Our Town: W.P.’s Hope Floats offers unique experience

One of the many perks of being a journalist is that you get introduced to interesting things all the time.
A few weeks ago, I was strolling down Hillside Avenue minding my own business and a gentleman approached me asking if I was that writer for Blank Slate Media.  
He introduced himself as Peter Hewitson, owner of Uncle Bacala’s and asked me if I might be interested in doing a piece  on the store we were standing in front of.  
I looked up and read the sign which said “Hope Floats.”  
Interesting name for sure and I told me that yes indeed I was a journalist and that I promised him I would return and do a piece on the place when it opened.  
He told me they were offering something called floatation therapy.
Well last week I could see they were open for business and I went down to 52 Hillside Ave/ Williston Park, next to Peter Andrews, and walked in.
I was greeted by the store manager Tim Bechtel who smiled and introduced me to the co-owners Kimberly Boone and Lynette D’Arco.   
Not knowing a thing about floatation therapy I asked them to give me a tour.
They explained that this form of therapy was developed by the National Institute of Health in the 1950s.
I recall when I was in college I almost volunteered for that experiment which they called stimulus seprivation, and now call reduced environmental stimulus therapy.
They showed me a few rooms with these sci-fi looking pods that reminded me a lot of the space pods the crew used to leave the mother ship in the film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
These were the floatation devices and that each was filled  high grade Epsom salt but a lot more expensive.  
The concentration is so high that you simply float on top and can’t sink down.  
I was pleased by this since I really can’t swim too well and always wind up sinking in pools.
They said that floatation therapy is widely used by vets to cure PTSD and drug addictions as well.   
Seth Curry of the Golden State Warriors, Aly Raisman the Olympic gymnast and National Football League quarterback Tony Roma all ‘float’ every week.
It seems that the high sodium content in the water releases lactic acid from the muscles and that muscles also relax when the body no longer has to fight off gravity.  
Lynette also said that three families with autistic children use the flotation therapy because it improves sleep.   
Some use it for anxiety reduction and depression.
Enough said I was more than ready for an hour of peace and quiet.   
They leave you alone in the room where you strip down, take a shower, put in your earplugs, open the pod door and away you go.
You are told to sit down in the pod, close the door and lay back.  
It is pitch black and for the first ten minutes as you get acquainted with the feeling of floating as they pipe in sounds of whales in the background.  
Then that stops and you are left all alone with your thoughts.
Many years ago I did a similar experiment on my own.
I decided to turn off the TV, the radio and  not read a newspaper or a magazine for six months.
I presented my findings  on the experience at a conference in Santa Monica, Calif. People all seem astonished by this and many asked me how I kept up with the news.
I told them that I was lucky because nothing of any importance happened over that six months.
So in some way I was prepared for this one hour of sensory deprivation.  
Allow me to report what occurred to me over the next 50 minutes of my float.  
When the whale sounds stopped I began to hear my breathing very clearly and I was transported back to the scene in Space Odyssey when Astronaut Dr. David Bowman was dismantling HAL the computer.
All you could hear was Dr. Bowman breathing.  
That’s how I felt. Kind of like being out in the middle of space and listening to my breath and slowly unplugging my mind.
I was then transported to the bottom of the swimming pool in film “The Graduate” when Dustin Hoffman was submerged and looking at his parents trying to talk to him.  
The next thing I know I am watching the film Trainspotting when Ewan McGregor shoots heroin and slowly sinks into floor as the tune “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed plays in the background.
My mind keeps going and I think of all the operations I have had and how the Propofol feels when it goes into your veins.
And I can see why Michael Jackson used it so much.  Then I swing out to the stars and watch Sandra Bullock spin around in the space capsule in the film Gravity.  
I don’t know how long that lasts but then I begin to hear Frank Sinatra sing “Fly me to the moon let me play among the stars, Let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars.
In other words, hold my hand. In other words darling kiss me.”  
I imagine myself in bed lounging with my wife, smoking  a cigarette after some conjugal bliss.
The next thing I hear are some Tibetan monks hitting some bells and I realize that’s the signal that my hour is up.   
I open the door, take a quick shower and re-enter the world at large.  
Back on earth and back among the living, refreshed, relaxed, with a smile on my face and without my back pain.  
This is what was the yogis refer to as nirvana.  
Who would have guessed you could get a magical mystery ride without using a drug.  
So if you want to know what it feels like to be an astronaut and don’t have the million plus it costs to take the first space ride for civilians — I suggest you stroll down to Hope Floats and see what it will feel like.