Returning to the Quiet: How Floating Became a Spiritual Portal for Creativity and Calm
The first time I stepped into a sensory deprivation tank, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was chasing—maybe peace, maybe silence, maybe something unnamed. It was 2018, and I was deep into my mindfulness and spiritual practice in New York City. A friend had mentioned floatation therapy, and in a way that felt both impulsive and divinely timed, I booked a session at Blue Light Flotation with Sam Zeiger, one of NYC’s original floating veterans.
I was nervous, of course. The idea of being sealed away in darkness, floating in silence with only myself for company, held a quiet kind of terror. But Sam had a calm to him that put me at ease. He had that grounded energy—the kind that comes from someone who has seen many people return from the deep. Under his guidance, I began with 60-minute floats and gradually moved to 90, then 120. Before long, I was floating every two weeks.
And each time, I returned to something unspeakably profound.
After each session, Sam would offer me tea—never in a rush, never prescribing a response. He’d sit with me in stillness if I didn’t feel like talking, or he’d listen quietly if I did. That kind of presence is rare, and in a world that moves so fast, it left a lasting imprint on me.
Inside the tank, stripped of sound, light, weight, and time, I began to sense something sacred—a space beneath language, a stillness that felt alive. These weren’t just moments of relaxation; they were glimpses of the vastness we carry inside but rarely access. It felt like stepping into the quiet between heartbeats. Language fails there. But music—my music—began to shift.
As my float practice deepened, I noticed changes in my creativity. Ideas no longer arrived through effort but drifted in like fog, subtle and whole. I would leave the tank, towel-wrapped and blinking in the afternoon light, and head to the studio with melodies already humming behind my eyes. Floatation wasn’t inspiring in a conventional sense—it was reorienting. It reminded me of the creative power of stillness.
After moving to Austin, I lost the rhythm of floating. I tried a few places, but nothing quite clicked. There’s a vulnerability to this practice, and I needed a space that felt right—safe, warm, reverent. Recently, I discovered Ocean Lab, and I’m slowly reestablishing my ritual. The 90-minute floats are becoming my new cadence, offering relief for anxiety, releasing muscle tension, and opening the creative channel in ways that still surprise me.
Floatation therapy is more than relaxation. It’s a form of listening. A spiritual practice. A return. Inside the dark and weightless space, free from noise and gravity, I remember what it feels like to simply exist—unburdened and aware. For me, it’s a kind of meditation far beyond posture or breathwork. It’s presence distilled to its purest form.
In the context of ambient music composition, this stillness is everything. My work as Six Missing depends on slowness, on texture, on breath. Floating is the deepest breath I know. The clarity it offers is subtle but unmistakable—decisions feel less forced, sounds feel more connected. And in the silence of the tank, I hear the contours of new music before they even form.
If you’ve never floated before, it might sound strange to say that a pitch-black tank filled with warm water could change your life. But it can. It changed mine. And while I may go months without it, I always return—to the water, to the dark, to myself.
