Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Another conversation that was captured at Rise was this little sit down between Graham and Ashkahn and a float center owner by the name of Jeremy out in San Antonio. They talk about a subject that I think comes up whenever float people get together. “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen after someone got out of a float?”
Sometimes people have a hard time coming back to Earth after a really good session in the tank and seeing how they interact with the rest of the world afterwards can be heartwarming and enlightening. It’s part of the reason we do what we do.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: All right. Hello, everybody.
Ashkahn: Hey everyone, I’m Ashkahn.
Graham: This is Graham over here. And we are with Jeremy right now.
Ashkahn: That’s right.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Boom. From a center named Float.
Jeremy: Yes. Yep, Float.
Graham: Just keeping it easy and everything?
Jeremy: In San Antonio. Yeah, I mean why not. We like to keep things simple.
Graham: And today we are here in St. Louis. I can’t tell what Ashkahn just queued here. We are in St. Louis for the Rise Float Gathering.
Ashkahn: That’s right.
Graham: The second year here.
Ashkahn: Second year.
Graham: And it’s been a blast so far.
Ashkahn: It’s been super fun.
Graham: We just finished up the first day. Lots of good talks, some good food, okay podcasting, you know?
Ashkahn: That’s been the worst quality thing so far today, is our podcast.
Graham: Is our podcast, yeah.
Ashkahn: But people have been putting up with it, so.
Graham: Cool, man. I think Jeremy might have a question for us.
Jeremy: What’s the most interesting reaction you’ve had from someone coming out of a float?
Graham: Coming out of a float?
Ashkahn: Most interesting reaction.
Graham: Yeah, most interesting reaction. All right.
Ashkahn: Let me think about that.
Graham: I was thinking of one earlier today, so this is fresh on my mind. And it’s more like the full interaction slash reaction after a float, which I thought was interesting. So we run 24 hours a day. And so had someone do an 11 pm float, which are two and a half hours. And they came out a little bit early, and I just happened to be working the night shift and was around, you know? They actually came out after me by like 45 minutes into their two and a half hour float.
And she came out, and I got the impression that she was just sort of a Portland housewife, lived over in our suburbs – which is the Beaverton area out there.
Jeremy: Yep.
Graham: And we sat down together and I was just like, hey, is everything okay? Why did you get out of the float early? And she said, “I was just having crazy hallucinations in there, and I saw things that would have put Stephen King to shame.” And I was just like, oh. ANd she was like, “It got really dark and I don’t know where that stuff was coming from”, and she was obviously weirded out by it. And We ended up talking for about an hour.
Jeremy: That’s awesome.
Graham: And just kind of going through it, and at the end of it she was like, “I don’t think I would ever do this again”, at the beginning of this, you know.
Being like, “I don’t like horror movies, this wasn’t like my brain recollecting horror movies that I really enjoy.”
Jeremy: I’m like, that sounds awesome.
Graham: Yeah. She was terrified.
Ashkahn: We did put some balloons into the float tank.
Graham: A red one. A little clown hanging over the edge. Oh, no, you totally imagined that.
Ashkahn: Underneath the floor drain in the shower. Those horse masks.
Graham: Oh my god, that was a really bad idea. We can never do that again.
But no, so at the end of the hour though, she ended up leaving and being like, “You know, I think maybe this experience was actually really good for me.” And scheduled herself another float.
Jeremy: There you go.
Graham: And was like, “Hey, maybe there’s some stuff that I have to explore here.” So not on the weird crazy side but one of those shifts of, you assumed something might have gone wrong, something did go wrong, and in the end, it ended up being a really just positive experience. It’s this nice reminder, I guess, to not put your assumptions on —
Ashkahn: Yes.
Graham: –any part of that equation, you know?
Jeremy: Right, that’s awesome.
Ashkahn: So, let’s see, I’ve got a story kind of in a similar vein. I had this older couple come in to float at some point, and it was just very clear that the husband had been dragged in by the wife.
Jeremy: Oh, yeah.
Ashkahn: So he didn’t want to be there, he thought the whole thing was nonsense. An so we go into the float room, I’m giving them my intro spiel, and this dude’s like not even listening. He is almost making a point of interrupting me to show me how much he doesn’t think this is worthwhile or anything. So I’m like, alright, alright. And I get through the intro and everything, and they both go in the float. And the float goes by, and he ends up coming out maybe five, ten minutes before his wife. Gets showered and everything. Comes out of his room, sits down on this couch, and this guy was a different person on the other end. He started telling me about his life story, he was into real crazy industrial manufacturing, and started telling me that if we were looking to make float tanks, he could get us set up with different manufacturers. Had an incredible experience; actually was building a boat. He was in the process of building a boat, and he had in his design plans, a hot tub that he was building into the boat.
And now he was telling me he was seriously considering changing it to be a float tank instead of a hot tub. And then we chatted about the logistics of a float tank on a boat.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Ashkahn: With the weird, crazy, buoyancy weirdness. And maybe you’d have to put on a giant gyroscope or something. But it was the most significant one-eighty I’ve ever seen from someone who just absolutely thought the whole thing was nonsense. To just literally wanting to build himself a float tank after coming out of there. So that was pretty great.
Jeremy: Yeah, we live in Texas, so I get these cowboys that come in occasionally.
Ashkahn: Right.
Jeremy: And sometimes they’re really unsure about what they’re getting into, and then most the time they come around. They’re, “Hey man that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool, brother.”
Graham: You make cool connections with people.
Ashkahn: What about you? What’s one of the more interesting things that —
Graham: We don’t normally get to ask people questions.
Jeremy: Yeah, no, it’s funny, because it’s almost similar. I think it’s always the people you don’t expect it from, it makes it more fun. I had a mom, she was a little bit older, and her kids brought her in. And they had floated before, so they were kind of laughing a little bit about like, “We’re going to see what her experience is.” But she was really nervous, so I was real cautious and real careful with her introduction and everything. Got her set up. And then she came out, and we were all in our lounge hanging out and talking. The kids got done a little bit before her. And she comes out, and she’s got this big smile but also kind of awestruck, you know that look like, “I don’t know what just happened,” kind of thing.
And then she starts telling us about all the visuals that she got and all this stuff. And she was real clean cut, you know, very soft spoken, just like soccer mom, you know? And then she was like, “I only got scared at one point because I saw the universe folding on top of itself, and I was worried I would get folded up with it.” And I look at the kids, and we’re all like, “Whoa!” Like man, mom just had a really deep experience. So that was fun.
Ashkahn: That’s rad. I love it.
We’ve shared a few others. I have a short one, the one where the three people went in to float you know, and three people got out of their floats at the same time – like almost exactly, the doors open.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: And two of them walked out on either side in full regular street clothes. And the one in the middle walked out just wearing a robe that we had, and looking kind of confused. And he walks out and looks on either side of him at the people who are fully dressed and obviously ready to go, and just kind of backs back into his room and shuts the door.
Jeremy: Puts his clothes back on.
Ashkahn: Like oops, that’s not how you do this.
Graham: Also our lost and found is probably one of the best indications of weird things that happen after floats. Ranging from like, I’ve had to chase someone down the street to give their wedding ring back to them.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: Someone left their pants. Yeah, I went in to clean a room and there was a full pair of pants just sitting there. I was like, “How?”
Ashkahn: One sock.
Graham: Yeah, one sock was a good one. The best one was a walking cane. Like an actual medical cane
Jeremy: They just didn’t need it anymore, man.
Graham: Literally.
Ashkahn: And they never came back for it.
Graham: No one ever contacted us.
Jeremy: Like in movie.
Graham: Like someone came in with a cane and left without one, and never asked us for it again.
Jeremy: Best testimonial ever.
Graham: We have it mounted in our office.
Jeremy: You should have a thing by the front door, ‘Leave your canes here. You won’t need them anymore.’
Graham: Alright, awesome. Well, thanks for the questions, Jeremy.
Jeremy: You guys are awesome.
Graham: That was perfect.
Ashkahn: Yeah. For those of you out there, if you want to ask us questions, good luck. We’re in St. Louis. We’re not even looking at our phones or emails.
Graham: So unless you’re here at Rise, you know, it’s going to be difficult.
Ashkahn: Tough cookies.
Graham: Even if you have our personal cell phone numbers, no luck.
Ashkahn: Yeah, we are not even answering questions via our website anymore.
Graham: Yeah, we are taking down the website tomorrow and giving up on it. We’re just doing everything live now. All right. Wait, what?
Ashkahn: That’s it. I’m out.
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The Float Tour Blog – Issue #28
Home sweet home! After so many months on the road, it was strange being back here in Portland. We were exhausted, excited, and a little travel weary. The first night back, I slept in my own bed for the first time in three months and the world just melted away.
Having travelled across the United States, I’m reminded of how insular Portland is. We are aggressively fixated on keeping things local. Local beer, ketchup, bikes, pet food, pillows, phone cases… it’s part of our charm. We want to reward people for living here and being a part of the community. It’s so pervasive that, after living here for so long, I kind of forgot that Secret Aardvark hot-sauce isn’t available everywhere, and that most cities don’t even recycle, let alone compost.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #27
Our northern neighbor – a sister city, of sorts – Seattle is the largest metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest. It’s the land of Microsoft and Kurt Cobain, and the culture here embraces both simultaneously. It’s tech business professional in the front and rock n’ roll grunge in the back. This blend creates a perfect storm of high energy business life and high energy nightlife, making relaxation a valuable commodity. Floating helps fill the void left by nightmarish traffic and overcrowded restaurants.
Given that it’s so close to home, the float centers in Seattle are a lot more familiar to us. Our visits here were more like a high school reunion than they were like the first day of school. During some of our visits, we were picking up conversations right where we left them.
The Float Tour Blog Issue #26
Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, and third largest on the West Coast. It’s a major hub for international trade, with one of the largest ports in the world, giving it a large migrant population, mainly from Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. It’s also been a long-time home to the Canadian film industry, and has even been nicknamed “North Hollywood.” Dozens of film and television productions from major studios film here every year.
Vancouver is very much an international city. It has large boroughs dedicated to varying cultures, including one of the largest Chinatowns in the world. The society here is more receptive to new ideas, always looking for the next big thing; it’s not surprising that floating has blown up in Vancouver as much as it has.
In the last 3 years, 10 float centers have opened up, most of them being larger 4–6 tank centers. The really interesting thing is how they all opened within the same short amount of time about 1 ½ to 2 years ago, within months of each other.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #25
We finally made it back to the West Coast! We went through the Canadian Rockies and were overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. We drove through hours and hours of winding mountain roads, fertile valleys, and tiny towns so picturesque they looked like movie sets. It was so captivating, in fact, I suspect Graham and Ashkahn may have secretly replaced themselves with robotic doppelgängers to hike throughout Banff.
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