We All Float On, okay?

Vancouver is seeing a resurgence of float centres, and it’s not hard to see why

“We were the first commercial float centre in Vancouver in over 20 years,” says Mike Zaremba, co-creator of Float House, a float tank centre with locations in Gastown, Kitsilano, and soon in South Surrey. “There were some back in the day—floating has been through waves in commercial interest. The first one kind of beginning in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, partially kicked off by the cult classic movie Altered States.”

“It all just died off in the ‘90s . . . but it’s come back now in the last four years, really strong, really accelerating in the last year-and-a-half,” says Zaremba, who also has an education in physical therapy. “We’re seeing float centres pop up all over the place.”

Mike and his brother, Andy Zaremba, opened their first float centre in 2013, starting out with five tanks. With some success it soon expanded to nine tanks, a newer five-tank centre in Kitsilano, and two franchise locations in Victoria—operated by cousin Erik Zaremba—and soon South Surrey. Zaremba says that they were aggressive with marketing, as they had no idea whether or not their idea would catch on.

“We had nothing to compare it to; we just jumped off the cliff. We had investors who put a good chunk of change into us, we weren’t going to be complacent and be like, ‘Let’s see what happens.’ We wanted to be sure that it did work.”

“There are several other float locations,” says Zaremba, not counting his. “Within the whole Greater Vancouver area, there’s about nine now.”

In 1954, John C. Lily, an American neuropsychologist working at the National Institute of Mental Health, sought to isolate the brain from all external stimuli. The result was ultimately a prototype of current float tanks, the first of which looked very much like a sci-fi horror device where you put on a breathing apparatus and float completely submerged in water.

There was a swell in float tank popularity during the late 1960’s, with countercultural figures like Lily, Terrence McKenna and Timothy Leary advocating for them, all of whom were highly educated and extremely interested in psychedelics. Lily hoped to use float tanks to better understand the effects of LSD, namely by taking it himself and then climbing into a tank.

Now float houses are seeing a resurgence in popularity. Though one factor in their newfound fame is surely an increased societal interest in eating healthy, doing yoga and so forth, another would surely be Joe Rogan. Though many know him as a MMA commentator for UFC, he often goes on tangents during his popular podcast, usually to talk about float tanks or psychedelic drugs.

The experience of being in a float tank is unlike many other, as once in the tank you are cut off from almost everything. The inside is pitch black and soundproof. You float in skin-temperature water so salinated that you can’t submerge.

Just by being alive, your brain becomes adjusted to all of the stimuli you experience. The feeling of this paper in your hands. The temperature of the room you’re in. The sound of cars outside. The sensation of sitting in a chair. The massive amount of visual information your eyes are processing. It turns out that once you remove all of these things, the only remaining factor is your brain with its thoughts. For this reason, you could describe floating as “meditation on training wheels.”

Zaremba would agree. “The biggest factor of meditation in any form is the individual, the state of the individual going into it.”

“It does, at the very least, help facilitate a very deep state of calm and relaxation. And even if you’re not necessarily feeling it while you’re in the tank, you’ll definitely notice it when you come out.”

Others have described floating as a drug-free psychedelic experience.

Outside of this, there are many recorded, tangible benefits to floating, as reported in several scientific journals. Zaremba, who has a strength and conditioning background, believes that float tanks are good for muscle recovery. It even turns out that the high salt and magnesium sulfate content in the tank, which is then absorbed through the skin, correcting magnesium deficiencies, which is common in some cultures.

“Everything affects everything,” says Zaremba. He believes that everything is important, that your physical health is equally important to your mental and emotional health. “I think people need to take their own health into their own responsibility. You’ve got to take care of yourself. Take full responsibility for everything in your life.”