Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
While they haven’t tried it themselves, Ashkahn and Graham liberally distribute their opinions on the use of VR in float tanks and what they think might be better, using it before, after, or during a float.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Alright, hello everybody. Graham over here.
Ashkahn: Ashkahn and question. This is an efficient episode.
Graham: You mean you’re Ashkahn and you’re a question.
Ashkahn: No, I just thought I’d fill in the blank. You know the context will provide the rest of the words for people’s brains.
Graham: What?
Ashkahn: Question.
Graham: So today’s question is, “thoughts on VR in float tanks. If we’re not doing in-tank VR, would you suggest a VR session before or after tank?”
Ashkahn: Thoughts on VR and float tank.
Graham: Yeah, I’ve had thoughts. I think it would be really hard.
Ashkahn: I mean people have done it.
Graham: Yeah, it’s just so salty.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I mean that’s all the obvious stuff right, like electronics and salt water.
Graham: Yeah, so you should know that float tanks are really wet and salty and people have trouble even –
Ashkahn: But people have done it. People have gotten in there and managed to not destroy their equipment.
Graham: We think.
Ashkahn: I mean people have actively told us that they’ve done it successfully.
Graham: Yeah, for the first time you know. How long are they gonna be able to run the sessions and their equipment stays active.
Ashkahn: Yeah I mean the main thing I heard about it was that it’s, I mean it’s just a lot to have on your head. You know it’s kind of heavy and a little uncomfortable and especially when you’re kind of lying down like that in place where all other stimuli are removed from your body. I think that to me sounds like it would be pretty noticeable and I don’t know, like what do people do in-
Graham: First of all I’ve never done VR in a float tank.
Ashkahn: No I haven’t either.
Graham: Nor, I guess have I done VR immediately before or after a float tank session but I’ve done VR sessions and I’ve floated a couple of times, so I’m familiar with that.
Ashkahn: It’s interesting to me because the best VR experiences I’ve personally had are ones where your movements are somehow reflected in the virtual reality that you’re seeing. Like you’re in VR but you’re able to do something with your body that it mirrors what you’re seeing in your head set, and so I feel like the float tank, I mean like what would you be doing in VR that would make your body move? So you’re like lying in bed?
Graham: Yeah like lay down rollercoaster. To me it has to be … it would have to be a guided VR tour. Right-
Ashkahn: Like looking in space or-
Graham: As opposed to the ones … I mean I personally think the most effective VR that I’ve done are things where it’s a big space and they’ve kind of mapped that space, like a big warehouse that has boxes or whatever and they’ve kind of mapped a VR world on top of a pre-existing space that you get to wonder through. It feels really satisfying.
Ashkahn: And you can’t really turn your head that much or you’re gonna-
Graham: You have 180 degrees, yeah.
Ashkahn: You’re gonna dip the thing in the float tank.
Graham: Yeah so again it has to be kind of like a guided VR session in my mind. Like it has to be leading you somewhere or you just have a view of something and you want to be experiencing that specifically. Just instead of staring into darkness.
Ashkahn: Or it’s just black. Like where you’re seeing in the VR is darkness and that way you don’t have to do any light proofing in your float center, like you just put the VR glasses on people.
Graham: Yep onto float tank setting. You actually have to record some time inside the float tank to really get that darkness just right.
Ashkahn: Yeah a little flashy bits of light and stuff like that.
Graham: So yeah what about VR before or after a float session. Let’s talk about that.
Ashkahn: I feel like we sound like a bunch of old coots right now. There’s probably someone out there who’s done really cool stuff with VR and we’re like, “I don’t know about that, putting the headset on your head and you hit the salt water.”
Graham: If you’re experienced with actual VR inside the float tank, and you’ve done like a dozen sessions or something like that, let us know what you’re getting out of it. Let us know how these new fangled headsets are working out for you.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I don’t understand these things. It sounds like an immediately appealing idea because you’re like, okay virtual reality in an environment where you’ve removed as much of actual reality off of you as possible, right. They sound like they’d really pair together but just in the VR I’ve done, I don’t know. In my experience it’s not like the setting I would think would lead to the coolest VR experiences I’ve had personally but I don’t know. We probably just are really out of touch, you know that’s what’s going on.
Graham: Anyway, write us if you’ve done it. Let us know how wrong we got it. So I do have opinions though on before and after-
Ashkahn: Alright, let’s hear them.
Graham: So I think that depending on what you’re using VR for that doing it before a float can actually be a really cool experience. This is again speaking from a place of no experience on my part, I’ve not done this.
Ashkahn: That’s most of our podcast episodes.
Graham: But there is a pretty large body of evidence out there for float tanks that material you absorb right, before going into a float tank, or activities that you do even just taking time to visualize things inside a float tank for yourself. You know taking a basketball shot or whatever, can have an impact on your skills outside of the float tank and definitely on your float and the content of it.
Ashkahn: Sure, you know I hadn’t really thought about that in the context of in the float tank too. Like just thinking about it in terms of a way of watching media of some sorts because there’s those old things about watching yourself, watching something in a float tank and visualizing yourself doing it and you have neurons going and something. So you could do like a really point of view, like doing basketball free throws or something like that while you’re in there and just really imagine yourself doing it.
Graham: Preferably it would be someone laying on bed doing basketball free throws, so it mimics your kind of a horizontal situation you know. But you know, could be useful outside the float tank too I think, but yeah doing kind of anything beforehand I think can really affect what you get out of a float just because that’s what’s on your mind, that’s what you’ve just done.
So to me especially as a educational kind of tool, I think VR before going in a float tank just kind of sets your brain in that space.
Ashkahn: Or just for relaxation. You know there’s a lot of different methods of people doing things to kind of chill out before you get into a float and sink into it a little bit easier and I’m sure there’s like very meditative VR experiences and things like that out there.
Graham: Yeah and then I mean even going on like a like being out where there’s colors at all, it’s exciting after being in a float tank. I just think VR afterwards also sounds just kind of, I mean all of a sudden you’re like you have senses of a completely different world. It sounds just like a cool experience but that’s not unique to VR. That’s just floating making other things cool.
Ashkahn: It sounds like an especially cool thing to do after you float. My prize goes to that one of before, during after, I feel like I would have the most fun floating and then like going into VR directly afterwards.
Graham: So there you have it.
Ashkahn: Those are our thoughts.
Graham: Uncensored, unedited thoughts on VR in floating and-
Ashkahn: If we catch you on our lawn again, we’re-
Graham: You darn youngins. Alright if you got your own questions about stuff that we don’t know, go down to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Ashkahn: Type them in with your little fingers.
Graham: Your young little fingers and we’ll answer them here in the studio with our geriatric walkers.
Ashkahn: Okay, talk to you guys later.
Graham: Bye.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Future Proofing Float Tanks – DSP 229
Float Tanks are expensive. Purchasing tanks can easily end up being half of your opening costs when starting out, so it makes sense to want to purchase tanks that have a long lifespan.
Thinking about which float tank manufacturers might last the longest, though, is probably not the way to think about this issue. For one, it’s impossible to tell what manufacturer is going to be around the longest. What’s more, if anything does break, the vast majority of the time you don’t need to go to the manufacturer to get it fixed in the first place.
Ashkahn and Graham share their thoughts on proper float tank care and the steps any float center owner should take when considering a tank.
How to Run Experiments with Floaters – DSP 228
It’s important to acknowledge that float center owners without a scientific background probably shouldn’t be running experiments on floaters willy nilly. It should also be noted that Graham and Ashkahn aren’t scientists, despite being huge fans of self-experimentation.
There has been a lot of talk recently, however, of float centers collaborating with student researchers to help run experiments, though. Graham and Ashkahn discuss (with a fair amount of levity) what it might take to properly run experiments in a float tank, which they understand is no easy task.
What are Good Plants to Have in a Float Center? – DSP 227
Plants give life, both aesthetically and literally, to any room they’re placed in. The environment inside a float center, however, can be the absolute worst place for certain plants, even ones that would normally be considered fine for your local area.
Graham and Ashkahn pull in Jordan to talk about different plants that thrive in a humid float center environment and some tips on how to take care of them.
Getting Salty With Speakers: Roy Vore – DSP 226
With the Float Conference coming up, Graham and Ashkahn are talking with lots of really smart people who will be presenting this year. It’s not every day that they get to ask molecular biologists questions about float tank sanitation, so they decided to take the opportunity to ask the experts the questions that the industry needs answers to.
Today Roy Vore is taking time to share some of his knowledge about microbiology and water sanitation, along with his work in the pool and spa industry.
How Often Does Float On Party? – DSP 225
Ashkahn and Graham have developed a bit of a reputation over the years within the industry as party animals. Anyone who has met them can confirm this to be true. But how often to the throw parties at Float On? What are good occasions for float center parties and how do you throw one?
The guys share their party philosophy and offer some nice tips and tricks for throwing a sensory deprivation shindig.
Latest Blog Posts
Choosing a Water Heater for Your Center
You may not be surprised to hear that a Float Center is a business which has a hefty water requirement. You may, however, be surprised to hear that the majority of the water demand you’ll be facing day-to-day is going to be in the form of showers and (if you’re doing any laundry on-site) a washing machine.
The factors of energy usage and cost over time should also be taken into consideration when deciding upon your water heater…
Float Fund – NSF Magnesium Sulfate Test Results
I’m happy to announce to first results from the Float Fund testing. This experiment, run through the NSF, was to see how salt water, with no other form of disinfection, actually effected harmful organisms. We ran tests with two different microorganisms, and in this post we’ll talk about how one (Pseudomonas) got its ass kicked by salt-water and how the other one (Enterococcus) didn’t seem phased in the slightest.
If you want to skip straight to the test results, you can download them in their entirety. Since they have a lot of fancy laboratory lingo, we’ll spend the rest of this post breaking down the different aspects of the testing.
Float Memberships and Packages
Customers are great, but getting those customers to commit to returning on a regular basis is even better. There are a few different schools of thought in regards to encouraging return customers, but they’ll generally fall into two main categories, Memberships and Packages.
We’re going to provide a little insight into how to utilize each of them at your center.
Marketing is all About Relationships
Marketing is one of those words that has a lot of different meanings from one person to the next. Personally, I’ve studied marketing in one way or another for the past 20 years. I suppose you can say I’m a marketing nerd (I’ll wear that badge proudly). I even annually budget myself a different marketing conference to go to… for fun.
