Sensory Deprivation by Scarlett Kat

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Another useful practice is known as sensory deprivation. The effects of extended periods of solitude have been known throughout history; the monk's cell and hermit's cave have a well documented reputation for their effects on the mind. But in the past it was believed that "the power of God" accounted for the experiences described by the meditating monk.

The first scientific experiments in sensory deprivation were conducted by American and Soviet space researchers, to determine the effects of long spaceflights on the mental states of astronauts. To their dismay, it became clear that mild disorientation and loss of time sense resulted after only several hours, with extreme effects such as hallucinations and delusional thinking occurring in less than a couple of days.

But what was horrible to a strict technologist was seen as something useful and desirable to others. One early researcher, Dr. John Lilly, developed the "isolation tank", a coffin-sized enclosure that allowed the subject to be floated in body-temperature salt water in total blackness and silence. His books detail the effects experienced by Lilly and his fellow psychonauts, and they are highly recommended to the student of magic.

The benefit of such a practice is to increase the awareness of one's own internal universe. The subjects of such experiments generally reported that the hallucinations and impressions they experienced were "meaningful" to them in some way. A student of magic is in a particularly privileged position to make use of these effects.

In the past decade or so sensory deprivation has become quite well known, inspiring Hollywood treatments such as the film "Altered States". But the elaborate flotation tanks and other expensive equipment depicted in the film is not necessary to experience the effects of sensory deprivation. In fact, it has been shown that complete darkness and silence are not required to induce these effects. It can be also accomplished by merely keeping all sensory input uniformly constant.

This is one exercise where it is very useful to have an assistant who can "look after things" while it's going on. Some people, when deprived of sight and hearing, become easily obsessed with the idea that the phone will ring, someone will knock on the door, or the house will catch on fire -- this makes it very hard to relax and immerse oneself in the experience. Another person can also help you set things up, as you will see in the following description.

Deprivation Meditation

There are several commercially marketed "brain-wave" machines available that are used to accomplish the same thing as this exercise, but they tend to be on the expensive side, starting at $100 or so and going up quickly. Using the technique described below you can spend less than 10 bucks (assuming you already own an inexpensive radio/cassette player) and find out if you might want to justify the expense of the fancier machines.

For this exercise you will need the following equipment:

- two white ping pong balls

- two large (4" square) gauze pads

- a razor knife (to slice the pads and ping pong balls)

- medical paper adhesive tape

- a portable "boom box" radio/cassette player

- lightweight stereo headphones

- a desk lamp with a 25 - 60 watt red light bulb

Setting up:

Using the razor knife, slice the ping pong balls in half, and discard the halves with the manufacturer's marks on them. Then cut a hole in each gauze pad slightly smaller than the size of the ping pong ball halves. If you like things neat, cut the corners off of the pads to make them roughly circular. You're going to make a crude pair of "glasses" out of the ping pong balls, using the gauze to pad the edges and the tape to hold them in place over your eyes, as follows:

Place the pads over the eye sockets so that the eyes are looking through the holes. Place the ball halves over the eyes with the edges resting on the gauze. They should clear the eye sockets enough so that blinking does not disturb them. Then the whole thing is gently taped in place.

The radio is tuned to a space between stations where there is no sound but a steady background hiss, known to audio engineers as "white noise". The bass/treble or equalizer controls can be used to soften the sound -- try decreasing the high and the low frequency controls (the bass and treble) until you get a soft, gentle sound like a distant waterfall. The headphones are placed on the ears and the volume adjusted so that the noise drowns out any external sounds.

Finally, turn out all the lights in the room except for the red light bulb -- if possible try to aim it directly at the eyes.

You can now see how useful it is to have an assistant to help!

This can be done either in a comfortable sitting position, or lying down. Once you're all set, plan to spend several minutes just getting comfortable, much as described in the previous section on basic meditation. (In fact, the procedure described there can be used in combination with the sensory deprivation exercise with great effect.) Then try to clear the mind and give free rein to whatever thoughts or images might arise. If you feel like speaking aloud, do so. It's also possible to have the assistant take notes or have a second tape recorder running to make a record.

From this point, the procedure is to basically do nothing, and allow the sensation deprived mind to range where it will. The longer one persists in this exercise the more effective it will be -- expect to spend at least a few hours to get the desired effects. With practice, one can learn to direct the visions one obtains, but this is beyond the scope of this book. I recommend the works of John Lilly to those with an interest in exploring these realms.