Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
It happens every once in a while, a tv show or a movie will feature a float tank and the entire industry gets a jolt as if to say “we made it to the big time!”
But not all float tank cameos are created equal, so which one does it the best? What is the best representation of floating in media? Graham and Ashkahn go through the list of everything from Altered States to Stranger Things to find out what it is.
Show Resources
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: This is Graham.
Ashkahn: And this is Ashkahn.
Graham: And today’s question is-
Ashkahn: I’m gonna back you up with the question.
Graham: All right. Do it. “What’s the most accurate representation of float tanks in TV or movies do you think?”
Ashkahn: That was good.
Graham: Yes.
Ashkahn: It was a nice question.
Graham: We can just skip the intro and start making our questions into music.
Ashkahn: What was the most accurate representation of-
Graham: Yeah. Did you absorb any of that question?
Ashkahn: I wasn’t really listening. Yeah. Say it again.
Graham: What’s the most accurate representation of float tanks in TV or movies do you think? And you in this case refers to both of us.
Ashkahn: Do I think? I see. Talking to me.
Graham: Us. Us.
Ashkahn: Hmm.
Graham: What do you think, then?
Ashkahn: Well, let me start throwing some contenders out.
Graham: All right.
Ashkahn: Let me throw some contenders out. All right.
Graham: The Simpsons.
Ashkahn: The Simpsons. Yeah, the Simpsons one wasn’t bad. It was pretty small. It was much smaller than a float tank would be.
Graham: Right. Kind of like a float capsule.
Ashkahn: Yeah. And they lifted you up and put Homer into the back of a truck, and he fell down a cliff.
Graham: But Lisa’s experience was not bad.
Ashkahn: That’s true. That’s true. Yeah.
Graham: As far as it goes, for like a psychedelic kind of float, she had a good one, I think.
Ashkahn: Epiphany sort of float.
Graham: That might be one of my votes, actually, Lisa’s experience in the Simpsons.
Ashkahn: All right. Let’s throw it on the board.
Graham: Or just decide right now.
Ashkahn: That’s it. All right. Cool.
Graham: All right. Bye, everyone.
Ashkahn: Have a good day. So that’s a good one. I think Stranger Things gets a pretty good mention. They actually went out of their way to explain what the heck was going on.
Graham: I don’t know how they heated up the little kiddie pool they were dissolving all the salt in, but-
Ashkahn: No, that part wasn’t very good.
Graham: You need like a titanium inline heater to bring that thing up as fast as they did. You know what I’m saying?
Ashkahn: I’m not sure an egg is quite as good of a system as a hydrometer. They just put an egg in there, so that probably wasn’t the best.
Graham: But we did use an egg in Float On for our first few years in business to measure it.
Ashkahn: Yep. Yeah. And it would just cook as it went through the heater.
Graham: You got a little float dinner going.
Ashkahn: At least they kind of explained it. They got the amount of salt that goes in pretty right, which was nice.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: So that was cool. We’ve seen news broadcasts where they don’t get that right.
Graham: “Let’s go check out this flotation device where they put in 20,000 pounds of Epsom salt per hundred gallons of water.”
Ashkahn: So they did better than real people reporting on real life, which is impressive.
Graham: Which you never expect from fake people. There’s the classic Altered States.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Altered States.
Graham: Also didn’t do a terrible job.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Well, there was the whole devolving into the monkey thing.
Graham: Like I was saying, they did not do a terrible job.
Ashkahn: Everything else about the float tank seemed pretty legit.
Graham: When they go to find it and it’s just like covered in salt and stuff. The Ye Olde Float Yank. Let’s repair this. I’m like, “Yes.” Probably been inactive for like one day.
Ashkahn: So, yeah. Well, they also had the Bachta container float tank thing in the beginning, which I’m not sure if anything quite like that ever existed.
Graham: But we did use one for the first few years in Float On.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It held the eggs a lot better than modern float tanks. Fraiser had an episode with a float tank in it.
Graham: I haven’t seen that one.
Ashkahn: Yeah. It was pretty good. They don’t say anything wrong. It’s there. It’s visually in one of the shots, and it’s just kind of used as a plot device. They don’t exactly explain it very much or anything, but certainly nothing inaccurate happened during the period of time that the float tank was on the show.
Graham: Yep.
Ashkahn: Gotta give that some credit.
Graham: Yeah. I believe you.
Ashkahn: There’s Fringe. I haven’t really seen Fringe, but it seems like someone gets into a float tank and like travels through time or dimensions or something.
Graham: Which, also, again, sounds remarkably accurate to me.
Ashkahn: Inhabits other people’s bodies. I should probably watch the show, I guess. Pretty sure it’s something like that. Something like they’re a demon, inhabit other people, and each episode ends with them getting exorcised out of the person they inhabit. No, I read the Wikipedia page. I’m pretty sure that’s the show.
Graham: What about Minority Report?
Ashkahn: Yeah, so that one’s interesting because they actually hired a float tank manufacturer.
Graham: Which is awesome.
Ashkahn: To build that, to design that crazy thing.
Graham: So if, were you to have three psychics floaters you wanted to throw into a joint three person float tank –
Ashkahn: Three pre-cogs to put in there.
Graham: That is the actual float tank you would-
Ashkahn: Kind of like pooped out little prediction balls or something.
Graham: Yeah. One exists. There’s a manufacturer who’s already built that float tank, so in that sense it is designed by a real manufacturer.
Ashkahn: The story we heard is the director of Minority Report, whose name I don’t know, went and floated and had a really good experience and got inspired to put that sort of thing into the movie, and then he found a kind of float manufacturer to help him design the thing for the movie set, so that’s actually a little piece of float inspiration.
Graham: You mean Steven Spielberg?
Ashkahn: Oh, shit. Is it really Steven Spielberg?
Graham: You said that, and I was like, “Oh, boy.”
Ashkahn: Well, you had to look it up, so let’s not give yourself too much credit.
Graham: I was just confirming it. Thanks for breaking the fourth wall there. Yes, what I did when Ashkahn talked was confirm that he said something horribly wrong off screen or off tape, What do you call this? Off podcast.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Off mic.
Graham: Off mic. There we go.
Ashkahn: So far we’ve chosen a lot of things that all seem pretty good. I don’t know about the Fringe one. I’m not sure if you really inhabit other people’s bodies as a demon when you get into float tanks.
Graham: And that Fraiser one sounded cool. What about-
Ashkahn: Well, let’s read the question again. What is it specifically? The most accurate description?
Graham: What is the most accurate representation of float tanks in TV or movies?
Ashkahn: So the thing is, the less they say about it, the less they’re there to get anything wrong. The most accurate thing is probably like something where-
Graham: Someone referencing it. “Oh, I went floating the other day.”
Ashkahn: There’s was an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, as well, with a float tank in it, and they literally just showed the float tank for a moment, and that was pretty much the end of it. That’s pretty accurate. Well, actually, you know what? It was like sitting out in the middle of a mall or something, not even in a room, so maybe that one doesn’t count. We’ll cut that one from the list.
Graham: Johnny LaRue’s Discount Deprive O Rama.
Ashkahn: That’s true. That one’s pretty.
Graham: Other than the joke part of it, it’s shockingly accurate.
Ashkahn: The part where they climb inside of a float tank.
Graham: Yeah, they smoke a cigar in there.
Ashkahn: There’s an entire subterranean lair with dozens of people partying in there.
Graham: But they call it tank three and tank six in the beginning. Until they get to the visual punchline, it’s actually remarkably accurate.
Ashkahn: All right. Yeah. Also I think the least accurate depiction of float tanks in the media as well. I think it also has that award.
Graham: So I’ll just go ahead and say it. That’s the most and least accurate.
Ashkahn: That’s it. All right. That’s our answer.
Graham: I can’t think of anything out there, again, other than something that like references it only very lightly that gets things 100% correct. I actually can’t think of too many just completely negligent representations of float tanks other than ones like the Bachta tank kind of Altered States one where they stray very far from reality kind of consciously. You know?
Ashkahn: Yeah. Or maybe Johnny LaRue’s Discount Deprive O Rama.
Graham: With the giant subterrain, but that’s a joke. It’s like Homer getting tossed in the back of a truck. Can you think of any, it’s like a drama where their purpose is not to make a joke. They’re trying to actually realistically depict a float tank and they just do the worst possible job.
Ashkahn: They just totally screwed it up.
Graham: Yeah, they just like bomb. All the facts are wrong.
Ashkahn: Float tanks don’t really show up that much. I think we just named every reference I know of.
Graham: Yeah, there’s not a huge sample size. I think, usually, what happens is for these shows, someone suggested they include a float tank, and that person probably knew about them.
Ashkahn: Yeah, someone had to have floated at some point, right? Yeah.
Graham: Short Bus is another one I actually think does an okay, kind of okay job.
Ashkahn: Yeah. I haven’t seen that. Have you seen it?
Graham: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. For sure.
Ashkahn: Do you remember the float tank?
Graham: It shows two people. It’s like a couple’s float tank. It has someone smoking inside one.
Ashkahn: Well, here’s the thing-
Graham: It’s made out of wood, which is dangerous. You know?
Ashkahn: There’s this old float tank from the 80s called the Floatarium, and if one of you out there has an old Floatarium, there’s a manual that comes with the Floatarium from the 80s. There were some Floatariums built that had hot tub features, hot tub jets built into the float tank, and they put like a lip on the ground in the middle of the float tank so that you could prop your legs against it and sit upright in the back. Literally, the instruction manual for the old Floatarium has a picture of two people sitting in the back of a float tank with champagne glasses in their hands.
Graham: That’s so good.
Ashkahn: Drinking champagne with hot tub jets on in a float tank.
Graham: It’s so good.
Ashkahn: And that’s real. That’s like real life.
Graham: So there you go. Most movie and TV references get it better than manuals for float tanks. Or at least that one.
Ashkahn: All right. That’s it. We got Discount Deprive O Rama as the winner and loser.
Graham: And if you have more fun, non-controversial topics to ask us, definitely shoot them along to-
Ashkahn: I spaced. What’s the website?
Graham: Float tank-
Ashkahn: Floattanksolutions.com/podcast. I know that. I know that one.
Graham: All right. Have a good one.
Ashkahn: Bye, everyone.
Recent Podcast Episodes
How Many Managers Does it Take to Run a Float Center? – DSP 200
Not every float center owner wants to be tethered to working their shop for the rest of their lives. In fact, even some that enjoy that work immensely can be doing their business a disservice by focusing on day-to-day operations as opposed to dedicating their time to marketing or expansion.
So how do float center owners get out of the shop? How many managers (Or Taco Supremes as they’re called at Float On) does it take to effectively replace the shop owner at a business. Ashkahn and Graham have successfully implemented a system at Float On that allows them to be much more hands off on the business than when they first opened and they share how got to that point and how their business structure has evolved.
Float Centers in Hip Neighborhoods – DSP 199
Do float centers in the hip part of town do better than ones on the outskirts? Graham and Ashkahn are well versed on this in that Float On is in a fairly hip part of Portland.
The guys break down some of the benefits of being one of the “cool” businesses in town as well as some of the serious drawbacks. Naturally, things like foot traffic aren’t as important. Almost no one walks into a float center and hops in a tank off the street. So there are fringe benefits to it, like awareness, but if you decide on going to a different part of town, then you’re not automatically doing a disservice to your brand.
Can You Clean a Float Tank with Vinegar? – DSP 198
You have to change out your float tank water eventually. Is it a good idea to give your float tank a vinegar cleanse when you do? is that effective? Is it too much work for the results? Are there better solutions to keep your tank clean and fresh?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss while providing assurances like “either you’re not crazy or we’re all crazy”, so that’s nice.
Have you Experienced Challenging Floats? – DSP 197
Graham and Ashkahn share stories about their most challenging floats. Everything from extreme physical discomfort to literally staying in too long.
They also share stories of floats from friends and customers that they’ve accumulated over the years and discuss the value of experiencing these difficult moments in the tank and how you might approach them when one occurs at your center.
Is it Bad for Float Centers to Always be Running Discounts? – DSP 195
Welcome to the last episode in Social Media Week with Derek, Ashkahn, and Graham. If you haven’t listened to the other episodes in the series, it is strongly recommended that you start at the beginning especially for this episode as it references some points brought up earlier in the week.
Derek and Graham share some more intricacies of the Float On business philosophy and share their opinions on constantly running ads for floats through Groupon or on Social Media. Admittedly, Float On doesn’t run discounts very often, and they share why that is. They also talk about how to run discounts effectively and have a tough conversation about what to do if you want to break that cycle of constant discounts for your floats.
Latest Blog Posts
Lessons for Float Centers from a Mainstream Marketing Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend Copyblogger’s Authority Rainmaker Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a self proclaimed marketing nerd, this was an opportunity to mingle with my people. I believe no matter how much experience you have in...
A Quick Note on Insulation…
Insulating the roof/joists of your float center... Basically, what you're trying to do here to create an envelope around your space. You're trying to create a barrier between a conditioned environment (your float room) and an unconditioned environment (open air). This...
Encouraging Creativity After Floating
Most float tanks centers have customers. So as to have a place to put these customers where they will be able to sit, or stand, as they please and not be in the way, most float tank centers also have lobbies. So as to have something - some surface upon which these...
Float Center Education Through Internships
Why Have an Intern Program? I (Marshall) started my career in floating as an intern, coming in to the shop each Monday to learn about floating, sanitation, and better understand the intricacies of construction projects. For every four hours I worked, I was expected to...
