-complete sensory deprivation can also lead to hallucinations and out-of-body experiences. It sounds extreme, but it's quite subtle and that has only happened occasionally in 50 or so floats.
There are now over 30 places to float in the UK, and at least five new facilities dedicated to floating have opened in the past 18 months. Most tank operators say they are looking to expand as the number of clients booking sessions increased significantly last year. Barbara Hastings-Asatourian, a retired lecturer from Derbyshire, has advanced osteoarthritis and is waiting for a double hip replacement. She says floating not only leaves her feeling "blissed out" but reduces her pain and stiffness, helping her remain mobile enough to teach yoga.
When I first did this it was just a wonderful excuse to do nothing for an hour, and the floating is a beautiful feeling. I was personally interested in weirder stuff. For the first two, he felt nothing much.
From the third on, though, he had hallucinations. When I moved my fingers, I saw them move, but between the fingers and the thumb I saw the blue sky. Of course that wasn't right; it was a hallucination.
But the point is that as I moved my fingers, their movement was exactly consistent with the motion that I was imagining that I was seeing. Some people had become intensely aware of their heartbeats. Some effects had been stranger. Their spa contains two kinds of tanks: One is basically a high-ceilinged, vault-like room with water in the bottom. This is the tank recommended for people with fears of claustrophobia. The other is a more traditional model, the Evolution Float Pod.
It has a lid. Leventhal mentioned that the New England Patriots had bought two such tanks for their locker room, which assuaged some of my fears: If a linebacker could fit comfortably in the pod, I thought, I probably could as well. I shared my fears of falling asleep and drowning. Antioco and Leventhal told me that this would be virtually impossible. The water is shallow and so salty that it stings the eyes, they said; if I fell asleep and rolled, I would immediately be stunned awake by the solution.
In the history of floatation, they told me, there had been only one drowning in the tank—and that was of somebody who had physically paralyzed himself with ketamine. He showed me around, wished me luck, and shut the door, leaving me alone to soak. It was white and sleek, and it gaped amiably, like a big clam. Far from being sepulchral, it was huge—almost the width of my arm span, I guessed—and comfortably rounded. The lid domed up to make quite a lot of head space: I am six feet tall, but I discovered I could comfortably sit up in the tank when it was closed.
As I showered, the water in the tank turned oscillating colors, like the backsplash in a European disco. Antioco told me that, sometime this fall, she plans to do an all-night float.
For the control group the same measurements were assessed before and after a 7-week period. After the period the control group also received flotation-REST treatment. The SE-scale is based on an early checklist, the Mood Adjective Check-List [ 22 ] and has been further modified and translated into Swedish [ 23 ]. The instrument has been validated in a number of studies i.
Cronbach's alpha was 0. The score range is from 0 — 5 for each subscale. The HADS is a rating scale regarding degree of anxiety and depression. It was constructed for use with physically ill people [ 24 ], and has been validated and reliability tested [ 25 ].
The HAD scale consists of fourteen statements with four response alternatives ranging from 0 to 3. The score range is from 0 — 21 for each subscale. The test [ 27 ] consists of eight items plus four filler items. The task of each participant is to decide whether or not one agrees with each of the items described.
The test measures dispositional optimism, defined in terms of generalized outcome expectancies. Parallel Test Reliability is reported to 0. This instrument consists of 11 questions that elucidate the sleeping habits [ 29 ]. Responses to 9 questions are placed on a 0—4 scale, response to one question is placed on a 0—5 scale, and response to one further question is placed on a 0—8 scale.
Mindful Attention Awareness Scale is designed to assess the main characteristic of dispositional mindfulness [ 30 ]. It measures whether a person is open or receptive to what is happening in the present and has a mindful state over time through a item scale [ 30 ]. The instrument consists of 15 items, all of which indicate a lack of mindfulness. The items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 almost always to 6 almost never.
If the scores are rated high — it indicates more mindfulness of the subject the total score can range from 15 to 90 [ 31 ]. These scales were used for measuring normal pain and experienced worst pain.
The accuracy and precision have been examined for both clinical and experimental pain, and found adequate [ 33 ]. This is an instrument that is constructed to be used in flotation-REST experiments based on the APZ-questionnaire and OAVAV [ 34 ] so that an assessment of altered states of consciousness and the relaxation response can be made. Through this, the total experience of deviation from normal states can be obtained.
In earlier studies e. Resting on a bed in a dark quiet room generates approximately 15 points [ 36 ]. The door is outwardly opened. The inside of the lower section had ribbed bottom to prevent slipperiness.
Between flotation sessions, water is filtered and sterilized with UV-light along with weekly addition of hydrogen peroxide where oxidization occurs. The sterilization of water between flotation sessions takes approximately fifteen minutes. Filters are regularly changed and the inside of the flotation tank is cleaned twice a week in accordance to public health board recommendations.
An agreement was made between the owner of a flotation centre and three managers from three different companies about a health-care program involving flotation-tank treatments. All three companies advertised through intranet correspondence, their company magazines, and through emails, offering all employees to participate in the health-care program.
All interested participants were invited to an information meeting at the flotation centre located in Deje in the county of Varmland, Sweden, where they were further informed about the program. Information was given that the flotation-rest program would enable them to participate in a scientific study concerning the effects of this treatment program.
Further information was given regarding that the participation was voluntary, confidential, that they would be randomly selected to either experimental group or waiting list, and that they could terminate their participation at any given point. All participants made a verbal informed consent about participating.
They were also informed it was possible to participate in the health-care program without participation in the present study. Data was collected by the manager of the flotation center. After the introduction and data collection, the enrolled individuals were randomly assigned to either the control group or to the flotation-REST group a total of 12 flotation sessions. Those individuals that had been randomized to the wait-list control group got the opportunity to later participate in flotation-treatments after the present study was terminated.
All participants were guided through the flotation centre. Participants in the flotation-REST group booked the 12 awaiting flotation sessions around two per week for a period of seven weeks where each session was of 45 minutes duration and 30 minutes to shower and relax afterwards. After the third flotation session a supplementary EDN questionnaire was filled out by the experiment group. After the last flotation-REST session, the questionnaires i.
All questionnaires were filled out in privacy in a separate room no staff there and the participant put their questionnaires in a closed box, that were later transported un-opened to the researchers. Time estimated between first announcement of health project and completion was about 6 months. The participants suffered from no sick absence and were hence referred to as being relatively healthy.
Dependent variables were the psychological variables which in earlier studies e. The results from the univariate F-tests are given below. For means and standard deviations, see Table 1. Two repeated measures ANOVA were carried out with Time before, after as the within-subjects factor and Group flotation, control as between-subjects factor.
Dependent variables were worst pain and normal pain. See Table 2. For a scatter plot for MAAS vs. EDN, see Figure 1.
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