Jeepney Press/Marnie Chan

Health Points

By Marnie Chan

INQUIRE WITHIN

A contest was once held to lie in a coffin for 30 hours. Winner gets $300, two gold season passes to a famous water park in sunny California, and other prizes.

You may cringe at the idea.Novice if you did.

Death and things related frighten most.

Heard of sensory deprivation? I'll try to convey the experience in words. ...despite the adage "words do not teach".

Venice Beach, California: inside a metal isolation tank or what is sometimes referred to as sensory deprivation floatation tank. It's pretty much like a closed coffin. You will lie down naked on heated water of about 98.6°F (or 37°C) which is also about a foot or so high. Don't worry you won't drown in 12 inches of water. Soon enough you can't even tell your skin from the water. Both share the same temp. So goes your sense of feeling.

A thousand pound of Epsom salt is poured in that water to make your body buoyant, meaning you will literally float like a cork regardless of your weight. You are now weightless as if floating in space. You lose sense of direction.

It is also pitch black inside the tank. It doesn't matter if you shut close your eyes or keep them wide open. You see void.

Since your ears would be submerge in water while you are floating, a pair of silicon ear plugs are provided. Hence, you cannot hear anything outside but your own heart beat, or breath perhaps.

Silence here is deafening. You'd hear the faintest. Yeah, I reckon... I'd say even the "still, small voice" propagated by the world's religions.

Then I remembered: experts now agree that consciousness goes on even after the clinical death of the physical body. HA, what do I care about experts?

Here's my non expert experience: I was awoken by a gentle nudge of vibrations. The shop owner gave me a generous extension. I only paid for a 30 minute session. He made me linger for an hour and a half in the tank. And I thought, I really, really thought, the whole thing was only 5 minutes long.

Like a wrinkled prune, I emerged from the cocoon. Now, I want to tell you about peace that transcends all understanding. But man, words do not teach.

Chinese acupuncture has a somewhat similar take on this using the following points: shen men, nei guan, and tai yuan, coupled with some equally powerful scalp acupuncture dao ma.

Those may be foreign to you. But so is peace, ain't it?

Inquire within.

Marnie Chan

Jeepney Press