I Work At A Spa Where You Can Take Drugs, Trip Balls And Pee

Worse, the guy who dragged his buddy to the sensory deprivation tank in the first place usually isn't all that helpful.

"I had a claustrophobic guy come in with a friend, and he took one look at the pod and said no way," Cameron remembered. "I told him that inside, as soon as the door was shut, he'd feel like he was inside a vast area. His friend said the exact wrong thing to say -- 'Hey, maybe this will cure your claustrophobia!' He finally agreed to try it, but I felt compelled to tell him that it may help him, but it's not a cure, but he said 'I know.'"

"We put him in there, and less than two minutes later came the screaming. He did what you're not supposed to do, touch the sides of the pod for very long. He kept feeling around, and suddenly he wasn't in a void as promised, but in the dark in a closed pod. It's hard to get sound to come out, but when he couldn't find the handle to open the pod, he screamed. When we opened it, he got out as fast as he could, grabbed a robe, and pretty much ran outside. We refunded his money, of course. We should not have been so insistent. We have potential floaters drop out because they're afraid, but now we make sure it isn't a real phobia. We don't want another screaming pod. It was terrifying for everyone involved."

We'd have to assume it's mostly pee by then, actually.

Plus the hallucinations don't help. With the peeing. One Cambridge study found that even people who wouldn't normally hallucinate were prone to having visions in the pod. These can range from simple shapes and dots of light, to full-on out-of-body experiences.

One pod-racer we talked to, Saundra, told us that it could be calming for her. "If I saw anything, it was the same brand of goofy surreal images I generally see as I'm drifting off to sleep; I tend to lean into them, because I know that the sillier and more free-association the mind-cartoon, the closer I am to sleep. I might have slept a little in the pod, but I mostly remained in that warm purgatory between wakefulness and dreaming."

"I've heard about spirals, rainbows, flying in space, becoming a lion for awhile, and climbing stairs with no end," Cameron added. "Sometimes the floater can't even explain what they saw. Everyone comes out feeling anew, but some also coming out swearing they just got high."

"We have someone who blazes up before coming in every other week," he went on. "I don't see him do it, but I can smell it on him, and his eyes give it away too. He goes in calm and comes out even calmer. It's hard to explain. He was already chill before going in, and when he's going out with all his clothes back on it looks like he knows how to solve all the world's problems. He's said that it makes it more relaxing and comfortable (since both floating and marijuana help out anxiety, combining the two can make it even more effective in reducing stress), and I believe him. It's a winning combination ."

Cameron said that, in addition to depriving someone of touch, sight, and sound, the pods also have a way of depriving folks of their sense of time, and that's the one that really scares folks.

"It can shock people," he said. "I've heard from some floaters that it threw off their sleeping schedule for days. If you undershoot by three hours, that's almost like jet lag. If you sleep in the pod, or think you sleep, then it may not be as bad, but it still messes you up. I've had floaters go from that coming-out calmness straight into panic because their sense of time was off so much. Like they come in with the sun up, and they think it's been 15 minutes, but come out and it's night."

There are other risks, too:

"We warn people not to go in if they have just shaved or have a healing wound," Cameron went on. "This water is 25 percent salt, and if any gets past the skin, it will hurt like hell. This ruins the experience for some because it means they're stuck in a pod for two hours and all they can feel is pain. One floater came in who was a swimmer who had shaved, as he put it, everything. We warned him about the salt, but he said he could handle it. Two hours later, he comes out and the first thing he says is, 'My balls are on fire.'"

One of our sources, Chelsea, definitely agrees:

"I've had stress problems for years. My doctor has never recommended it, but it was better than yoga."

Another, Kyle, thinks it helps as well. He took a salty plunge after a one-two combo of tragedy: losing a good friend, and then dealing with a partner's serious illness. He claims his time in the pods helped to "prepare me in some way by how to let go and how to relax ... It was very difficult to relax when we were dealing with 's prognosis before her surgery, and particularly after 's death, but I've attempted to reframe it and gain strength from the float time rather than fear the silence and separation."

All that being said, however ...

"Paraplegics don't think this is Lourdes where they'll be healed. It really just helps them mentally from what I've seen," Cameron cautioned. "I'm a proponent of the pods and having others experience it, but you cannot say it's going to heal you or cure you ... We're told upon hiring to never say it's a cure or even hint that it is. There's lots of good in sensory deprivation, but you need to watch out for claims that are false."

"Sometimes floaters aren't prepared for the experience or didn't know what to expect," Cameron admitted. "I'll see at least one a day. They don't calmly climb out. They see the light and get out as fast as they can."

You don't need any kind of degree to dunk a dude in a tank, and there's not exactly a standard training course for dealing with hallucinating naked people.

"They don't train you on freak-outs," Cameron said. "There was a floater, like a 20s-ish girl, who was bragging about how she could take this on, but after coming out she said she thought she was dead. She thought she had been forgotten and her air ran out."

That's why, Cameron assured us, all pods either have a panic button, or can at least be opened from the inside. Which is comforting. Unless you dance with the triangles too long, and forget you have hands.

Evan V. Symon is an interviewer, journalist and interview finder for the personal experience team at Cracked. Have an awesome job/experience you'd like to share? Hit us up at tips@cracked.com today!

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