Humans have probably always known that the mind and body are one, dual aspects of a single reality, inextricably linked and interdependent. Certainly they have known for thousands of years that the body can be changed and controlled to a large degree by the mind, and that this can be accomplished most effectively by putting the body into a state of deep relaxation and guiding or manipulating it through vivid images—for every culture has developed its own means of reaching states of deep relaxation, its own rich and colorful array of images which it has found effective in influencing and changing the body.
Shamans and witch doctors enter trances to see themselves as hawks or coyotes, conferring with the spirits of natural forces; or, representing those spirits and forces, they dance in bright, monstrous masks before a sick person. With astonishing frequency they bring about cures. Immobilized and confronted with the proper images, the body is changed. Yogis devote years to learning how to enter states of deep relaxation at will, and when in that trance they visualize energy flowing up and down the moon channel, the sun channel, flooding various centers of force known as chakras, which are themselves seen in images as points of certain vivid colors—and as a result their bodies change; they can slow or even stop their hearts and respiration, can cast off sickness. Myths, fantasies, religious ceremonies, dreams, visions, poems and psalms and hymns—all have served, to some degree, as ways of controlling and changing the human body, and have been more effective when the body is in a state of deep relaxation: trance, reverie, prayer, meditation.
However, with the development of the “modern mind” or Western civilization, the idea that mind and body were one and inseparable became suspect: a product of the childhood of our race, primitive, now outmoded and outgrown. After all, science worked, didn’t it? The body is a machine, and how can something called mind affect a machine?
But in recent years, using its own scientific method, science has accumulated an overwhelming amount of evidence that the body is not a machine, that mind is something quite real and powerful, and that in some mysterious way the mind not only controls the physiological body but is in fact a part of it.
It was found that some hay-fever sufferers who looked at a picture of ragweed began to sneeze. Some patients, told that the pills or injections they were given would kill their pain, or cure them, immediately stopped hurting or recovered. Scientists called this the placebo effect, but that didn’t disguise the fact that what was happening was much like a witch doctor dancing in a bright mask or administering empty potions that still cured illnesses.
Cancer patients were taught to become deeply relaxed and visualize their white blood cells eating and destroying the cancer cells, and an astonishing percentage of them recovered. Tests of men whose wives were dying of breast cancer showed a sharp decrease in white blood cell function; as they became depressed, their immune systems weakened. Hooked up to biofeedback machines, people could learn to change their heart rate, kidney function, release of hormones.
Somehow, purely mental states were changing what had been thought to be purely physical states: cancer cells, the immune system, the autonomic system. But until recently there has been no real explanation of how this was accomplished. Now, and only in the last few years, scientists have come to see that the mechanism through which feelings and emotions and thoughts could be translated into cancers and colds and heart attacks is the neuroendocrine system, via the release of hormones, neurotransmitters, and other biochemical substances. The place of transmutation, the alchemical laboratory where emotions and visions and ideas are made flesh and blood, is largely centered in the hypothalamus. Releasing chemicals that act on other glands like the pituitary, thymus, and adrenals, the hypothalamus can cause the release of catecholamines; neurotransmitters like the endorphins; chemicals that can raise or lower blood pressure, kill pain, bring euphoria or anxiety or rage, suppress or strengthen the immune response.
There is no doubt of this. What takes place in the mind is not separate from what takes place in the body. Biofeedback researcher Elmer Green has stated the relationship clearly: “Every change in the physiological state is accompanied by an appropriate change in the mental-emotional state, conscious or unconscious, and conversely, every change in the mental emotional state, conscious or unconscious, is accompanied by an appropriate change in the physiological state.87
This knowledge that our thoughts determine our physical condition has been one of the most exciting discoveries of our time, and has resulted among other things in an entirely new field of medical research called psychoneuroimmunology. And it has led to an even more exciting and truly revolutionary discovery: By controlling our thoughts, we can control our bodies and our health.2
Biofeedback taught us what yogis and shamans had known for centuries: Any biological function that can be monitored and fed back to us through our senses can be regulated by the individual. This led to the further discovery that electrical biofeedback equipment was not necessary; purely through intensifying our awareness, we can regulate our bodies. The technique is simple, and is based on thousands of years of empirical verification: A concentrated meditative state of deep relaxation leads to the establishment of voluntary control by allowing us to become acutely aware of internal sensations, images, and ideas.
The problem for our culture has been getting into the state of deep relaxation. Most people in our society are unwilling or unable to undergo the long training period required by most of the traditional techniques for quieting the body and intensifying awareness of internal states. This brings us to the floatation tank as a powerful tool for gaining and maintaining a high level of health.
Relaxation
Through all sorts of tests (described earlier), including EMG (which measures muscle tension), EEG, blood pressure, and measurements of certain biochemicals, scientists have determined that the float tank can bring about a state of extraordinarily deep relaxation—probably deeper than is possible by any other means yet available except for certain drugs. This state of relaxation is in itself beneficial to health, since it allows the body to maintain its internal system of checks and balances, its homeostasis. That is, the body has its own highly effective methods of maintaining itself at an optimal level of well-being, and if allowed to operate freely, it will generally do so flawlessly. But certain mental attitudes can throw this delicate mechanism out of whack. Stress causes harm by its disruption of our natural biochemistry. For example, researchers have recently discovered that, under stress, Type A personalities secrete forty times as much cortisol and three times as much adrenaline as Type B men.103 Cortisol has been proven to suppress the immune system. Tests have shown that floating decreases cortisol. Excess adrenaline, and related biochemicals such as noradrenaline and ACTH also cause our bodies to rev up in a fight-or-flight response, and, ultimately, to wear out. Floating, through deep relaxation, lowers the levels of these harmful chemicals.
Deep relaxation is beneficial in another way. Because of what has been called the curare effect, and as explained by the Weber-Fechner Law, floating leads to increased sensory awareness; we simply feel our bodies better, more clearly, and as a result we are able to regulate them more effectively. As John V. Basmajian’s experiments showed, we have the capacity to control the firing of a single motor neuron in the body, once we are made aware of that neuron.15
Deep relaxation also leads to improved access to internal imagery. And awareness and control of mental imagery is the key to self-regulation.
Also, the deep relaxation of floating feels good. In part this is because of the temporary rest and release from the stresses of life. In part, there is reason to believe that floating in some way causes the body to release certain biochemicals that make us feel very good indeed—such as the endorphins and the as-yet-unidentified anti-anxiety neurochemical that fits into the “Valium receptor.” Euphoria is a nice place to spend the day, but we should also remember that it is conducive to health. We know that feeling good makes us healthier; feeling whole increases our wholeness; feeling well increases our wellness.
Stressful events affect people differently. Recent tests showed that subjects who had a high level of perceived stress in response to certain life events had a greatly reduced level of immune response, only one third the level of “natural killer cell activity” of those who experienced the same life events but perceived them as less stressful. By making us feel less threatened, anxious, and stressed, floating enables us to cope with the same stressful situations that might otherwise have impaired our health.
What does this mean for us? First, the mere act of floating, in and of itself, is healthful because it is relaxing and makes us feel good. Simply by floating, even if only once every few weeks, we can strengthen our immune systems, increase our ability to withstand and respond to stress, reduce the level of harmful biochemicals in our systems, and become stronger and happier.
Second, if we are sick or have physiological problems, we can consciously use visualization and self-suggestion techniques in the tank to increase the body’s healing ability. Cancer patients have cured themselves by visualizing their white blood cells as ravenous white dogs or white knights on horseback. We can use the same method for any illness or injury we wish to treat; we can visualize a broken bone healing, cut flesh knitting and becoming whole, headaches lessening and disappearing. We can do this anywhere, but the tank has been shown to be the most effective available tool for creating, manipulating, and concentrating on vivid mental imagery.
Research has also demonstrated conclusively that floating increases our suggestibility, the characteristic at the root of the placebo effect, which in a sense tricks the body into pouring out its own internal pain killers and curative powers. By changing our brain wave rhythms, by increasing access to the minor brain hemisphere, by enhancing communication between the conscious roof brain and the deeper levels of the brain, floating enables us to give ourselves verbal messages and to have those messages received, accepted, and acted upon as if they were true. All evidence now indicates that simply by floating, speaking healing and positive thoughts, and accompanying them with vivid healing imagery, we can heal ourselves.
Third, it now seems clear that we can use the tank, even if we have no injury or sickness, to pump up the body’s natural immune system by visualizing our systems bathed with a flood of beneficial biochemicals, the thymus and hypothalamus and pituitary pouring out healing biochemicals, the protective white blood cells flowing through us, the subtle restorative energy streaming like a healing river of light. You may use whatever type of imagery you feel most comfortable with—one person has spoken of seeing his heart like a huge house, of walking inside it and strolling through the rooms like a carpenter, fixing it with hammer and nails and plaster. The translation from conscious impulse to body change seems to be almost immediate. In a recent study conducted at Penn State, subjects were pretested to ascertain the strength of certain measurable parts of their immune systems, and were then hypnotized. They were given the suggestion that they would visualize, and bring about an increase in the number and activity of, these parts of the immune system. In a one-hour post-hypnosis test, researchers found that the number and activity of those parts of the immune system were indeed significantly increased.162 The implications are immense, particularly for floaters, since the tank not only makes self-hypnosis easier and stronger but also dramatically enhances suggestibility without hypnosis. What can be done with simple hypnosis can be equaled and surpassed in the tank.
A growing wealth of scientific evidence demonstrates that if we maintain our bodies at a high level of wellness, we cannot only live healthier lives but can increase our longevity. One current theory much in favor holds that aging is due to a slowly developing hormonal or neurochemical imbalance, rather than any specific alteration in a single vulnerable system: that is, aging is a slow disruption of homeostasis. There is evidence of such an “aging clock” located in the hypothalamus, with scientists detecting “significant decreases in neurotransmitter chemicals in the hypothalamus from old compared to young animals.255 By maintaining a proper homeostatic balance of neurochemicals—which, as we have seen, is one effect of floating—it may be possible to be both healthier and longer-lived.
Neuroendocrinologist John Turner hinted at this in describing the results of tests he and Tom Fine conducted on the effects of floating on certain neurochemicals in the blood. Before the tests they took blood samples from each subject to establish what is called a baseline. They found that before the subjects had floated, there was a large variance in the levels of the various biochemicals being tested. However, as the subjects floated, and over a series of floats, this variance grew smaller and smaller. Said Turner, “Tom and I feel that this may well represent a baseline effect that occurs in the tank. In other words, the individual is in an environment where he’s passively relaxing, his metabolic, physiological activity is coming down to a baseline, and the individual is essentially reregulating himself at a lower level of variability. We all know that an internal combustion engine runs much more smoothly when it’s well lubricated and its tolerances are small. And if you’ll allow me that analogy, I think the human body may well run much more smoothly when the variances and the tolerances are small.”252
To continue the analogy, an engine that is well lubricated, well tuned, with small tolerances, will run more efficiently, and it will last longer than an engine with loose parts and constant friction, an engine that is constantly being revved up. Like impatient drivers repeatedly gunning our engines, we flood our systems with the fight-or-flight biochemicals that keep us revved up. Floating seems to allow our bodies to regain their natural states of fine tuning—which is known as health.