THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2019 // 3
SCRATCHPAD
Sense and sensory deprivation
Stepping out of your story.
By ERICK BENGEL
COAST WEEKEND
I
n the darkness, I bobbed
supine on a 10-inch pool of
water inside a chamber 8 feet
long, 4 feet wide and 4 feet high.
I’d fi nally decided to use my
gift certifi cate for one free session
in a fl oatation tank at Designing
Health on Commercial Street in
Astoria. A loved one with claustro-
phobia gave it to me a year ago so
I could undergo the sensory depri-
vation and report back.
coast
To be sure, I wasn’t deprived of
my senses entirely. There was the
warm water beneath me, the scent
of the Epsom salts that kept me
buoyed, and the dull, reassuring
sound of my heartbeat.
After 20 or so minutes in moist
blackness, waiting for a delightful
hallucination or access to the god-
head, I gave up trying to force an
outcome and opted to let the expe-
rience take whatever form it chose.
In the end, the sensation was
neither of enclosure nor spacious-
ness. It wasn’t creatively inspir-
ing, though many artists and spir-
itual seekers use these devices
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
weekend
arts & entertainment
ON THE COVER
The Great Republic grounded on
the Columbia River’s Sand Island
in 1879. While the ship will not be
covered in a presentation during
the Shipwreck Conference, it is in a
book the Maritime Archaeological
Society is working on.
CHRIS DEWEY/MARITIME ARCHAEOLOGICAL
SOCIETY.
See story on Page 8
8
12
19
FEATURE
Shipwrecks ahoy!
Public conference looks at research, discoveries
DINING
Food is simple, fl avors sing at Bosnian restaurant
BOOKMONGER
‘Sleeping in My Jeans’
YA novel confronts homelessness
FURTHER ENJOYMENT
CROSSWORD ...............................6
SEE + DO ............................. 10, 11
CW MARKETPLACE.......... 15, 16
COAST WEEKEND EDITOR
ERICK BENGEL
CALENDAR COORDINATOR
SUE CODY
CONTRIBUTORS
DWIGHT CASWELL
KATHERINE LACAZE
BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL
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MUSIC CALENDAR .....................5
toward that end. Rather, the feel-
ing was one of — how can I put
this sanely? — becoming unteth-
ered from a plot.
Sometimes, when I feel as if
I’ve hopped onto the wrong box-
car and let myself get carried into
unfriendly territory, I try to step
into a former way of thinking, per-
haps a mindset from fi ve or 10
years ago. Revert to an old operat-
ing system.
Then, after living in that
bygone world, shuffl ing among
the ruins of my younger self’s
cares and worries, I open my eyes
to take in my everyday environ-
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ment, as though smash cutting to
the present. I view the now with
the clear eyes of a visitor able to
see the temporal distance cov-
ered and put the present into
perspective.
My hour in the fl oating tank
was like a more immersive ver-
sion of that meditative exercise, of
shutting out the detritus and mad-
dening stimuli of the day and mar-
veling at the sequence of events
that brought me to this place — a
wet, humid, unfathomably relax-
ing cocoon.
When my 60 minutes was up, I
showered, pulled out my ear plugs
and dressed. I stepped onto the
gray, chilly sidewalks of down-
town Astoria, the small stage on
which the several-act drama of
my life has played out these last
few years. For at least an hour, I
saw my surroundings with a light-
ness, detachment and relief that
comes from knowing that what-
ever plot we’re a part of, what-
ever role we’re playing right now,
we’re merely passing through a
scene. And there are many scenes
to savor.
Like most profound expe-
riences, you get out of sensory
deprivation what you bring to
it, and you may not even know
what that is until you do it. What
I brought to the fl oatation tank, it
seems, was a need for objectivity
and escape. Who knew. CW