| I find it
essential to be able to relax completely irrespective of
anything that is going on in the environment at certain
times. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with
an idea that I want to work out, so rather than disturb my
wife, I float in the tank and work out the idea at great
length and in the detail. I am then able to put it down on
paper or to dictate it in the morning.
For a
businessperson, a scientist, a professional of any sort,
this is a boon: to be able to think, free of physical
fatigue of the body. The methods allows one to become free
within a few minutes.
In
certain cases the gravitational-field-countergravity forces
in the body cause pain because of arthritis, broken bones,
or some sort of disease. The tank is specifically beneficial
to these people in that it relieves these pains in a way
that nothing else can.
The tank
is an asset to anyone who leads a very busy life. It allows
one to attain rest faster than one can in a bed in a
darkened room. It allows one to experiment with states that
one could not otherwise experiment with safely: states of
being, states of consciousness. For example, one can ask the
question: "If I am fatigued from a long day's work, what can
the tank do for me?"
Floating
in the tank after a busy day's work brings a great relief.
Suddenly all of the stimulation of holding one upright
against gravity disappears. One realizes that a good deal of
the fatigue accumulated during the day is caused by keeping
one's body uupright in a gravitatoinal field. From a
neurophysiological standpoint, one has immediately freed up
very large masses of neurons from the necessity of constant
computations (as to the direction of gravity, the
programming by visual and acoustic inputs, by temperature
changes, etcetera). For example, one's cerebellum is now
freed for uses other than balancing the body.
In
summary, then, the tank experience is a very refreshing one,
a resting one. If one wants to push further than this, one
can do so to the limits of one's mental discipline and to
the limits of one's imagination.
Dr. John
C. Lilly "The Deep Self"
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