I've been really interested in float tanks since I heard joe rogan on about them.
I know, joe rogan lol
But he seemed really enthusiastic about them.

I've heard other people on about them also.
Has anyone ever been in one?
Are they really that cool?

The problem is the price!
It would be cool to build your own.
Anyone ever see plans?

If there aren't plans out there all of us interested hobbyists
Should start working on a poor mans tek for sensory deprivation!

I have had great success with ghetto sensory deprivation. I have never had the money or the space and all that to make the official thing, so about five years ago I had an empty closet that did the job well. Things got very weird in there. My friends and I would spend hours in there with vials of acid. If you sit in a meditative pose, like half lotus or full lotus for example, it is really easy to get lost in ... consciousness.

After a lot of time doing this, there were then The Dancers. I will never forget this for the rest of my life. My buddy and I both looked up and there were dancers in another dimension. They were in a large circle up above us, playing music and dancing around...and every so often...like a shooting star or something...one of them would fall backwards and fall down to us and disappear, leaving a rainbow trail of light echoing behind them...
and every time one fell, we would both say "OMG" or something at the same time-
It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life because I think it's still the only true shared hallucination I have ever had with someone. We were perfectly silent for a long time and then this happened, without any sort of influence except Bitches Brew leaking in from underneath the door...

awesome, so you just sat in a dark closet?
Im assuming you didn't have it temperature controlled or anything?
Just no light, no noise and acid

Haha, yeah. That's how we did it. It worked amazingly. I am not a fan of having my head in water so this ghetto technique was great.
Ideally you would want some kind of super quiet ventilation, but, we just "hot boxed" it of course...

Anyway- My point is, you can get some rather phenomenal effects by experimenting with different things.

I think a bath tub with the lights off and maybe some ear plugs, or headphones designed for silence should work fine as a sensory deprivation tank. Or maybe a bathtub with a snorkel, so your head is underwater. This would work best if you have a bathtub that you can actually fit in. A flotat tank is a really expensive way to block out light and noise, and get a flat surface with water.

The float tank is great because it takes away gravity and light and sound. You can take away gravity with a bathtub, take away light with a mask, and sound headphones. A bed works pretty good as well. If you're on psychedelics, it feels like the body falls asleep anyway, so a bed is great.

wow, ghetto sensory deprivation, great idea


floating tanks are nice, but building one will be expensive too. But its really not rocket science

You can make a wooden skeleton, pyramid shaped are my favorite although the generally are not the most material efficient shape for a floating tank.

Dress it with plasterboard to reduce noise, or get some expensive special materials for sound isolation..
Then use layers of glassfiber (or similar) sheets that are dipped in liquid plastic to make it waterproof, you can consult with people that make or repair yachts about that one.

The water depth you need depends on your weight, but with enough salt a 100kg person will never touch the floor if you have a water height of 40cm.

It will need a good door too, a rather silent water pump with a filtration (pool supplies) system, a silent air exchange system and huge amounts of epsom salts and water.

you can also have the ventilation and the water pump in another room for reduced noise


if you dont shit in it you wont need to change the water for a very long time. Maybe once a year is enough.

Classic, now that's some sound advice people hope you paying attention.

Float tanks are AWESOME! I've seen build-your-own plans online before, so they are out there. Years ago I bought a used one, a really cool model that folded down to about 3 1/2 feet off the ground. You could then put a mattress on top and use it as a bed. Then push off the mattress, open it up like the top of a Volkswagen Westfalia Vanagon, open the top door, climb in and blast off. I'd sleep in there sometimes. Really deep sleep and you don't need as many hours as regular sleep. I bought it used and paid a pretty good price for it. Sold it years later to a friend who got a lot of use out of it as well. If you are in or near a major city look around for used flotation tanks. One of the most expensive parts is the pump and filter, which are crucial to any float tank running smoothly over time. You will also need to invest a fair amount of $ in 800 - 1000 pounds of Epsom Salts in order to make the water bouyant and soft. Heaters are fairly cheap. You want to set it up in a place where it can be permanent and untouched for a long time, cause if you ever need to drain it or move it you will need to purchase 800 - 1000 more pounds of Epsom Salts. Not fun and not cheap. They are a great tool for self exploration, very restful and relaxing and great for meditative states. I've enjoyed smoking cannabis for decades, but it was much too intense for me inside the tank. I felt anxious and way too much energy for that environment, so after trying it a few times in the tank I decided never again. Those experiences stopped me from trying anything else in there. I figured entheogenic experiences would be way too intense for me in that environment as well, so never tried them there. Altered States anyone? A nice natural setting is always better for me for those experiences IMO.

Anyway, that's my take on float tanks. If you have never tried one you should book a few hours in one at a health spa or other place that rents time in them to see if you like it and get the feel for the experience. Owning one is a commitment. You need to filter the water often, always keep the water heated properly, they take up a lot of space, and you want a shower or hose nearby, cause once you get out you are covered in saline water that will burn your eyes if you rub them and will crust over on your skin if you do not wash it off quickly. If you do want to own one, you can build your own, buy a pump and filtration system and the 800 - 1000 pounds of epsom salts, or you can look around for a used one. A lot of health spas and colonic facilities tend to also have float tanks, so maybe call around there to find a used one. Good luck.

I posted a pdf of plans on building your own in this thread.

Extremely fantastic, but need a bigger place that I won't be moving from to do a home setup.

I absolutely love sensory deprivation tanks.

I have enjoyed them for decades and can say without reservation that a very good one is superior to any Ghetto or DIY methods I have tried.

That said, I use Ghetto Sensory Deprivation regularly, and have since I got into hanging out in closets as a kid. For certain entheogens, SWIM finds some sensory deprivation to be absolutely essential to the full enjoyment and potentiation of the experience. Dissociatives in general, and DXM in particular are mandatory pitch blackness in order to get the full journey. Even a tiny bit of light can dramatically alter the visuals.

SWIM finds that auditory sensory deprivation (while awesome for meditation and OOBE), deprives entheogenic voyages of one of the best fuels known to psychonauts... music. A friend has a tank that has a built in waterproof speaker set up, and even underwater speakers... that is AMAZING.

SWIMs typical "Ghetto" float setup for tripping (a must for DXM) is a large bathtub, music pre-selected and burned to mini-disc without any jumps in volume for the duration (turning on the light to deal with flipping tapes, changing CDs, or messing with iPods is a no-no), and very thick towels blocking off any windows or door cracks that might let light in even after waiting til it is dark outside. In such settings, SWIM has cruised to the farthest reaches with comfort. Water temp should be around body temp, but that isn't so important. Having access to hot and cold water taps is a bonus as sometimes it is nice to go hotter or cool off and variety in this is a very big plus.

I've been in one a few times. They are the IDEAL environment for spiritual/inner work as well as for "Meta-programming" or "Superlearning" in which you can mentally train for physical movements for increased athletic performance and even "program" information into your mind through computer hook-ups and underwater speakers/video screen. The idea is that once you are in complete sensory deprivation for a while, your attention becomes hyper-focused and your mind/memory becomes like a sponge, rapidly and efficiently absorbing any sensory stimulation via audio/video input in the tank.

In John Lilly's book The Deep Self, he included plans for a do-it-yourself round tank with circulating jets, "which allow a slow spinning motion of the water that centers the body away from the walls" and supposedly induces profound spacial-sensory effects and DEEP inner journeys. It's shape "provides excellent acoustic and thermal insulation" and looks like a "partially embedded meteorite"!

Awesome Spartan,

I had forgotten about John Lilly's upright float tank. I got a chance to meet him a few times and even got to visit his personal float tank at his house in Malibu for one of his birthday celebrations. Pretty surreal experience. Great writings and theories from that man.

Cheers

Luckyyyyy.

What an experience that must have been! His theories are FAR out there, but so very interesting. I think I remember reading that he experimented with LSD and Ketamine while using the tank too. That's gotta be a trip!

It seems like for most purposes you could get by with cutting off the major sources of sensory input. Sight and sound of course. Touch from the hands, feet, face, and clothing. Temperature should match skin temperature. Smell and taste should be reasonable to remove.

If one wanted to do this dry, pressure from lying down would become a problem after only a few minutes. Too much distraction to really let go. A waterbed matress of the smallest size would be great but an air matress could get almost as close.

Perhaps some form of stirrups for the feet and hands to prevent them from contacting anything. Just don't let the knees lock up for too long. A neck pillow to keep the neck relaxed and prevent pressure on the back of the skull.

I don't know of a way to get past the sound issue without building a sound proof chamber. Wearing silencing devices of any sort would probably be too much. There are noise cancelling devices that have microphones and processors to listen to ambient noise and them play a perfect cancelling frequency into your ears. Those might be an option, but it would be more of a white noise than silence.

Brushed teeth followed by nibbling on a couple oyster crackers could reduce taste. Smell can be controlled with activated carbon air fresheners, scentless of course. Fabreeze makes something like that, but it has a small fan so it might have to shut off during the session. Also, a rinse with the neti pot to cleanse the nostrils of lingering scent.

Temperature should be pretty easy to figure out.

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I don't wish to hijack, but have any of you thought of a white-type sensory manipulation? Instead of removing sensory input, you would create an atmosphere of constant but irrelevant sensory stimulation for all of the senses.