MY HYDROLOGIC ZEN QUEST, a search for buoyance of body and spirit, began in a far-flung swath of the San Fernando Valley, at a featureless beige building next to the Ventura Freeway. The setting was a little discordant, to say the least. There were no icons or signage hinting at the cosmic wonders that lurked inside, and the lobby was empty except for a tacky oxygen bar—more Venice Beach Boardwalk than Sedona—with fluorescent liquids in whimsically shaped bottles. I was given a short orientation and led to a dimly lit room with a shower in one corner and, in the center, a large white pod shaped like an egg. Then I was left alone.
After rinsing off I climbed into the bed-sized pod and tried to lay back in about ten inches of body-temperature water that the receptionist said had been mixed with eight hundred pounds of Epsom salt. I reached up and brought the lid down, sealing myself in for the next hour, undergoing the amplified thoughts and alien weightlessness of a sensory deprivation tank for the first—but not the last—time.
How did I ge…