There are many areas of endeavor in floatation tanks. Let’s work through them:
Academic research
The first area of float tank endeavor was research. In fact John Lilly (and Jay Shurley?) developed the isolation tank as a way to research the effects of reducing input to the brain. The two key ideas in academic research are TRANSPARENCY and REPRODUCIBILITY. And they go hand-in-hand.
A person doing research with float tanks has to be completely transparent about his methodology and equipment used so that others can reproduce his experimental setup.
Academic research is transparent and reproducible so that the researches can learn and share new things. One of the current leaders in scientific float tank research is Justin Feinstein.
Commercial tank manufacturers
At the complete opposite end of the floatosphere are the commercial tank developers. The two key ideas here are SECRECY and COMPETITION.
A commercial tank developer works hard to learn and hide new things from his competition while a reseacher works hard to learn and share new things.
The unfortunate fallout from commercial tank developers (e.g. the float tank industry) is many-fold:
- Because academic research must be reproducible, a proprietary tank adds question marks to the experimental process. E.g: what model of that tank did you buy? What temperature sensor does it use? How accurate is that sensor? How well does this device restrict environmental stimulus? Is that model still being produced. Is the company still in business?
- Their secrets go with them when they die or go out of business – just look at all the genius lost when Crash Hoefler died. Look at all the lost souls who bought a Zen Float tent or Escape Pod (and other companies) and are wondering how to replace parts of it. There are many more accounts of innocent customers being left high and dry by a company.
- The gravest effect of commercial tank manufacture is the potentially lethal results of a naive person attempting to build a tank for themselves. Because tank manufacturing best practices are a guarded trade secret, information on quality and safety is not freely shared and available. In a recent reddit thread on GFCI, a non-commercial float tank developer learned numerous things about electricity that might’ve killed him or others.
Beyond the stated drawbacks of commercial tank manufacture, one must admit that some commercial tank developers produce beautiful high-quality professional-grade products that are used by many other professionals. For instance one of the greatest tennis professionals of all time, Novak Djokovic, is seen here with the Superior Float Tank that he carries with him on tour in an RV. As amazing as this may seem, there are numerous other equally impressive placements of their tanks shown on their Facebook page.

There are countless other striking examples of craftsmanship within the commercial tank manufacturer part of the floatosphere. Aquarmony is another standout, with their pyramid tank.

DIY Float Tank Builders

This article started by discussing academic research and its open transparency. It continued with the converse of academia that exists in commercial tank construction. We now return to DIY float tank builders. In general this movement has the same spirit of sharing and experimentation as academia.
The key thing about DIY tank builders is self-empowerment. Because they built the entire tank, they can fix any part of it.
Another advantage of DIY tanks is that they are very simple. As a DIY tank builder, the amount of electronics in some high-end commercial tanks is frightening. And every time I see a post like this, I become even more determined to manage all parts the tanks I use:

The downside to DIY tanks is they tend to be less polished in function and looks. But this is just a tendency. But this is just a general statement. Bryan Klein builds float tanks as a hobby. But is also the CEO of Klein Millworks and hence has expert-level carpentry skills. And his expertise shows in his DIY builds.
Floatation tank centers
A floatation tank center is typically a for-profit corporation that offers float time in exchange for money. For a fee much cheaper in terms of space, time and effort, a person can go to a float center and hop in a tank to see what they are like.
The downside to such a center is that you could be having the most epic experience of your life only to have it cut short because your time is up. I know of personal cases where people came to my apartment and had withdrawn so far from the physical universe that knocking on the door of the tank did not bring them back: we literally had to touch her shoulder to get her attention.
But let’s face it: all you did was pay $80 bucks or so and the person running the center has put up thousands of dollars in construction, leasing, insurance, etc.
Home float Centers
Home floaters sometimes just float for themselves or maybe rent out a few sessions per month. The advantage of a home float center is that you don’t have to worry about who is leasing commercial office space next to you. I will never forget reading about a new float center owner who said a crossfit gym was opening in the next office space.
Religious and Spiritual Inquiry
As this talk demonstrates, a device which puts you into pure awareness has its place in religion and spirituality.
However, it is astonishing that floatation has not gained much larger traction in the religio-spiritual space: to provide such easy access to altered states and yet receive so little attention in new age publications is quite odd.
That being said, most such inquiry takes place is a decentralized, isolated fashion. Also, unlike organized spirituality and religion, there are no recognized levels of achievement. For instance, in Buddhism, one might have a certain ranking based on how many koans you have solved and eventually you might earn the title of Zen Master. A striking example of having to certify spiritual attainment at multiple levels occurs in Kwan Um Zen Buddhism, where one must pass through 5 levels of attainment before becoming a Zen Master!
As far as I’m aware there are only a few religio-spiritual movements in the floatosphere:
- Altenate Waking States Induction Method by Richard Bonk
- Isolation Tank Gnosis
- Discourse on the phenomenal experience of the floatation tank.
Float Therapy
Float therapy is a way of using the tank for mental and physical benefit. Elysian Float Spa summarized this attitude towards float tanks quite well.
In my opinion, this is an effort to look at floatation the way one would look a massage therapy. It’s also a rather paradoxical term because the therapist and the patient are the same person unlike in massage therapy!
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