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The Deep Self
First published more than 20 years ago and now with a new introduction by the author, this classic work presents the methods and conclusions of more than 25 years of experimentation with the isolation-tank meditative experience. Drawing on the personal testimony of many who tried it, including Burgess Meredith, Gregory Bateson, E. J. Gold, and Jerry Rubin, the evidence shows how, by eliminating the presence of shifting physical input patterns, the tank allows participants to dive deep into their subconscious and focus immediately on their inner perceptions. The different domains of reality and how various experiences with solitude affect different people are discussed along with practical details on the standards for isolation tank manufacture and use.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1976
29 people are currently reading
650 people want to read
About the author
John C. Lilly
27 books210 followersJohn Cunningham Lilly was an American physician, neuroscientist, psychoanalyst, psychonaut, philosopher, writer and inventor.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
He was a researcher of the nature of consciousness using mainly isolation tanks, dolphin communication, and psychedelic drugs, sometimes in combination.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 16, 2015
This is the most focused book I've seen on Lilly's sensory deprivation tank experiments. The original question was about what would be left if all extermal stimuli were removed--in other words, what constitutes the endopsychic? Originally, this was a government sponsored study. They were interested in its potential applications to interrogation, an example of which was to give a subject a dose of LSD, then seal him in. Stuff like this and the mistreatment of dolphins (can they be used as intelligent torpedoes?), with whom Lilly also worked, led Lilly to abandon such sponsored research and head off on his own. He certainly took doses of LSD in the tank, but, having done so voluntarily, he did not kick his way out, screaming, like one of the earlier coerced G.I. subjects did. Instead, well, he went to other worlds as one can do with large enough doses of the drug, but more easily without the distractions of this one.
This book not only describes the history of his work with sensory deprivation and some of his experiences. It also shows one how to build a sensory deprivation tank.
Interestingly, I was first exposed to this work in high school by means of a Bell Labs film about the mind--another example about how our socialistic public education system is a cancer eating away at morality and civilization.
This book not only describes the history of his work with sensory deprivation and some of his experiences. It also shows one how to build a sensory deprivation tank.
Interestingly, I was first exposed to this work in high school by means of a Bell Labs film about the mind--another example about how our socialistic public education system is a cancer eating away at morality and civilization.
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March 10, 2019I read this book before my first experience in a Sensory Deprivation tank, to understand more of the philosophy behind it. John Lilly is a deeply interesting person, and his ideas here are pretty out there. From the reading, it seems like his ultimate interest is understanding "the nature of reality", and is willing to look in all sorts of alternative places to find it. In some sense, his ideas are based on the metaphor of a person as a "BioComputer", who has various "programs" running on them.
The sensory deprivation tank, then, is supposed to block all incoming sensations into the Biocomputer, and allows individuals to experience complete solitude, in the hopes of uncovering "who we really are", in the deeper parts of our psyche. This may allow us to answer questions such as, is conciousness inside or outside the mind?
Lilly is very interesting, and I hope to read 2/3 more of his books in the future.
The sensory deprivation tank, then, is supposed to block all incoming sensations into the Biocomputer, and allows individuals to experience complete solitude, in the hopes of uncovering "who we really are", in the deeper parts of our psyche. This may allow us to answer questions such as, is conciousness inside or outside the mind?
Lilly is very interesting, and I hope to read 2/3 more of his books in the future.
July 23, 2023
THE CREATIVE RESEARCHER DISCUSSES THE ISOLATION TANK, AND MORE
Author John C. Lilly wrote in the Introduction to this 1972 book, “It is a rare event when an author-researcher has the clear opportunity to present to a new generation of researchers and searchers an original contribution based on twenty-three years of research. This book and the technique and the theory expressed here have slowly developed over the interval of time. There has been adequate time to carry out several hundreds of personal observations and experiences, and to allow several hundred other persons to make their own observations and have their experiences under adequately controlled conditions… There has been enough time to integrate these data sufficiently to furnish a current theoretical position with which this researcher satisfied… This book summarizes the method developed … some personal observations and experiments… the work of others… and the current development of the theory… The resulting technique is now made available in a relatively perfected form for the use of others….” (Pg. 13)
He continues, “Over the years, this method to this author has been a research tool, applied to the philosophical as well as scientific questions of the nature of reality…. For the first ten years (1954-1964) the tank method was used primarily for self-analysis, continuing the author’s psychoanalysis … During these years… the author learned … to expect the unexpected in his own inner domains… He also learned not to carry these inner realities into his outer consensus reality beyond what he conceived to be the tolerance of his professional colleagues and his professional milieu… In 1964… multiple opportunities arose to extend his researches with the tank isolation to include the aid of psychopharmacologicallly active substances… he was able to pursue his researches into the deep recesses of the internal realities.” (Pg. 14)
He goes on, “In 1973, an opportunity arose to expand the tank isolation work in Malibu, California. A home with outlying facilities housing five tanks was established. From 1973 to the present, in addition to personal research, additional persons used the tanks and reported their experiences in personal logs… Only a few carefully chosen persons currently use this facility; the personal work is once again dominant for this researcher. Currently, the method of tank isolation is being researched for applications to everyday problems for rest and problem-solving for nonresearch purposes.” (Pg. 15)
He explains in the first chapter, “the solitude, isolation and confinement tank was devised as a research instrument … it has turned out that we have devised a method of attaining the deepest rest that we have ever experienced. The research instrument has become a practical possibility for use by those untrained in research… these persons range from housewives, businessmen, scientists and mystics, to children.” (Pg. 25)
He observes, “Certain people take any method, tank or drugs or whatever, and become addicted to it as a ‘crutch.’ In our work we call these ‘crutch programs.’… An exclusive necessity of any outside aid for a given state of consciousness is defined as a crutch program… in our experience this is not necessary. One can lean, by means of the thank as an aid, to do things with one’s state of being, one’s consciousness. One can practice what one learns in the tank OUTSIDE the tank under other circumstances… to go into a cave, or into the desert, and be alone in pure solitude… and examine some of these things… Finally one learns to be able to close one’s eyes in the middle of a conference for a period of a minute or two and change one’s state of being, of consciousness, as one desires. By integrating/organizing/meditating on tank versus nontank experience, one discovers for oneself the use and the usefulness of this restful tool in one’s own planetside trip.” (Pg. 64)
He recounts, “As a dedicated young experimental scientist … I wanted a more complete picture … of the electrical activity throughout the brain… I also needed to learn more of the mind in the brain… in order to find/devise/create a method of recording its activities in parallel simultaneously with the changes in the brain. In short, I was seeking methods of objective fast recording of the activities of the brain, and, simultaneously, objective fast recording of the activities of the mind in that brain. In this search I went into medical school, seeking more knowledge of these two domains of parallel process… In medical school, I continued the search… I found more data but no new methods… there was no method (yet) of recording the mind activities and the brain activities simultaneously. I also learned that most medical researchers did not feel that there was any hope of ever accomplishing this difficult task.” (Pg. 69)
He says of the tank experience, “Floating in the darkness/silence… One can become aware of new experience/inperience… that entities other than one’s Self somehow can interlock with one in the isolation tank by means not present in our current consensus science… that one is something/someone far greater than one’s simulation of one’s Self… that one can become so deeply interlocked with something far greater than human that one’s Self disappears as an individual human being and one unifies/identifies with some ‘network’ or creation… that one’s Self (when present) can move out of the body to anywhere/anytime/any form.” (Pg. 97-98)
He adds, “there can be a loss of distinctions between Self and the surrounds, so that the simulations of Self and the simulations of the surroundings become melded; the boundaries of distinction become more diffuse and the Self spreads out… Simulations of the external reality can disappear completely and the simulations of Self become totally isolated in a domain that has no space, no time, and is eternal. The Self is still capable of emotion, and may … move into any emotional mode of which one can conceive… the simulations of Self have disappeared, and the Self is everything, spread out, universal, creating everything, creating itself… All simulations of the external reality are gone, all simulations of Self are gone and there is only a pure consciousness, a pure awareness, consciousness without an object… Finally, Self disappears, everything disappears. If there is any experience in this state, none of it is brought back in returning from this state to other states.” (Pg. 109-110)
The book devotes about 35 pages to explaining how the isolation tank should be constructed, and 90 pages to recounting experiences of people in the tank.
Of one of his own experiences, he summarizes, “I had learned that death is not as terrifying as I had imagined it to be, that there is another space, a safe space beyond where we are now. Instead of being frightened off from further experimentation, I became intrigued and decided to explore this very region.” (Pg. 281)
He explains, “we define ‘mind’ as ‘the software/programs/metaprograms continued in the computational domain of a central nervous system … in a biological system that supports its essential processes and provides its inputs/outputs from/to an eternal reality … Within the computational domain, an observer/operator … exists as that aspect of the computational domain that apparently distinguishes/observes/operates/computes at a level of computation one level above that called the Self-referential metaprogrammatic level, at least eight levels above the ‘machine language level’ of the operations of the [Central Nervous System].” (Pg. 297)
This book will interest those studying ‘transpersonal/metaphysical’ psychology.
Author John C. Lilly wrote in the Introduction to this 1972 book, “It is a rare event when an author-researcher has the clear opportunity to present to a new generation of researchers and searchers an original contribution based on twenty-three years of research. This book and the technique and the theory expressed here have slowly developed over the interval of time. There has been adequate time to carry out several hundreds of personal observations and experiences, and to allow several hundred other persons to make their own observations and have their experiences under adequately controlled conditions… There has been enough time to integrate these data sufficiently to furnish a current theoretical position with which this researcher satisfied… This book summarizes the method developed … some personal observations and experiments… the work of others… and the current development of the theory… The resulting technique is now made available in a relatively perfected form for the use of others….” (Pg. 13)
He continues, “Over the years, this method to this author has been a research tool, applied to the philosophical as well as scientific questions of the nature of reality…. For the first ten years (1954-1964) the tank method was used primarily for self-analysis, continuing the author’s psychoanalysis … During these years… the author learned … to expect the unexpected in his own inner domains… He also learned not to carry these inner realities into his outer consensus reality beyond what he conceived to be the tolerance of his professional colleagues and his professional milieu… In 1964… multiple opportunities arose to extend his researches with the tank isolation to include the aid of psychopharmacologicallly active substances… he was able to pursue his researches into the deep recesses of the internal realities.” (Pg. 14)
He goes on, “In 1973, an opportunity arose to expand the tank isolation work in Malibu, California. A home with outlying facilities housing five tanks was established. From 1973 to the present, in addition to personal research, additional persons used the tanks and reported their experiences in personal logs… Only a few carefully chosen persons currently use this facility; the personal work is once again dominant for this researcher. Currently, the method of tank isolation is being researched for applications to everyday problems for rest and problem-solving for nonresearch purposes.” (Pg. 15)
He explains in the first chapter, “the solitude, isolation and confinement tank was devised as a research instrument … it has turned out that we have devised a method of attaining the deepest rest that we have ever experienced. The research instrument has become a practical possibility for use by those untrained in research… these persons range from housewives, businessmen, scientists and mystics, to children.” (Pg. 25)
He observes, “Certain people take any method, tank or drugs or whatever, and become addicted to it as a ‘crutch.’ In our work we call these ‘crutch programs.’… An exclusive necessity of any outside aid for a given state of consciousness is defined as a crutch program… in our experience this is not necessary. One can lean, by means of the thank as an aid, to do things with one’s state of being, one’s consciousness. One can practice what one learns in the tank OUTSIDE the tank under other circumstances… to go into a cave, or into the desert, and be alone in pure solitude… and examine some of these things… Finally one learns to be able to close one’s eyes in the middle of a conference for a period of a minute or two and change one’s state of being, of consciousness, as one desires. By integrating/organizing/meditating on tank versus nontank experience, one discovers for oneself the use and the usefulness of this restful tool in one’s own planetside trip.” (Pg. 64)
He recounts, “As a dedicated young experimental scientist … I wanted a more complete picture … of the electrical activity throughout the brain… I also needed to learn more of the mind in the brain… in order to find/devise/create a method of recording its activities in parallel simultaneously with the changes in the brain. In short, I was seeking methods of objective fast recording of the activities of the brain, and, simultaneously, objective fast recording of the activities of the mind in that brain. In this search I went into medical school, seeking more knowledge of these two domains of parallel process… In medical school, I continued the search… I found more data but no new methods… there was no method (yet) of recording the mind activities and the brain activities simultaneously. I also learned that most medical researchers did not feel that there was any hope of ever accomplishing this difficult task.” (Pg. 69)
He says of the tank experience, “Floating in the darkness/silence… One can become aware of new experience/inperience… that entities other than one’s Self somehow can interlock with one in the isolation tank by means not present in our current consensus science… that one is something/someone far greater than one’s simulation of one’s Self… that one can become so deeply interlocked with something far greater than human that one’s Self disappears as an individual human being and one unifies/identifies with some ‘network’ or creation… that one’s Self (when present) can move out of the body to anywhere/anytime/any form.” (Pg. 97-98)
He adds, “there can be a loss of distinctions between Self and the surrounds, so that the simulations of Self and the simulations of the surroundings become melded; the boundaries of distinction become more diffuse and the Self spreads out… Simulations of the external reality can disappear completely and the simulations of Self become totally isolated in a domain that has no space, no time, and is eternal. The Self is still capable of emotion, and may … move into any emotional mode of which one can conceive… the simulations of Self have disappeared, and the Self is everything, spread out, universal, creating everything, creating itself… All simulations of the external reality are gone, all simulations of Self are gone and there is only a pure consciousness, a pure awareness, consciousness without an object… Finally, Self disappears, everything disappears. If there is any experience in this state, none of it is brought back in returning from this state to other states.” (Pg. 109-110)
The book devotes about 35 pages to explaining how the isolation tank should be constructed, and 90 pages to recounting experiences of people in the tank.
Of one of his own experiences, he summarizes, “I had learned that death is not as terrifying as I had imagined it to be, that there is another space, a safe space beyond where we are now. Instead of being frightened off from further experimentation, I became intrigued and decided to explore this very region.” (Pg. 281)
He explains, “we define ‘mind’ as ‘the software/programs/metaprograms continued in the computational domain of a central nervous system … in a biological system that supports its essential processes and provides its inputs/outputs from/to an eternal reality … Within the computational domain, an observer/operator … exists as that aspect of the computational domain that apparently distinguishes/observes/operates/computes at a level of computation one level above that called the Self-referential metaprogrammatic level, at least eight levels above the ‘machine language level’ of the operations of the [Central Nervous System].” (Pg. 297)
This book will interest those studying ‘transpersonal/metaphysical’ psychology.
November 10, 2017
This book is more useful as a companion to an isolation/float practice than as some document of science or philosophy. Lilly is severely hampered by the lack of appropriate terminology during his era (or maybe he was just willfully ignorant/original/deluded), and his invented terms are really bizarre and probably not the best.
However, once you see what he's trying to say, he has some truly profound things to say about the nature of consciousness, both inside and outside of the tank. He (eventually) deftly handles the question about whether the experiences in the tank (or on drugs) are "real" or not; this is especially important in this era "psychonauts" who fetishize trans-consciousness as being super-consciousness, which is not a helpful equivalence for those of us stuck in reality.
This is an important book, but it'll take a couple readings (and lot of hours in the tank) to really grok.
However, once you see what he's trying to say, he has some truly profound things to say about the nature of consciousness, both inside and outside of the tank. He (eventually) deftly handles the question about whether the experiences in the tank (or on drugs) are "real" or not; this is especially important in this era "psychonauts" who fetishize trans-consciousness as being super-consciousness, which is not a helpful equivalence for those of us stuck in reality.
This is an important book, but it'll take a couple readings (and lot of hours in the tank) to really grok.
September 15, 2020
Bit of a mixed up book
Lilly is a fascinating writer. Deep analysis, fearless and genuine, but with some wacky ideas and a good dosage of fads. Cybernetic this and that. I suppose it was still the 70s. The relativity of all belief systems! Strong tendency to that. The claim can’t even be consistently asserted - for obvious reasons. So the book is a bit of a mixture, worth a read but flawed. Why include at least 50 pages on the mechanics of setting up the tanks. Why include at least 80 pages on personal accounts of tankers. Mostly trite, insipid, repetitive, full of the fads and jargons of the day and of little value. Although Richard Feynman’s account of his experiences was articulate and interesting at least.
Lilly is a fascinating writer. Deep analysis, fearless and genuine, but with some wacky ideas and a good dosage of fads. Cybernetic this and that. I suppose it was still the 70s. The relativity of all belief systems! Strong tendency to that. The claim can’t even be consistently asserted - for obvious reasons. So the book is a bit of a mixture, worth a read but flawed. Why include at least 50 pages on the mechanics of setting up the tanks. Why include at least 80 pages on personal accounts of tankers. Mostly trite, insipid, repetitive, full of the fads and jargons of the day and of little value. Although Richard Feynman’s account of his experiences was articulate and interesting at least.
June 20, 2024
Fun to read this & proceed to experiment with the Isolation Tank myself. Feel like I have a better understanding of how the tank provokes an opportunity for inner work, as no other experience truly is able to.
The tank is a beacon of external silence of both external inputs & outputs. Think of a flash of light from a car onto your line of sight as an input, and you shielding your eyes as an output. There isn’t an opportunity for this in the tank. Just you, the epsom salts & the water.
It leaves one solely to tend to the mind, as the body becomes buoyant as you float, leaving all of your energy to go to your psychic process away from the typical unconscious worries of gravity.
So explore within & read this book before/after you decide to experiment with the Tank!
The tank is a beacon of external silence of both external inputs & outputs. Think of a flash of light from a car onto your line of sight as an input, and you shielding your eyes as an output. There isn’t an opportunity for this in the tank. Just you, the epsom salts & the water.
It leaves one solely to tend to the mind, as the body becomes buoyant as you float, leaving all of your energy to go to your psychic process away from the typical unconscious worries of gravity.
So explore within & read this book before/after you decide to experiment with the Tank!
January 22, 2019
okay, his ketamine obession makes this work practically useless.
he failed to deliver on expectations based on a tube, brain in the bowl.
everyone's having own out-of-the-body experiences when floating and no one's allowed to spoil it with ideas and suggestions on how to feel.
I respect him for investing his time into floating as a practice but man... he should be staying away from teaching something he misunderstood so heavily
he failed to deliver on expectations based on a tube, brain in the bowl.
everyone's having own out-of-the-body experiences when floating and no one's allowed to spoil it with ideas and suggestions on how to feel.
I respect him for investing his time into floating as a practice but man... he should be staying away from teaching something he misunderstood so heavily
March 8, 2018
Some chapters were much more useful to me than others.
I liked the description of early work, the construction of float tanks, and personal accounts of float experiences (by people other than Dr. Lily). That is, Chapters 9-13. I did not feel that the rest of the book was very useful to me.
Freely downloadable from archive.org: https://archive.org/details/TheDeepSe...
I liked the description of early work, the construction of float tanks, and personal accounts of float experiences (by people other than Dr. Lily). That is, Chapters 9-13. I did not feel that the rest of the book was very useful to me.
Freely downloadable from archive.org: https://archive.org/details/TheDeepSe...
July 23, 2017
Flotation tanks were one of those weird things from the early 70s, artifacts from the Human Potential Movement that I saw out of the corner of my eye when I was a kid at the end of that decade. I tried one out in San Francisco at the end of the last millennium as a birthday present, and I remember vividly what I said at the end of my first float; I paraphrased Dōgen Zenji, "Body and mind have dropped away." Pretty profound stuff, but getting to the flotation tank place was a hassle and frankly, the floats were too pricey for my grad student psychonaut budget, so I only indulged one or two more times.
Fast forward a decade and a half. I'm living and working for a few weeks in Chicago, and at nights in my studio apartment I'm watching a show on Netflix called Stranger Things. I see a flotation tank in the show, remember my earlier experiences, wonder if there are any in the Windy City, and discover a brand new flotation tank center a mere twenty-minute walk from my place. I go, I float, I dissolve into the clear light for an hour at a time, and I'm addicted. Anytime I'm in Chicago, I go there. And someone local stole my inspiration and opened a float center in a beauty salon an even merer fifteen-minute drive away. Yes!
Which brings me to this book. John C. Lilly, MD, invented the isolation tank and is probably our the deepest, most sustained thinker on what precisely the experience of floating means. Or ceases to mean, as one of the subjects (one John Brockman) quoted in this book asserts: “The point of the tank is that meaning ceases to have any meaning” (p. 169). This book collects an overwhelming diversity of publications, essays, journals, etc. on the floating experience and what it reveals about the nature of the mind and of reality. Much of the material is technical and/or clinical in nature, and so it doesn’t make for beach reading, but as a whole the academic theory, presented with the practice (i.e., instructions on how to build a tank) and experience (in the form of journal entries from folks who floated in Lilly’s tank, luminaries including Richard Feynman, E.J. Gold, Stanislav Grof, Joan Halifax, and Robert Anton Wilson), makes this an essential book for those interested in the “philosophy” of floating.
Fast forward a decade and a half. I'm living and working for a few weeks in Chicago, and at nights in my studio apartment I'm watching a show on Netflix called Stranger Things. I see a flotation tank in the show, remember my earlier experiences, wonder if there are any in the Windy City, and discover a brand new flotation tank center a mere twenty-minute walk from my place. I go, I float, I dissolve into the clear light for an hour at a time, and I'm addicted. Anytime I'm in Chicago, I go there. And someone local stole my inspiration and opened a float center in a beauty salon an even merer fifteen-minute drive away. Yes!
Which brings me to this book. John C. Lilly, MD, invented the isolation tank and is probably our the deepest, most sustained thinker on what precisely the experience of floating means. Or ceases to mean, as one of the subjects (one John Brockman) quoted in this book asserts: “The point of the tank is that meaning ceases to have any meaning” (p. 169). This book collects an overwhelming diversity of publications, essays, journals, etc. on the floating experience and what it reveals about the nature of the mind and of reality. Much of the material is technical and/or clinical in nature, and so it doesn’t make for beach reading, but as a whole the academic theory, presented with the practice (i.e., instructions on how to build a tank) and experience (in the form of journal entries from folks who floated in Lilly’s tank, luminaries including Richard Feynman, E.J. Gold, Stanislav Grof, Joan Halifax, and Robert Anton Wilson), makes this an essential book for those interested in the “philosophy” of floating.
Want to read
October 25, 2008how can I fit the tank in my garage! this might have to wait until summer..and I didnt read this book..whys it here..? Must have something to do with biology..it all comes back to biology
July 14, 2013
Very informative but quite heavy reading.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews