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.
