Do You Float in the Dark?

It is the question we get asked more than almost any other, usually in a slightly lowered voice, and usually by someone who has already decided the answer is yes and that they are not sure how they feel about it. So: you can float in the dark. You do not have to. Nothing in the suite happens unless you make it happen.

Everything in the room is a switch

The light inside the pod, the music, and the lid itself are three separate controls, and you work all three from inside. There is no setting we apply from the front desk and no point at which the room takes over. If you want the light on for the full hour with the lid wide open and something playing the whole time, that is a float. Nobody will mention it.

The light

There is a button inside the pod, within easy reach of where your hand naturally sits. One press turns the interior light off, another turns it back on. It is deliberately easy to find in the dark, because the whole thing would be rather pointless otherwise.

The lid

The lid lifts from the inside with very little effort and it does not latch, lock, seal or fasten in any way. This is worth saying plainly because people imagine otherwise. If you would rather leave it open, leave it open. The suite itself is private and dark enough that plenty of people float with the lid up and notice no real difference.

The music

Audio plays for the first few minutes and the last few minutes, which is how you know the session has started and how you know it is ending. By default, the middle is silent.

If you would rather have something playing the whole way through, there is a floating Bluetooth speaker in the suite that you can connect to your own playlist. A lot of people pick a sound bath. You can just as easily put on a podcast, and nobody at the desk is going to raise an eyebrow at it. If you have Spotify or something similar on your phone and no idea what to choose, ask us — the staff keep their own recommendations and will hand one over.

What the dark is actually for

With eleven inches of water holding you up, the light off and the lid down, there is very little for your senses to work on. No pressure points, because you are not resting on anything. No temperature difference worth noticing, because the water sits close to skin temperature. Not much to look at, and not much to hear. Describing that is harder than experiencing it, which is why most of what gets written about floating sounds either clinical or faintly mystical. It is mostly just quiet.

Most people end up there eventually

What tends to happen is that first-timers start with the light on and the lid up, and somewhere in the first fifteen minutes turn the light off to see what it is like. Some put it straight back on. Plenty do not, and then book their second float and go straight to dark. Neither route is the correct one. There is no version of this you are supposed to work up to.

If the dark is the part that worries you

Then start with it on. Tell us at the desk that you would rather keep the lid open and we will not ask why. The controls are all inside with you, the door is unlocked, and you can end a session at any point by getting out. Knowing that is usually enough on its own, and most people never use any of it.