I arrived in Paris a few days ago for a little workcation. Naturally the first thing I did was hunt down a float tank center and book an appointment. Surprisingly, floating seems to be almost entirely missing in France: noticeably more obscure than in Germany, Spain, the UK and almost every other European nation in every direction.

However, everyone I talk too seems genuinely excited by the idea. My conversations have consistently led to people wanting to fly out to Portland just to try it. After we discuss all the logistics and benefits of floatation, people always seem to reach the same question, “Why isn’t this more well known?”

I arrived for my float today and began to get the spiel from the woman at the front desk. Apparently the only way to book the float tank (which is delightfully enough called a “cocoon of floatation”) was to book the entire spa room, which includes a vibrating water massage bed and an acoustical therapy chair in it as well. You can book the room for up to 3 people, so all the services can be used simultaneously.

Now I suspect if you have been through the process of soundproofing your float center, this will set off the same alarm bells for you that it did for me. Vibrating water massage bed? Acoustical therapy chair?! We have enough trouble keeping out the vibrations of passing cars, and here was a giant 2-ton machine designed to fiercely shake itself sitting just feet away from the float tank.

Have you ever been afraid of the dark? Do you know someone who is afraid of the dark?

Floating is a tool that uses darkness to help people find resolutions.

I once had a client (we’ll call him Max) talk about a dreamlike experience he had when floating. Max heard a woman’s voice several times while floating and the voice yelled his name several times. It bothered him because it seemed so real. I explained what he experienced was an auditory hallucination. People often think of hallucinations as visual. However, people can also have auditory or somatic (body) hallucinations. When the mind is not receiving stimuli, it projects stimuli out into the darkness in the form of sound, images, and sensations.

Hallucinations are generally pointing at something going on in the unconscious part of the mind. In a night dream, the characters in the dream are usually not about the people. If someone dreams about their boyfriend, for example, the dream is usually about what the boyfriend represents – not the actual boyfriend. In the case of Max, I pointed out how when one dreams of a woman it sometimes can mean the desire for some feminine part of themselves to be expressed. When I said that, he stared at me stone cold. He said, “How did you know?” I asked him what he was talking about. Then he went on to talk about how he had been wanting to apply to nursing school so he could care for people in hospice centers, but he had been procrastinating it. I said, “Well, it looks like that part of you doesn’t want to be pushed away anymore, don’t you think?” He nodded.