Deeper Dives: A World of Pure Imagination – My Float through the Altered States in a Sensory Deprivation Tank

The pitch black is disorientating. The last time I experienced absolute darkness was the Kings Cavern cave tour in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. At one point, every light source in the cave was extinguished, and the tour guide spoke about how people go insane after one full day in total darkness.

The wax plugs on my ears prevent the briny water from flooding my ear canals and block out any ambient sound in the soundproof float chamber. The only sound left to hear in the pitch black is the rhythm of my breathing and the beating of my heart; almost like the rhythmic beating of a drum. In some ways, my only anchor to reality is the feeling of the Epsom salts crystallizing on my naked body.

How did I end up in a sensory deprivation chamber?

The short answer is writing about subcultures brought me down a strange path, and somewhere that road included voluntarily spending time in a sensory deprivation chamber.

Subcultures as a Catalyst

Four months ago, I read an article in WIRED magazine and learned about an emerging social trend in the finance and technology industries called microdosing. The social trend spawned an entire subculture around microdosing psychedelics to achieve greater empathy and focus; much like Bradley Cooper’s character in the movie Limitless. I decided to write my first article for my Subcultures and Social Trends series titled, Subcultures and Social Trends: Microdosing Psychedelics the Limitless Career Enhancement Tool. I never anticipated the engagement and encouragement I would receive from writing about a strange subject in an obscure niche. As of this writing, I have covered seventeen different subcultures.

I began interacting with readers and had some lengthy discussions of each subculture I featured. Invariably this led to dialogue with individuals involved in each subculture. I consider myself to have a curious mind and began to wonder about delving deeper into some of the subcultures I featured, much like the BBC reporter Louis Thoreaux.

After writing the Subcultures and Social Trends piece on Psychonauts, something stuck about how the Native North American shamans entered altered states of consciousness through extreme physical endurance and extreme isolation. As I researched more about extreme isolation and sensory deprivation, I discovered extreme sensory deprivation could induce hallucinations in as little as fifteen minutes time. It fostered a curiosity about sensory deprivation and firsthand experience of psychonautics.

Although I identify spiritually as agnostic, I was also fascinated by how Native American shamanic traditions linked illness with soul loss and how the shaman would enter into an altered state to coax the soul to return to the individual. That brought a torrent of memories around books I used to read in high school on astral projection.

It was about that time I decided to start delving into subcultures in a much deeper way - almost in a YOLO kind of way. I wound up joining a paranormal investigation and hitting a sensory deprivation tank within one week of each other.

Physiology the Brain in Sensory Deprived Environment

Since the 1960s, science has been attempting to answer the question: what happens to the brain when it has all sensory input eliminated. In essence, what is the “default state” of the brain?

According to Paul King, a Computational Neuroscientist formerly with Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, most of the sensory deprivation work was completed in the 1960s, but some new thoughts on the physiology of the idle brain led to some interesting hypotheses:

“It has been found that around 1/3 of the cerebral cortex is interconnected into what has been called the ‘default mode network’. This network includes regions primarily at the front and side of the brain. What distinguishes it is that activity in this network is not ‘stimulus-locked,’ meaning that it is not predictably driven by sensory input.”

”So what is the default mode network doing? There are some speculative theories. It could be responsible for planning, hypothetical ideas, beliefs, and maybe even the imagination. It might be the basis of conscious experience, by forming a ‘dynamic core’ of neural activity that anchors the interpretation of sensory input.”

“In a sensory deprivation environment, the brain receives no concrete input on which to ground the stream of consciousness. Without a sensory anchor, the brain's free association processes have only themselves to build on, with no point of reference to stabilize beliefs. Meanwhile, the brain's perceptual machinery, which tries to construct a model of the world, has no ‘ground truth’ to use as a filter. The result over time are hallucinations and eventually delusions, probably due to the default mode network reaching increasingly tenuous but mutually-reinforcing conclusions about reality, with nothing external to cross-validate it with.”

When an individual enters a sensory deprived state, the brain begins to exhibit “psychosis-like” symptoms such as anxiety, altered states of consciousness, hallucinations, and delusions. Prolonged exposure to a deprived sensory environment has significantly more severe effects, which can result in significant cognitive impairment, disorganized speech and suicidal thoughts and actions. According to some researchers, one does not need to experience total sensory deprivation to experience more typical "psychosis-like" symptoms such as hallucination; just depriving one of the five senses can induce a hallucinogenic effect. Immersion into an environment of total sensory deprivation has been shown to cause hallucinations such as visions of shapes or faces, auditory hallucinations of voices and sensing an "evil" presence in the chamber in as little as fifteen minutes.

It may be counter-intuitive, but short-term bouts of sensory deprivation in float tanks have revealed beneficial therapeutic uses. Short term Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) in a flotation tank relaxes the individual’s body into a waking dream state, with a noticeable uptick in theta brainwaves. One beneficial therapeutic side effect exhibited is a measurable decrease in cortisol production (a stress hormone). Individuals who engage in repeated short-term float session s report better sleep, less anxiety, and more optimism.

Existing in a World of Pure Imagination

Back in the sensory deprivation tank, the sense and concept of time become lost in that inky black world. Initially, I had a profound sense of anxiety overtake me as I adjusted to the world without stimulus anchors. Gradually I improved, began to relax and started to notice a soft, blue background glow to the tank which was very similar to back-lighting. That was the moment I realized I was starting to hallucinate.

A whole parade of color began to crawl up from the corners of my field of vision, fold over each other, transform into another hue, fold over and change again. It reminded me very much of watching scenes from the Walt Disney movie Fantasia. Gradually the colors began almost to dissolve, and I was floating in a constellation of stars in space.

I was so overtaken by how vivid the hallucinations were. In truth, this world without stimulus anchors felt as real as the world outside the tank. It was remarkable how normal and “right” it felt. I can remember feeling anxiety well up because I needed to narrate and control the direction of the hallucination. It came from a place of fear towards the direction an untethered mind could take me.

It was at that moment two distinct memories popped into my head. First I remembered from my research on Psychonauts shamans spoke of "dying many times" when referring to entering altered states. The second memory which came to mind was a lengthy discussion I had with @kevinwong about that specific piece of research on shamans. He discussed his experimentation with altered states and thought the reference of dying was directed towards the ego. His experience (he relayed to me) was once he stopped controlling the narrative and direction of the altered state, an almost god-like experience happened to him. I remember making a conscious decision to let go to see how deep the rabbit hole went . Shortly after that, I distinctly remember the sensation of falling, much like the feeling associated with falling into sleep.

I was totally unprepared for the other side of Alice’s Looking Glass.

I was pelted with vivid visions of people and places, had deep conversations and felt like I'd lived a thousand lives in the span of a 90-minute float session. It was unbelievably vivid, remarkably tangible and felt so real. Somewhere in the midst of that session, I can remember being struck by how incredibly mutable reality is. Even after digesting the experience and reflecting on it, I find it difficult to put into words.

After leaving the tank, what struck me was how bold the colors of the world had become, how relaxed I felt and how much my perspective focused on the mutability of reality. I remember looking around and thinking to myself, “I could still be in the tank and not know the difference because that’s how real the hallucinations were.”

I never anticipated my short jaunt into the world of altered states would have such a profound impact. I'm looking forward to exploring, and possibly writing about, more experiences and places my deeper dives into subcultures and social trends take me.

References

Hanchette, Christine. “How Sensory Deprivation Isolation Chambers Work.” Examined Existence. N.d. http://examinedexistence.com/the-science-of-sensory-deprivation-how-does-sensory-deprivation-work/

King, Paul. “What Happens in the Brain During Sensory Deprivation?” Quora. April 17, 2013. https://www.quora.com/What-happens-in-the-brain-during-sensory-deprivation

Ferro, Shaunacy. “The Science Behind a Relaxing, Hallucinatory Float in a Dark Tank of Water.” Mental Floss. October 14, 2015. http://mentalfloss.com/article/68721/science-behind-relaxing-hallucinatory-float-dark-tank-water

Front Psychiatry. “Psychotic-Like Experiences and Their Cognitive Appraisal Under Short Term Sensory Deprivation.” Frontiers in Psychiatry. August 15, 2014. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4133754/