Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
There is somebody, somewhere, that has floated for the longest period of time on the planet. And given how recent the popularity of floating is, it’s likely that the person who floated the longest is alive and that Graham and Ashkahn have met them.
The guys share one of their favorite stories from floaters at Float On, which involves the longest float they’ve ever run. Are you listening Guinness? We’re making history!
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: And we have a question for you today. I mean, you have a question for us. It is, “what’s the longest time anyone has floated in a tank without getting out, to your knowledge?”
Ashkahn: Without getting out? How do you answer that? I mean they’re in a room by themselves, it’s really hard to know if they’re getting in and out.
Graham: First of all, there’s no Guinness World Record for this.
Ashkahn: Yet.
Graham: Yeah, yet. Wait, were we planning on setting it?
Ashkahn: Yeah, I haven’t told you yet, but-
Graham: Good. So, none yet. How do you monitor whether or not people have gotten out.
Ashkahn: Yeah. I mean there’s the camera feeds.
Graham: Are there hidden cameras in the room? Here’s a stupid tangent. That was a question that one of our customers asked me at one point, was how could we verify that our employees weren’t hiding hidden cameras in the float rooms? When my answer wasn’t to his satisfaction, he refused to come in to float.That was the single most paranoid person I’ve ever talked to. Anyway, he obviously knew about the cameras.
Ashkahn: Yeah, he was right. Paranoid, but right.
Graham: So we know people who have floated with us, who haven’t come out of the rooms, we know that.
Ashkahn: Here’s our record. Someone floated, someone did a 24 hour float with us. Yeah, which is awesome. I mean, he definitely got out of the tank at some point, probably a few times. I mean, we heard the shower turn on a few times over the course of it, and he had to pee at some point. I think it’s pretty hard, unless you’re seriously dehydrated to go that long without having to pee.
Graham: Mm-hmm.
Ashkahn: He never came out of the room, and he took snacks into the room with him in case he needed them, and he said he just didn’t need them. He didn’t get hungry the entire 24 hours.
Graham: He got out, and what he said was he could have stayed in for another 24 hours.
Ashkahn: He got out because we played the music. His float was done, and we had another customer coming in. It was like, “All right, buddy. Time’s up.”
Graham: We know of many things that are a little bit shorter than that, of 12 and 13 hour floats, and even 18 hours, and things like that, but that’s the longest one that I personally know of. I actually haven’t even heard stories from other float tank centers of any longer floats, either by the owners or them. So definitely, feel free to write us in and correct us. We’ll do a whole other episode correcting the longest length of float.
Ashkahn: See, I don’t know in terms of specifically not getting out of the float tank. That’s a really hard thing to answer.
Graham: Yeah, thanks, audience.
Ashkahn: Yeah, jeez.
Graham: Anything else? I guess we could tell the full story.
Ashkahn: So yeah, it was funny. This guy came in, this was some years ago. I was working the shop, it was kind of later in the evening, and this dude comes in, just like walking with a staff in his hand and comes up to the front desk and goes, “I was wondering if I could book a 24 hour float.” I was standing there like, “Absolutely. Boy, have you come to the right place.” So we found a day, and I think I totaled up what all the floats would be, and gave him 60% off or something. I just gave him a really good deal for floating that entire time.
Graham: Which you should totally do if people come in with insane proposals at your float center.
Ashkahn: Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Graham: Absolutely encourage people to float as long as possible.
Ashkahn: So what I found out was his plan was to walk from Portland to the Oregon coast, which is maybe like a two hour drive, right? So, huge walk, and he wanted to do the entire thing without sleeping, in one go.
Graham: So just obviously a very intense dude.
Ashkahn: Yeah, this guy was really into doing things to the extreme. So he told me afterwards that he made it, I think it was 36 hours of walking before he just actually had to pitch a tent on the side of the road and sleep for a minute, and then got back up, continued walking to the coast, to this little shipwreck site that he knew about out there, and then immediately took a bus back to our float center and hopped in for a 24 hour float.
Graham: He got out and said he could have done 24 more hours. There’s the full story. So, if you have any other difficult questions for us, that we might not know the full answer to, feel free to send them our way. Go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and email them over.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Monthly Budget for Float Centers – DSP 305
Graham and Ashkahn break down the real truth about how closely they watch their budget for Float On on a monthly basis.
The truth is… not much. As it turns out, monthly expenses for float centers don’t have huge variations unlike businesses that rely on retail, for example. Graham and Ashkahn explain they developed a sense for what’s within reason.
How to Sign on Float Ambassadors – DSP 304
Float Ambassadors have been with the industry since the beginning, but gained popularity sometime in the last few years. What are ambassadors and how to float centers find them? When they do find them, how do they get them to represent floating?
Graham and Ashkahn share their experiences with the practice of finding float mavens out in the world and the impact they’ve had on Float On.
How do you Talk about Psychedelics? – DSP 303
It’s no secret that the inventor of the float tank, John Lilly, was also an early psychonaut and used the tank for mental exploration in conjunction with LSD. Not everyone in the float community appreciates this shared history and some actively try to distance themselves from it given the taboo nature of psychedelics.
Graham and Ashkahn share their thoughts on psychedelics and floating and how, as a business, they can be completely separated while still being important, as well as explaining why some people might reasonably decide to disassociate from them.
What About 75 Minute Floats? – DSP 302
Most float centers divide on floats offered between 60 or 90 minute floats, but some split the difference right down the middle and offer 75 minutes. Graham and Ashkahn share their thoughts on this tactic, what they see as the pros, cons, and things to consider when implementing it.
Free Floats for Teachers – DSP 301
Graham and Ashkahn give their perspective on the pros and cons of giving free floats away for teachers. Giving out free floats is the Float On way and giving them to a specific group of people who could really use them sounds like a good idea.
The guys break it down and address some of the concerns any float center may have about running a program like this.
Latest Blog Posts
The Basics of Float Tank Sanitation
Some of the most common questions you’ll get as a float center operator involve the cleanliness of the tanks. This post will be an introduction to some of the most commonplace sanitation methods used in float tanks. These are generally either chemicals that go in the water or devices that attach to your filtration system. We’ll be discussing chlorine, bromine, ozone, UV, and hydrogen peroxide, which accounts for the sanitation methods used on nearly every float tank on the market.
Testing and Maintaining Float Tank Water Quality
Editors Note: This is a revision of a past blog post, updated to reflect the most current sanitation methods and standards
In a perfect world, you could just pour water and salt into a float tank and it would stay pure and clean and fresh and salty forever. In the real world, conditions in the water are constantly changing, so keeping your water safe and clean takes a fair amount of vigilance.
This post covers how we maintain basic water quality in the float tank, except for sanitization methods, which will be covered in their own beastly sanitation blog post. Stay tuned for that coming out next week!
Floating, mental health, and wellness
This post will explore the intersection of floating with the concepts, beliefs, and experiences related to mental health and wellness, with a focus on anxiety and depression. I’ll explore my own story as it relates to floating before diving into the current intersections of floating and mental health, with a look at past, current, and potential opportunities for research and personal growth.
Massage, Acupuncture, and Float Tanks… A Chat with Sandra Calm
We’ve seen lots of float centers that aren’t just float centers.
Many have massage, some offer counseling, some have yoga classes next door. Lots of people start out either by incorporating float tanks into a larger business, or with float tanks only being one of many modalities at their center. Being specialists in floating, Float On has not mastered anything else.
So, to help gain insight into this growing aspect of the industry, we contacted our old friend, Sandra Calm. She started up The Float Shoppe here in Portland with her husband and podcast sensation, Dylan Calm, back in 2011. When they first opened, they had just two float tanks, and slowly added acupuncture, massage, counseling, along with two more tanks. Talk about expansion!
She was more than happy to take some time for the industry to help us understand just what it’s like to run a center with multiple services by answering some questions.
