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| Photo by Galen Crout on Unsplash |
Isolation, what a wonderful feeling. No, really, I mean it, can you imagine exactly what total and complete isolation would really be like to experience? Quite a few years ago, one of my more affluent friends had one of those odd dome-like isolation tanks installed into their second bathroom. I remember at the time such plastic and fibreglass creations were all the rage with the ‘well-to-do’ and ’more money than sense’ set, of which my friend was perhaps a 'weekend' member of. This odd erection, with its shape an amalgam of dome and pyramid was a dusky black colour with some brightly coloured block writing on it, the actual words escape me now but I’m relatively sure it would have been condescending operating instructions warning that it was designed to be used by just one person at a time, as if the name ‘Isolation Tank’ was a little misleading. Inside it was dark black, with a little raised bum platform and what could be either a reservoir to contain warm water or something more pleasant, like a duvet or a cushion. I entered willingly and expectantly, plonked myself on the little seat, and then the darkness descended all around me as the door was closed. The first thing I noticed, other than the off-putting smell of condensation on plastic, was that even though I was in an isolation tank, I wasn’t exactly isolated. A little light pollution crept around the door frame whilst the sounds of the outside world remained constant, although somewhat dimmed. I was alone, but not alone; isolated yet also oddly still attached to the world around me, and to my mind this wasn’t a tank; it was more of a semi-comfortable living coffin! After, what I’d like to say was a few hours but in reality was probably no more than ten minutes, I exited the tank and thanked my friend for the loan of his isolation assimilation and practically ran from the house to the nearest bar. Whilst I saw that friend many times over the forthcoming months, I never went back in his tank!
The only reason this memory came back to my mind today was that at just gone eight this morning I enjoyed a long soak in the bath, during which I let my head sink back until my ears were under the bubbly, soapy warm water. I don’t normally do this, you see; before moving into this new apartment I’d always been a shower man, enjoying the cascading water pounding my head and invigorating the skin. Baths previously had been rare events, most often shared with either somebody else or perhaps just as rewarding, although undeniably less communicative, a bottle of wine. Either way, I always had something else to do, other than lay in the tub getting all wrinkly as the water turned from scalding hot to freezing cold.
Yet this morning, with plenty of time to loiter and relax, I pretended I was a beached whale and plonked myself in the tub. Now, for some of my American friends, who may not know this, but in England, as most of Europe in fact, baths are a lot deeper over here in general, the sides a lot higher, hence the water capacity a fair bit more than the standard shallow baths that seem to be favoured on your side of the Atlantic. Therefore, it was quite easy for me to slide down in the tub to allow the water to cover over my ears, leaving just my eyes and nose about the waterline. With my eyes closed tight, I listened to a faint gurgling hum of the plumbing, the odd splosh of a dripping tap and an oddly loud terr-dumpth terr-dumpth terr-dumpth terr-dumpth terr-dumpth. Which was at first rather confusing, and I confess I had to pop my head up out of the water like an ever-watchful meerkat or perhaps more accurately, a wallowing rhino, to find out what the sound was. Of course, once my head was out of the water and my ears clear of bubbles, the sound had stopped, yet it recommenced as soon as my noggin was back below the surface. Now, I’m sure you’ve already worked out, long before I did. It was only after I'd done the whole meerkat thing and back under the water that I realised that the terr-dumpth, terr-dumpth, terr-dumpth was in actual fact the beat of my heart!
So after feeling silly for a few moments, I actually felt a little detached from reality, and whilst I could still hear the odd murmur of the outside world going on about me, I did experience a certain sense of semi-isolation, and I have to say it felt absolutely great. Neurons sparked, synapses fired, whole cortices lit up brighter than the seafront illuminations on a winter night; my entire mind was alive and buzzing with thoughts, ideas, memories and ponderings. You know it was as if some unseen great giant called Emmet had switched a big knob on the back of my head from off to on and sparked the whole thing off.
As soon as I was out of the bath, the wild rancorous riot of thought going on inside my head ceased and abated with such alarming rapidity I had to double-check my brain wasn’t gurgling down the drain with the outflowing water. Which leads me to the incredible conclusion that if I ever need to think in future, I’ll need to have a soak in the bath, or at the very least a bucket of water to dunk my head in. Which sounds fine, although could be a little problematic, not to mention embarrassing at work!
