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The Float Tank Was Invented in Oklahoma City
Not adapted here. Not popularised here. Built here, at the VA hospital, in 1957.
Most people who float have no idea the whole thing started a short drive from where we are now.
1957, at the VA hospital
Dr. Jay Shurley built the first Flotation-REST tank at the Oklahoma City Veterans Association hospital, working with Dr. John Lilly on what reduced environmental stimulation does to the human brain. The original question was simple: would a person fall asleep if every external stimulus were removed?
It did not look like a float pod
The first tank was vertical. You were fully immersed in fresh water, upright, wearing an opaque helmet with breathing tubes. Confining enough that its main use became training astronauts for the anti-gravity conditions of space.
How it became what it is now
The horizontal tank arrived in the 1970s, and Epsom salt with it — which removed the need for the helmet entirely, because now you simply floated. Everything since has been refinement.
Why we mention it
Partly because it is a good story. Mostly because people assume floating is a recent import from somewhere more fashionable, and it is worth knowing that the whole idea has Oklahoma City in its first line.
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