Gently into That Good Night

On my birthday I went into an isolation tank. I will not talk here about the revelations I had in it or visions I saw. I will instead talk about the more visceral experience of being in that environment. It's an 8x4x4 foot box, sound proof and "light proof." The bottom of this box is filled with about one foot of water with 1000 lbs of Epsom salt dissolved in it. I wore ear plugs cause I didn't want that in my ears. This solution is extremely buoyant, I have never been a "natural floater. " Some people float some sink, I sink. Being able to float in this environment without difficulty was a completely new experience. The thing I did not anticipate was what that would actually feel like. When I sleep on my back I need a firm bed. This is because of several years of slouching before I learned about better posture. On a soft enough mattress I am forced into a "horizontal slouch." In this liquid solution the same thing happened but to an extreme degree. My shoulders rounded forward, putting my neck in a bad place. Also my low back arched in a way it shouldn't, max deadlifting the day before didn't help this situation.  I found if I laced my fingers behind my head the shoulders and neck worked out better, but I could do nothing about the low back. When you have no visual or auditory input you do start thinking about this stuff as much as I am here.
All that said I would like to do it again. I think to do it again I would need to do some serious work. First, I need to start meditating more and working on "letting go." Second I would need to get a massage before going into the tank. However, the kind of massage I would need to be relaxed in that tank is not the kind of massage I really need. The massage I need for the tank is the sort of relaxing rub down that I think I could actually get at a place that calls its self a spa. The massage I need cause of the sort of things I put my body through on a regular basis, is the kind where a big Swedish man named Sven digs elbows into me as I scream. I don't have the money to start doing both of these massages and floating regularly. The third thing I would need to do is find some way to keep my lower back in "the hallow back position." I think if I had a small flotation device I could place under my butt it would do the trick.
Finally, I do think the experience was worth it in the end. I did come to some revelation about what I am doing with my life. Both in my recent past and near future. I came to the conclusion that I am happy with where I am and where I am going. I don't really want to discuss the details of what that means, but I am pretty excited about it.
Namasta Y'all