Benefits of having an intercom in float tank – DSP 70

There’s a lot of debate about intercom systems within float tanks. For some, it seems like a natural progression for the design, and for others it can feel like something that potentially negatively impacts a float.

On the one hand, Intercom systems have a lot of utility (especially in the CYA sense). Inversely, it does seem like something that can easily be abused by customers.

Ashkahn and Graham hash out the pros and cons to these systems and exactly how they feel about them in this episode.

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: And today’s question is … today’s a two word question which is, “Intercom system?”

Ashkahn: Intercom system, question mark. Okay.

Graham: So what do you think about that? So we-

Ashkahn: Intercom system. It’s a really tricky one.

Graham: And we’re very … we have kind of our own Float On opinion on intercom systems, so we’ll try to give a balanced, fair and balanced view of both sides of this.

Ashkahn: And our opinion is that it’s tricky. So here’s the problem. There is some part of you that’s like, “Man, if something were to happen while somebody was in one of these float tanks …”

Graham: …It’d be really nice to have a color video camera up there, just watching them while they’re floating so you can tell what’s going on.

Ashkahn: Well, I mean you’re literally putting people inside of a box inside of soundproof room.

Graham: Yep. With lots of water.

Ashkahn: With lots of water and in a strange environment, naked. You know there’s all sorts of reasons why you’re like, “Hey, you know if they … if something … if they were far in the backside of your float center and they’re screaming or something, you wouldn’t really be able to hear them.” So having some sort of intercom where they could, in some sort of an emergency be able to communicate would be nice. You know there’s a certain kind of like ease that it brings to know that a system like that exists, but then it kind of comes with this baggage, right? I would say there’s almost two categories of the baggage that comes with it. One is that I’ve heard sometimes when people have these intercoms installed that people start using them for very petty reasons.

Graham: Mm-hmm.

Ashkahn: Just like intercomming happening like, “Hey uh… what time is it?” And it’s like, “No idea, literally in a isolation tank dude. Maybe you should stay isolated.” So like there’s something nice about not providing people with that kind of easy escape. And the other thing goes back to this idea of these things being panic buttons, right? And-

Graham: Oh you’re going there. I thought you were going a different way with your second point.

Ashkahn: Okay, so there’s three categories.

Graham: Yeah, three. Well we’ll get to the third one after that, yeah.

Ashkahn: So the third one-

Graham: Yeah go to the panic button one.

Ashkahn: All right, all right. So let’s talk about panic buttons. So this actually goes back to early days of REST research, right? So some of the earliest research … this is before they even had float tanks … they just in a room. Chamber REST is what they called it. Big, dark room that have people in there for long times. 24 hours at a time, in a completely dark, quiet room, and Peter Suedfeld was talking about as well he was at university, that they were doing these studies and they were putting these people into these environments and in the room there’d be a big panic button and they would tell people at the beginning of their time in there that like, “Hey, if anything goes wrong, if you freak out, if you panic, if you … you know there’s a button right here, you can push it. There’s going to be someone monitoring it. They’ll run in, they’ll help you.” It was kind of this big emergency pull-cord, and people could only last a few hours in there. You know they were hitting the button, they were panicking and Peter Suedfeld went and tried a different approach.

So before people started this experiment, he would take them into the room and show them everything-

Graham: Yeah before they wouldn’t even do that. In order to keep this neutrality of experience, they wouldn’t even show them the room. So you go in there blindfolded, everything’s eliminated, all you knew they could put your hand on the panic button, like, “Here’s the panic button,” but you’d never seen anything, so it’s really a bizarre experience.

Ashkahn: So yeah, he would instead take them in, he’d show them everything in the light. He’d show them what was in the room, all that sort of stuff, and he also just got rid of the panic button, and basically changed the way that they were primed for the experience, you know? Instead of this big focus on, if something goes wrong, like we’re totally ready to handle it, it was much more of a like, okay everything’s fine, this is going to be great, and he found that people would stay in there for much longer and make it 24 hours and have much better positive experiences. There’s something to be said about that, you know, the way that you influence people’s perceptions as they go into what is an environment that has very little else to color their thoughts after they get in there. Things like that can have a big impact and sending someone into a float tank and saying, “Here’s an intercom in case anything goes wrong,” or, “Here’s a panic button,” is-

Graham: Right, don’t call your intercom a “panic button” I guess is the first lesson here.

Ashkahn: Yeah, and you know I think if you do have one, you should put a lot of thought into how you present it, you know? Say like, “Here’s an intercom if you need to communicate with us,” or phrase it in a way that doesn’t sound like it’s there in case, you know. In the very normal, one out of 10 case that someone has an issue in there and they need to get out immediately. So that’s definitely one of the more sensitive things I think that needs to be considered with that.

Graham: Right, it’s kind of like anything. If you have something in the basket of your room, just for amenities, people are going to wonder if they should use that and how they should use that item that’s in the basket, right? If you have-

Ashkahn: Yeah, if there’s bear mace in there-

Graham: Right. “Oh, I wonder what the bear mace is for?” It’s the same thing with an alert button, or a staff alert button, or an intercom, or a panic button, right? If you have that in there there’s some part of your brain very naturally that says, “Oh, well when am I going to use this? What’s the situation that I’m going to use this in?” Then they start to think about situations where they might want to call out, and there’s this whole, like Ashkahn said, priming effect that might happen for that. So that’s number two.

Ashkahn: Okay. So what’s number three?

Graham: I think it’s just weird in this environment that you’re going in there to get away from, in a lot of people’s cases, technology and connection to the outside world, to have a technological connection to the outside world right there in the tank, right? That’s what an intercom is, is you know have the ability to communicate with someone outside and I personally, whenever I float in tanks that have intercoms and I oftentimes know the center owners. I don’t feel weird about it. I’m not like singing in the float tanks, but I still feel sometimes like maybe there’s someone just listening in.

Ashkahn: Listening to you in there. Yeah.

Graham: Listening to my float and it’s a hard thing to get rid of. Like all of a sudden this-

Ashkahn: I’ve had that experience too.

Graham: … this environment that I’m used to really, truly feeling disconnected from everything except myself – and the unit I guess around me. I actually don’t feel that anymore. I feel like I can actually mentally take in that connection with the outside world and it affects my experience on the inside. So that’s what I was going to say for the third point. I definitely felt a little weird about that.

Ashkahn: No, I’ve definitely felt that. Yeah. Strange, weird. It’s a shockingly weird thing to try to put out of your mind while you’re in there.

Graham: So other things in the pro category for intercoms. I honestly see both sides. At Float On, we’ve sided on not having intercoms, not having staff alert buttons on the inside for a lot of what we’ve said. Another pro, sometimes you legally have to.

Ashkahn: Yep. Yeah.

Graham: Yeah. Sometimes you’re required to have them, and it’d often be your health department that will be the ones who are requiring that and we’ve definitely seen that before. Oftentimes it’s an intercom as opposed to just a button. They actually want that ability to verbally communicate both ways. So you’ll see requirements for that, and there is something nice to it. There really is. If someone if having something like panic attack or something like that and they need something. If their light is malfunctioning, or if you’re in a tank that actually does have hydraulic lifts and it’s not lifting up, or something’s going wrong with the door mechanism, something like a button to communicate can be really useful.

Ashkahn: Or we’ve had a senior citizen who can get into the float tank fine, but after floating for that period of time and having the gravity off their body, will not have the easiest time getting out of the float tank.

Graham: Yep. So, there have been … Yeah, I guess there have been situations where I totally understand what the benefit of having it in there is.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: So again, this is a very tricky one to know exactly what to do and where to side on kind of emergency precautions versus your daily float experiences that you’re throwing a lot of your regular floaters through.

Ashkahn: Right. Yeah. It’s a tricky one. It’s a tricky one.

Graham: So keep sending us those tricky questions. Did you have anything else to say on that?

Ashkahn: No that’s it. I mean nothing more than that I don’t feel very concrete in a certain set opinion about it. Like I don’t feel strongly one way or another because it just seems like there’s big things to consider on both sides.

Graham: Yep. Yeah, yeah absolutely. I would agree with that. All right, so if you have any other crazy questions that you want to send our way, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast. Type them in there, dictate by speech, and we’ll answer them.

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