The zero-g, watery silence that’s taking over the world. Oprah approves

“Floating is the new facial,” declared the teasing headline, describing the meditation-like, zero-g experience of getting horizontal in a tank filled with 11 inches of 93.5-degree water mixed with 750 to 800 pounds of Epsom salts. Apparently, the silence and weightlessness are a boon even at a dollar a minute. Imagine a comfortable watery world without tweets, texts, talky-talk. It might feel like a return to the womb. A pre-birth.

The fad is newly popular – even in Kazakhstan – and it’s on the Oprah-approved list of good things to do. But the product appears to have been around 40 years, having been started by Dr John Lilly of Samadhi company, whose name is self-explanatory (at least to those who know Hindi).