“Bro, what if we lose our minds,” I murmur, standing outside the doorway of a sterile room with a shower and a large white tank tucked into the corner.
“I can’t fucking wait,” Kaka grins from the room next to mine. “I’m ready to transcend.”
We exchange a glance with each other—her eyes wide and eager, mine droopy and worried—and we walk into our separate rooms.
The door closes with a soft click, and the sound of the lock turning echoes in the room.
The sensory deprivation tank, also known as a float tank, is easily three or four times the size of a coffin, and yet it feels entirely too small.
I start stripping before my mind gets the better of me and haul open the metal door by the latch handle. A wave of warm, salty air brushes past me from the 800 pounds of dissolved Epsom salt, the humidity promising mild suffocation, while the science promises relaxation, rest, healing, and maybe transcendence.
I stare into the shallow void, and the shadows that creeps where the overhead light doesn’t reach stares back.
There’s no way I’m getting into that.
My heartbeat climbs into the back of my throat as I glance at the bench and, for a brief moment, considering just vibing in the room for an hour.
Except, I’m already here, already naked, and most importantly, I already paid.
Looking for courage, I dip a hand into the water. It feels slimy but neutral, heated enough to match skin temperature so that it feels like nothing when afloat.
Kaka’s expecting transcendence.
I’m out here discovering I might be mildly claustrophobic.
Fuck it.
With a deep inhale, I step inside. The air is thick. The low ceiling of the tank already feels too small, too close.
The tank door is left open for a long time before I slowly swing it shut, like I’m afraid the thud would awake some sleeping beast. When the door finally closes, darkness doesn’t bloom, it devours, swallowing the sensory of sight.
I clutch the door handle, a whimper lodged in the back of my throat, and a disdain for my cowardice at the tip of my tongue.
The space that felt too small moments ago now feels too vast. And letting go of the last tether in a place where I might become adrift, physically and mentally, feels like crossing a dangerous threshold.
As if one wrong move, and I’ll lose something I didn’t mean to offer.
It’s ridiculous, really. I know I’m in a space no bigger than the span of my arms.
The mind knows. But I don’t think it believes.
Ungracefully, with one foot hooked to the handle, I stretch backward to the far end of the tank. Then, finally, after much bargaining, but mostly from the cramp in my foot, I willingly let go of the sensation of touch and floats.
A victory too small to matter.
Floating in saltwater that matches my body temperature, in silence, in complete darkness feels exactly like insomnia. Except this time, I’m not chasing sleep. And there’s no anxiety about the clock.
With each inhale, I float a little higher, and when the air leaves my lungs, I sink a little lower.
Just as I’m focusing on breath work, wondering if I’m doing it right, the hallucinations from the lack of sensory stimulation begin.
It starts with smoke, wispy light curling in the void, then shifts into a scatter of tiny points, like I’m gazing into the Milky Way.
I blink rapidly. The stars remain.
Eyes open or closed, it’s all the same.
Then the music starts. Not a hallucination. Just a signal: time’s up.
I pop open the tank door too fast, like I’m afraid it might’ve sealed shut while I was in there.
By the time I step out, showered and towel-dried, Kaka’s already waiting, looking like someone told her the universe got canceled.
“I was expecting to see God,” she says, disappointed.
“But all I got was bodily sensations and weird sloshing sounds. I don’t even feel relaxed.”
I laugh. Relief bubbling up at the thought that not only did I not lose my mind, I also didn’t shit myself in the dark.
I’m okay with not meeting God today.
Two hours later, Kaka’s passed out cold on the couch while I’m still standing in her living room.
She looks the most peaceful I’ve ever seen her.
The next morning, she texts me:
I slept like a baby.
And I realize, we’re always waiting for revelation to arrive like a lightning strike.
Waiting for it to arrive boldly, loudly, with all its divine glory.
As if once we’ve been struck, we shall never again be the same.
But most of the time, revelations slips in unnoticed.
In a room I almost didn’t walk into.
In a tank where I wasn’t sure I could shut.
In the nothingness I thought would break me, but instead, held me.
Maybe peace isn’t found in the profound.
Instead, it’s found in choosing to stay, to do, to try, when my instinct is to run, hide, or disappear.
It’s found in the strength to sustain, when I want to to self-destruct.
Maybe God doesn’t show up in visions, but in silence.
In the gentle loosening of something clenched too long.
Kaka met God.
She just didn’t recognize her.
And me?
I wasn’t looking, but maybe, in the quiet, in the dark, in the small courage of letting go.
I brushed past her, too.
Kate LSY 
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