HAMILTON MORRIS: As I consume my last sip of water, I
prepare for a long and grueling excursion into the
terra incognita of the human mind.
First I lose awareness of my limbs.
Then my body, and suddenly I am reduced to nothing more
than a kernel of pure awareness
floating in the cosmos.
I emerged from the tank to find five hours had passed.
Night had fallen, and I felt a pervasive inner calm as I
breathed in the cool ocean air.
My float in Crash's tank raised more questions than it
answered, and I knew that I could only come to understand
the tank by traveling to the floatation capital of the
United States, Boulder, Colorado.
Hello?
Hey, what's going on?
We just arrived at the hotel, and we were about to drive
over, actually Is now a good time to come by?
I definitely want to either tonight or tomorrow,
potentially both.
Do at least one long session.
OK.
All right, so I guess we'll drive over right now, and I'll
see you in a minute.
Sounds great.
No rush.
I'll be here.
BEN GLEASON: OK, cool.
Bye.
HAMILTON MORRIS: That was Ben, the tank master.
And we're going to check out his tank and see what's going
on at Isolate Floatation Center.
After hearing me on Joe Rogan's podcast, Ben suggested
I travel to Boulder to have a taste of his newly constructed
Samadhi Tank.
People have died in modified tanks.
There was a notable psychonaut named D.M. Turner who drowned
in a bathtub that he was trying to use as a sensory
deprivation tank while giving himself intra-muscular
injections of ketamine.
But that's not what we're doing today.
As I approached Isolate Floatation Center, I felt an
unmistakable tingling in my pineal antenna.
BEN: So, yeah, this is the tank.
That's probably not that cool looking
compared to Crash's tanks.
HAMILTON MORRIS: And so it just comes as just a giant
thing you--
BEN GLEASON: So it comes in these, like, sections, right?
This is a section, this is a section, this is a section,
this is a section, this is the section.
There's a heater underneath that heats the water, and
there's a heater in the filtering system that also
heats the water.
But then there's a heater in the top that heats the air.
HAMILTON MORRIS: And you were saying that you only change
the water once a month?
BEN GLEASON: We change it once every, like, four months.
The filtering system's super cleaner.
Yeah, so it prevents anything from growing in there.
It gets filtered for at least 15 minutes between people.
It gets filtered all night long.
So it's still super clean.
HAMILTON MORRIS: But you'd still discourage people from
peeing in the tank?
BEN GLEASON: Yes, please don't do that.
That's an $800 mistake.
HAMILTON MORRIS: Really?
They--
BEN GLEASON: Yeah. $800 Epsom salt in there.
HAMILTON MORRIS: Oh, of course.
Of course.
That's how much the Epsom salt costs?
BEN GLEASON: Yeah.
HAMILTON MORRIS: It was then that Ben and I decided to sit
down for a communication interface.
Where did the tank begin?
BEN GLEASON: For me?
HAMILTON MORRIS: Yes.
BEN GLEASON: So I was listening to Joe Rogen's
podcast, and it really, just, the way that he was putting
things across kind of made me start to rethink things.
And I was like, OK, I've got to go try this isolation tank.
The way he's talking about this, it's just,
it sounds too cool.
I've got to go try it.
So I was like, super miserable at this point in my life.
I'd been depressed for all of my life, basically.
I was 300 lbs, smoked a bunch of cigarettes, ate
lots of fast food.
Mostly fast food.
So I went down to a New Spirit in Denver, and
I had a great time.
The first float was kind of like, strange.
Like, what was your first float kind of like?
Awkward?
HAMILTON MORRIS: No.
BEN GLEASON: Oh, that's cool.
I mean, for me it was like, 50 minutes of being like, bah.
I was also really stoned, but I was like, just kind of like,
looking around in there, and like, blah, what's going on?
This is weird.
And the last, like, 10 minutes, I saw this big red
beam of light.
And it was playing like, the craziest music I'd ever heard.
And I'm like, about to leave my body and travel off into
this red beam of light, and they come knock on the door.
I'm like, no, no.
I need to go into this red beam of light.
Something about sensory deprivation really makes you
appreciate sensory input, as well.
I feel like I personally took for granted a lot of things
about just, like, actually being alive and being
a human, you know?
So I started eating really well, eating organically.
I started exercising, doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
And this all happened, the main moment of my deciding I
was going to change shit happened like a week after my
first isolation tank experience.
So I definitely think that it's been beneficial in my own
transformation.
So I'm looking online, I'm like, there's no isolation
tank centers in Boulder?
What?
That's like the perfect place for it.
And then we found this place in March of 2012.
HAMILTON MORRIS: So this is all recent.
I didn't know this.
BEN GLEASON: Very recent, yeah, yeah.
The other float center opened two months before we did.
HAMILTON MORRIS: Which--
BEN GLEASON: The Cloud Nine.
HAMILTON MORRIS: Cloud Nine.
BEN GLEASON: Cloud Nine, yeah.
They opened in March of 2012.
HAMILTON MORRIS: Oh, OK.
BEN GLEASON: Yeah, it's very recent.
HAMILTON MORRIS: So there's some competish.
Word on the street was that there was a new tank player in
town, a flotation center called Cloud Nine.
With three tanks, Cloud Nine made it clear they would
accept nothing less than total domination of the
Boulder tank market.
-Over here we have just the float tanks.
It's an open tank, for people that have any issues with
claustrophobia, or anything like that.
So it doesn't have, actually-
HAMILTON MORRIS: At first, I was insulted that they would
waste my time with an open faced tank.
So it's just like a tub?
-Yeah, it's just like a tub.
HAMILTON MORRIS: But then I was relieved to find myself in
the company of a Floataway Tranquility, arguably the most
sophisticated flotation tank yet designed.
Oh, wow.
It's a futuristic looking tank.
-Yeah, definitely.
HAMILTON MORRIS: With hydraulic re-dock sensor, UV
filter and an auto dosing reservoir, many flotationists
consider it the Rolls Royce of sensory deprivation tanks.
It's pretty impressive.
And how do you think this compares to the Samadhi?
-To the Samadhi?
-When you're in the tank, and the lights are off and the
door is closed, it's all the same.
-Yeah.
-It really is.
BRANDON: No.
HAMILTON MORRIS: Is that really the case?
BRANDON: Every tank is different.
Every tank that I've ever been in has been different.
HAMILTON MORRIS: There was one voice of dissent in the
floatation community, a tank guru named Brandon.
BRANDON: I've floated in Samadhi, I've floated in
Floatarium, I've floated in that one at Cloud Nine.
I've floated at the ones that they have down at the New
Spirit Wellness Center.
Every single tank is completely different.
HAMILTON MORRIS: How many hours would you say you've
spent in the tank?
BRANDON: Like, number of hours?
Uh--