Nude Beach Thoughts

A Battlestar Galactica float to start the day.

Slept in today and woke up at 2:30pm. I did a brief bit of work and then headed to Float House to meet up with Mark and Hannah for their first floats. I ended up listening to Bear McCreary's Battlestar Galactica solo piano mix again and by the third song I had relaxed enough for closed eye visuals to occur. 

There were waves of white lights that had a distinct impression of Cylons ascending into Heaven while wisps of quick red strings of light shot downward and felt like humanity descending into hell. This float was rife with emotional undertones that flowed along with the music. 

As it progressed I noticed a large crack of light leaking in the back of the tank and had to compensate. I kept my left eye closed and positioned myself in the tank so that it would not impeded my visuals too much. After this distraction the music got more uplifting in nature and I felt revitalized and was uplifted into a state of cleared void space. There was a brief pause between tracks and during this silence I became aware of the cooler temperature of the water. I did a minor stretch and submerged my feet under the waterline and right as the next song began I was bombarded by visual clutter filling up my void space. 

I used the flame and the void technique and was able to clear it out by the first chorus of the song and felt a strong sensation of my body going numb and limp. There was a moment where I couldn't feel my breath or heart beat and with the next note of the piano I reemerged into a full awareness of my time and place within the tank. I opened my eyes and then found and measured the light leak to inform the guys about it. Did a couple more stretches to ease my muscles and got out to have a wonderfully soothing shower. Overall a good and insight float. 

A little Gojira to wrap up the night.

Tonight, I listened to Gojira's album From Mars to Sirius in the tank. 

It was an interesting experience indeed. I was able to settle myself down cognitively and still myself  physically by the end of the first song. I didn't need to implement the use of my mantra due to heaviness of the music and by focusing my attention on the lyrics. If my mind wandered, I would simply lock into the music again and kept my attention on the words. It was honestly the first time I paid full attention to the words of the songs after hearing this album countless times in the last few months since I was first introduced to it. I focused on slowing my rate of breath down and by the time Unicorn came on I was able to slip easily into my visual space and my breathing became involuntary.

Instead of my typical starscape my whole visual field was covered in red glowing embers. As my eyes shifted across them they would move and were molding themselves into various forms and would transition back into an expanse of coals. This did last for quite a while and I was really surprised at how clear my mind was. I was absorbed by the music and at some points I even felt it surrounding my whole body and I my fingers, arms, and feet would twitch along with the tempo. Near the end of the album I had faded further into the void and when the song From Mars came on I was ecstatic with a full immersion into the words. This verse particularly seemed to be imprinted upon me and I found myself repeating it while I was showering.

Took off from the red place

In the sky I fly

I have lost my reason 

And I've made my sense

From up there I will see 

Where I'm From

And where the force of love 

Will tell me now to go. 

When the music had ended I was really hesitant to get out but I knew Nick was waiting on me to wake him. Got out with the drums and riffs of the album repeating in my head and humming them as I reflected on the float. 

24 Hour Day - Lemmy Rock Out, The Beatles Float, & a John. C. Lilly Reading.

TL;DR I've been up for over 24 hours now and feel like Motorhead's Rock Out after an amazing audio float at Float House listening to The Beatles and then emerging out and listening to Graham Talley from Float On promoting the re-release of Dr. John C. Lilly's cult classic Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer, which goes on sale May 15th through Amazon.

I had a great night at work with Brad. Hypnotoad ended the shift perfectly. Went home, Lou was up so we watched the documentary Lemmy. If you haven't seen it, watch it. At 5am I laid down in bed and was listening to The Beatles Anthology 3 Disc 1. While Mean Mr. Mustard was saving paper, I realized that I had to be up in 3 hours. The decision was instant. I got out of bed and went into my office, lit a smoke, and cracked a Red Bull and created myself an hour and 35 minute long The Beatles floatlist consisting of Revolver and Abby Road, plus three of my favorite songs from their Anthology; Dig A Pony, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, and Black Bird. I then converted it, while waiting I sorted about 536 HD landscapes for use at work and smoked more cigarettes. Once it was done, I left for Float House, arriving at 7:35ish. I was greeted with smiles and hugs and my Friday night after party started as I headed into the tank.

I took a wallop of my tincture with some delicious Easter Bunny chunks, had myself a refreshing shower. I gave the guys the signal and they started the music. I got into the tank and positioned myself close the speaker. Revolver began and I realized I had to readjust the speaker to that it was more centre and I could position myself with my head within the clearest and loudest audio zone.

With the first notes of I'm Only Sleeping I was able to slip right into the void along with the music and it was a warm soothing embrace with the tank at a temperature 97.3F. My mind wandered slightly and I realized that I had not crossed my feet to allow my toes to be fully submerged under the water (toes can becomes hypersensitive to the slightest temperature change and create the sensation of being in a 'cold' tub, similar to when you would normally use your feet to turn on the hot water for a minute or two to warm up your bath). I found a comfortable position with my right foot crossing onto my left and continued practicing my breath work.

After that, the sitar of Love You To kicked in and I opened my eyes and slowly the starscape appeared. While refocusing my eyes, the stars shifted and randomized patterns emerged. Within those patterns  I ended up applying the Flame and the Void technique,  while focusing on the progressing notes I picture a small candle burning in the centre of my visual field and the randomized patterns surrounding it took more definite shapes and I began my clearing process of feeding the images, thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations into the Flame. I smiled. The feeling was a lot stronger and more focused then when I was in bed earlier listening to The Beatles Anthology and the idea for the float came to me.

The starscape then reappeared behind the Flame and expanded rapidly. I focused strongly upon the left side of my visual field and a bolt of some sporadic substance flew to the right and I instinctively followed creating a wide array of trails that took on immediate cellular shape. Single and multicellular organisms moved through the viscous environment and competed for resources, attacked and absorbed each other using predation as the selective pressure. This continued on in population surges that flowed along with the music.

It was ended with Oh Darling. I was brought back to awareness and started to notice that sweat was collecting on my face, I sat up, opened the door and wiped my face off. I laid back down and left the door open and lightly closed my eyes and drifted along with music. As I felt the cooler air rush along the surface of my body and the water I felt a refreshing clearing effect. With my eye lightly closed I could see the colors change through my eye lids and I visualized walking through the Octopus's Garden.

With Here Comes The Sun I closed the door and laid down and my mind instantly went blank and I rolled my eyes into the back of my head and the white lights from beneath came on. When I looked forward again I had a flash of many sporadic images, one that distinctly stood out was of a chest tattoo with a large tangled tree's branches forming into the face of a wolf. I then shift the personality of the tattoo and it became a wolverine within the branches. Repeating the Flame and the Void I was able to clear my mind again and went into another warm embrace of the music for remaining of Abbey Road.

When Dig a Pony came on I awoke and without realizing it was stretching out my arms and legs, slowly started to move my fingers into a fist and sat up. Got out of the tank to the cycling shades of color and had a shower with Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Blackbird, and The Ink Spots song I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire.

I got out of room to a transformed Float House. It was a great beginning to a new day, even if somewhat post float foggy and semi tired.

The lounge had become a book reading. Graham Talley of Float On was there on tour promoting the re-release of Dr. John C. Lilly's cult classic Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer which goes on sale May 15th through Amazon.

I took some time to process my float, chat, and smoke a few cigarettes while writing my draft notes for this post. Heard some great Lilly anecdotes and readings. I had that mental state of being at school again, like on those days after an all nighter reading the relevant literature and then absorbing the a fresh and experienced viewpoint.  Paying attention to Graham's talk, but when that unknown nugget appeared my mind would wander with the subject and comparing them to my own concepts. When this occurred I would look to my left at the white sunlight gleam through the frosted glass on the door beside me and the movement of the small leaves from the sapling outside were quite soothing. I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and learned quite a bit. 

When it ended I hung around for a bit and then headed home and wrote this. 

Audio floats have a wonderful uplifting feature to them for me. Music is a trip, silence is a journey. Today's float was very visual and I was happy with the amount of control I had, but it lacked that lucid immerse that comes from my silent floats. All in all, I need to call my mum now and tell her I love her.  

Float 88 - Pink Floydscape

Stoned out of my mind Pink Floyd float. Listened to Meddle and then Obscured by Clouds. This float was truly one of a kind and had a deeply impactful meaning and revitalization for me...

I believe that I have perfected my ritual of entering the tank and preparing it's environment to my personal taste. I had a pre-emptive shower and ran the pump for 20 minutes or so with the heating pads cranked up, went and then smoked a joint and had a smoke before getting into the tank. The temp was 97.5 and then I left the door open for the first few minutes while I got in with my head by the door and stared up at the shifting colors of the LED lights (which sub sequentially caused my visuals during the float to be very color dynamic). I then closed the door and switched positions to the back end with my head by the speakers. I was able to quickly enter into the void and heavy visuals started.

The amount of things that I saw were baffling. I used the flame and the void technique to help clear my mindscape, but when certain images occurred I did focus solely upon them. For example, multiple occasions I saw a distinct form of an aged old patriarchal bonobo appear (my power animal?) and hold it's place amongst the chaotic swirling images surrounding it with an extremely stern and forceful presence. This then faded and another bout of evil faces within my lower right field of view emerged. I then started to force movement of my eyes and applied various levels of pressure on my optic nerve. Looking far upwards and rolling my eyes into the back of my head caused massive amounts of white and blue lights to fire upwards from below to beyond me. A handful of spasmodic twitches then occurred and I closed and opened my eyes to reset.

When I opened them again I was somewhere within a cellular world with monads evolving and consuming each other, when I focused upon one individual cell it divided a few times and then out of nowhere it became multicellular. During this period, I started to notice that my toes were becoming cold and it induced a feeling of a cooled down bathtub, I put my attention on my toes and all of a sudden it hit me about the subject effect of temperature upon my consciousness during the float. I moved around a bit and found that by crossing my legs/feet I was able to fully submerge my toes under the water and officially found my new and improved floating posture. While figuring this new posture out a drip of salty condensation feel upon my right nostril and into my mustache and due to the startling nature of it I took a big inhale (I breathe most often through my nose in the tank) of salt water went into my nostril. I exhaled immediately but was too late to stop a slight drip of it hitting the back of my throat. I coughed and ended up having to get out of the tank and having a shower to clear off my face and wash out my mouth. Oddly this occurred right at the end of Meddle and as Obscured by Clouds began I was re-entering the tank.

I practiced a bit of my breath work and played around with a few mantras while losing myself in the music. My mind started to become clearer and clearer and my internal conversations began. I debated about Nietzsche's Will to Power, me thriving off being a devil's advocate, and that amazing discussion that I had with Gregory the night before. There was an overwhelming emotional of acceptance that has occurred and realizing what I can do with my own nature when I want to. This then transitioned into a more defined argumentative experience with my internal debate on the ever changing and growing nature of Float House. Projecting a handful of possible futures I was delighted to test the metaphysical verses that each small decision can have. Also, when I reflected back to Buddhist ideal of having to polish and purify the mirror of the mind, yet in truth the is no mirror, my mind instantly went black and there was a strong sensation of me 'flying' through the intensity of space, in my new floating captains chair position, with stars, nebulas and galaxies soaring by me. They speed and rate of projection was tied directly now to the notes of Pink Floyd. At one point, my attention was then drawn to the word 'Choice' and in a flash of intense images I lived and died three times. Each time I was faced down by the same Patriarchal Bonobo. No words were spoken but a deep understanding was transferred. A sense of conflicting moralities was swept over me, but with each conflict there was a surrendering to it, "without pain and suffering we would have nothing".

The final chanting of the album began and a strong wave of hilarious laughter consumed me and I laughed deep and heartily as I exited the tank. Tom Waits "Old Shoe" started playing while I was cleansing myself in the shower and I sang loud and proud. The cycling of colors were also extremely pleasing and added to the impression of my ever forming ritualization of my floats. 

80th Float

This morning before work I had an amazing Float. It was like an extension of my float from last night but more Lucid in nature ending in maniacal laughter.  

I made very good use of my mantra and breathe work allowed me to enter the void space quickly. Then used the flame and the void to clear my mind. Once in a lucid dream state I changed the color of the floor to a bright red. Then I instantly transported myself to St. Patricks and walked around the pews and up to the alter and set that mother a blaze. I watched the flames climb the walls and spread. I could feel the heat on my face and walked down the aisle to the front door and watched as the flames followed me across the pews and start climbing into the choir. 

I exited the building and watched as it then changed to a full exterior burn and started laughing like a maniac. Could not stop the laughter and had to get out when salt water got into my eyes. Kept laughing during my shower. I was only in the tank for 35 minutes. 

69th Float

This morning after work I had an intensely short but sweet float. The Tank was so nice and warm that I simply melted into the void. After a few rounds of my mental workout I slipped into a state of bliss and joy and it felt like I was being covered in silk. Not just like a silk blanket being put on top of me, but being molding tightly over my whole body. I opened my eyes wide to check if it was real and I was instantly privy to an amazing view of space filled by an expansion of white stars and blue galaxies, all the while still maintaining that molded in silk feeling. While gazing at this I started to hear soft chanting in the distance. As I focused my attention on the sounds it became clear that is was exactly like the Pink Floyd song AbsoluteCurtains.

That then dissipated and my visuals shifted to more darker imagery. I had previously been looking at pictures of the riotsin the Ukraine and I was placed above an old city, looking down upon a scene of burning chaos. The area looked war torn, almost apocalyptic, the city was spewing thick black plumes of smoke while swarms of people in gas masks ran around tossing debris at each other. It was interesting to note that when I reflected on my emotions at this point I was neither sad, or mad, or glad. The best description I can make was that I felt very detached from the scene but yet in awe at its surging power, both physical and social. This got me thinking of a section from StephenBaxter's Weaver where a young woman describes her experiences during the London Blitz.

I dwelled on this for a bit and then shook it off and SUCCESSFULLY willed myself onto an asteroid sailing alongside a massive red dwarf star. I could see multiple planets orbiting in the vast distance and then started to laugh maniacally while overcome with that sweet taste of accomplishment. After that my moustache began itching my nose and I satisfied it with a good hearty scratch, which lead me into another Jeff Goldbloom chaos theory moment of awareness of the subtle movements of the drop of water along my skin and coursing through the hairs of my beard. 

I lol'd again and then did some basic stretches, got out of the tank, and had a shower. I had only been in tank for 45 minutes. 

Audio Floating With Finntroll

I have come to realize that one of my favourite things about active floats within the tank is that I can immerse myself in an almost infinite amount of settings, both positive and negative. One oddity about me I've noticed is that I am always drawn to both ends of the spectrum.

A good example of this was a float I had before christmas where I listened to 25 minutes of my go to meditation music, insuring that I was in a deep state of Theta when I then had it transition into one of my favourite folk metal EPs by Finntroll, Visor Om Slutet. The album is a themed ballad about a Troll attacking a small village in an isolated fjord. There are many ups and downs in the tone and mood of the music and when it started playing within the tank I was transported to a Skyrim Valley hot tub and was overcome with an extremely peaceful feeling during the first minutes. It is hard to describe all that occurred after that. The album was such a roller coaster of personal sensations, emotions, and ideas that there were movements of pure clarity and others of pure fear. That being said, it was an exhilarating experience and I look forward to trying it again.