I actually experienced one for the first time a few weeks ago, it cost me $20 USD and a piece of art (which was a reaaaaallly good bargain.)
I have to say, at first, it was a bit uncomfortable, and I’m not even claustrophobic. I was a bit frightened of hallucinating (since I was told that some people may have them) or having any sort of frightening experience. The man who owns the tank says that he has never had anyone really have a negative experience, unless they drink coffee first.
At first, it’s difficult to relax, but in order to have a better experience, just let go.
After a while I DID begin to hallucinate ( almost my entire “Potentials of the Human Consciousness” class participated, and it didn’t seem like a lot of people hallucinated when we discussed it later.) They were very similar to the short dreams and hallucinations when you have a WILD experience. Some were very, very vivid, but only lasted until I became aware of them, and then they faded.
Your sense of time and space is becomes really distorted. I was in the tank for a single hour, but felt like I had been in there for four hours. Some people felt like they’d only been in there for thirty minutes.
After a while I got to a point where I can’t recall anything, but I KNOW I wasn’t asleep. A lot of my classmates experienced this, and I believe it’s called Samadhi, I may have the term slightly wrong. In fact, it’s called a Samadhi tank, so I wouldn’t be surprised if several people experienced it.
When I got out, I felt completely stoned. I was beyond relaxed, I was SO relaxed that I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anybody, I just couldn’t process words. I had an incredible sense of well being (though I think I would have to call it fantastic being). Also, my shoulders (where I hold a lot of tension) felt amazing for a few days after, as if I had had a full body massage.
These are pretty common experiences it seems, since a lot of the class had them. Some others people mentioned were:
Out of Body experiences
The feeling that they had slipped into a completely different plane or dimension
Seeing auras ( I actually thought I saw mine for a few moments, but passed it off as my brain trying to put information there since it’s so used to seeing my body. The girl who said that she’d been seeing auras, mentioned that it’s continued after her time in the tank.)
etc
I would suggest meditating while in there, it helps you to relax, and probably heightens the experience. I couldn’t hold the mantra while I was meditating, so I just let it go.
Since I’ve been told that the experience gets better after the second or third time, I’m probably going again this December. I’ll fill in anyone who wants to know more of my experience or would like to know my experiences when I go again. Just message me.