Floating in a flotation tank induces an altered state of consciousness, ranging from mild relaxation and changed time perception to powerful perceptual shifts including out-of-body and perinatal experiences. A qualitative analysis of interviews with eight patients suffering from depression, burn-out syndrome, and chronic pain identified 21 categories grouped into four themes: experiences during floating, perceived effects afterward, technical details, and participants' background, motivation, and expectations. Floating was generally perceived as pleasant. These findings may assist professionals and potential users in understanding the effects of flotation tank therapy.
Presence—both as objecthood and immersion—is not captured by any single sense but emerges from all available sensory knowledge as a disembodied sense of solidity. Based on 117 phenomenological interviews with 14 participants sampled across positive (e.g., sexual intimacy) and negative (e.g., psychopathology) circumstances, a grounded theory analysis indicates that presence is a transmodal phenomenon, relatable to how aspects of experience translate between sensory modalities. Its relation to lived space helps explain delusion formation as rooted in sensory alterations rather than belief changes. That presence in lived space need not match objective reality informs debates on whether presence is an amodal aspect of consciousness.