Sensory Deprivation floating featured at PechaKucha v13!

You might remember when we blogged about our upcoming PechaKucha event in a previous post.

PechaKucha means "chit chat" in Japanese. It is an event held every quarter in Orlando and hosted by avid Total Zen floater Eddie Selover. For more information about upcoming PechaKucha events in Orlando, check out the website or Facebook Page.

It features 8-10 speakers - usually local folks with interesting stories - and is a fast-paced method of presenting information where each speaker picks 20 Power Point slides which are set to automatically change every 20 seconds.

The catch is this: the speaker has no control over changing the slides. Each slide is played for 20 seconds no matter what. This forces the speaker to "go with the flow" and happens to make for really interesting speeches.

As Selover describes it - all of the extraneous material gets cut out of the talk "leaving only the poetry."

Total Zen's own floater and blogger, Kelli Hastings, was asked to present at PechaKucha last month on June 13. Her speech is about her experiences "in the tank" (i.e. sensory deprivation floating) and about her life journey from tragedy to Love.

What an amazing journey it has been for all of us - at the last PechaKucha event in February, the Total Zen team was in attendance and dreamed about having a talk about floating featured in a PechaKucha event. 

Just three months later, we saw that dream become a reality. Life just keeps getting better and better, you know?

Check out the talk and let us know what you think! We'd love to hear from you. And feel free to share the video and/or comment. 

Kelli Hastings talks at Pecha Kucha Orlando.

And don't forget to make your appointment today so you can have your own experience "in the tank!"

Claustrophobia -Why it Should Not Keep You from Floating

Claustrophobia is one of the most commonly-expressed fears associated with floating in one of our relaxation tanks. Let’s take a closer look at claustrophobia and why it shouldn’t keep you from floating.

Claustrophobia is generally defined as the fear of confined spaces. There are actually two separate components to claustrophobia: the fear of restriction and the fear of suffocation. The fear of restriction is the “fear of being trapped,” while the fear of suffocation is associated with a feeling of lack of air or asphyxiation.

With respect to our relaxation tanks, you are always completely safe and in complete control of your environment.

There is no reason to fear being trapped as the lid to the tank is easy to open and you are free to leave the environment at any time. Also, there is no reason to fear suffocation as fresh oxygen is pumped into the tank via an air tube, and the tank is not “air-tight.”

So, neither of the component fears associated with claustrophobia (the fear of restriction and the fear of suffocation), are valid, rational fears inside the relaxation tank.

At Total Zen, find that most often, the fear of floating is connected to a fear of the unknown rather than to clinical claustrophobia. It is important to remember that once you are inside the tank, all of the external influences disappear. Your mental chatter slows down, and you are in control of your mind.

You can choose which thoughts to “feed” and which thoughts to “starve.” If the thoughts drift to fear, instead of stimulating and feeding the thought, simply sit with it. Notice where it originates in your body. Try to be the observer of the fear, rather than the fear itself. If you sit inside the tank and concentrate on the feeling of claustrophobia, your experience will be much different than if you are open to a safe mind trip. You will almost certainly be surprised by your experience.

Notice and connect with the sensation of expansiveness inside the tank. Is it really small inside or actually really large? Can you really tell where the walls begin or end? Can you connect to the feeling of expanding outward?

Try not to judge your experience inside the tank on what you are feeling now. That is, instead of imagining what it might be like inside the tank, get into the tank and try it out. Then judge your experience.

You might even find that floating in the tank helps you to overcome your claustrophobia. There are numerous peer-reviewed medical journal articles that highlight the mental and psychological benefits of Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (aka “REST,” the clinical term for floating). Floating is known to be an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other psychiatric conditions. Stay tuned as we will delve deeper into the mental benefits of floating in another article on this website soon.

In the meantime, give floating a try and let us know your thoughts! What was it like inside the tank? Was floating anything like how you imagined it? Leave a comment below.