 So, next up for you guys, we have pretty much the debut of the U.S. Float Tank Association that's here today to present themselves to you as an organization. Some of you are a little familiar with them from going to the workshop a little bit before, but I'd like to invite Glenn and Lee Perry back on stage to give you guys a little bit of insight onto the new iteration of the U.S. Float Tank Association. The first thing on it is yesterday, I imagine everybody heard Peter Sudfeld gave the history of iris of, you know, all the sensory deprivation work from a long time ago. We have, at the moment, the United States North American Floatation Tank Association. It's actually been dormant for 20 years. The history is here, I'll be reading that to you. And we have a five member called the forward Board of Directors. And who they are are the last Board of Directors from 20 years ago, the way the bylaws are written in order to make it legal. We are still a legal organization, a corporation incorporated in the state of New York in 1984. And when we checked it last year, knowing it was last year in San Francisco, the small group of 30 people that gathered said, what's most important is to reawaken the Floatation Tank Association. Because what we want to accomplish is having floatation tank centers throughout the U.S. that don't need lifeguards and, you know, they don't have to have all these accoutrements that stop them from happening. And so we thought if we have a strong body of float centers and individuals that are organized together, then we're a force that can talk to the different authorities and say, yes, this is in order to be a floatation tank association, we're very different from a swimming pool, we don't need to use chlorine, we don't need lifeguards, and this is what we do need. And so we will present to them the kind of things that Shoshana has been doing, you know, this is what we do need, this is what we intend to do, this is what we can do, and we would like to be certified or legitimized. So one of the five people, two of them are Glenn and I, and then there's Tom Fine, who's a psychologist at the Medical College of Ohio, and John Turner, a physiologist from the Medical College of Ohio, and Faustin Bray, who's, I'll call her, an artist from California. And Tom and John could not be here today, but they did send a clip. It's about six minutes long, and it has to do with a continuation of what Peter was talking about yesterday. So we're going to see that first, and after that, then this report about floatation tank association follows and tells us what happens next, up until, and then it goes up until today, and we'll continue from there. So Ashkahn's going to get it turned on. The deep self provided me with a practical knowledge about tank. When I shared the deep self with John Turner, it resulted in a research partnership that spanned many years. Hi, this is John Turner. You know, I read the deep self. It was really intriguing. And so we wanted to do some studies, classical conditioning, relaxation, but they included self-reports or emotion, but we were also interested, as well in the physiology that went along with the relaxation proposal, therapeutic use of the tank for treating stress-related disorders. We were able to pay private funding for this purpose, and Zadu, off we went, and between ourselves and our subjects over the years, we logged thousands of photos. Around 1981, we began corresponding to a piece of film. We've been researching isolation for us for many, many years. Actually, the name Rest was filmed by Ron Vorre, a grad student of ours. We were in control of the isolation. Right on the circle back and forth on the knee. John Miller would be in on this. First he said, see, I'm going to see. Kind of like that. But then when we settled with Rest, he said it should be restoring energy safely traveling. He suggested that we publish our work with hypertension in a journal called The New Research Therapy. He submitted it, and the portion that they have accepted, and that was the first publication. Two researchers are using the float tank as the focal point for serious scientific study. They're using the tank as a tool to help reduce pain and relieve stress. How does it work? We're trying to create an environment which has minimal input to the senses. That would include vision, hearing, touch, including a sense of gravity. Also, it provides an opportunity for the individual in that environment to be more associated with themselves because they don't have this output from input from the outside. And in the case of Steven Essek, only your own record store only adds to the tension. Interested in studying the subject of stress, Steven was a likely candidate for close research. Hormone levels measured in his blood prior to floating were compared to levels taken when he emerged, since certain hormones are believed to be stress related. Love pressure also is taken on a before and after basis, and electrodes attached to his forehead and jaw and tongue to monitor changes in muscle tension and pulse rate while he floats. After a quick shower, Steven was ready to step into this unique cell of serenity. The tank itself provides with a fairly powerful clinical tool in helping people whose systems have gone out of regulation and have what we call disorders and dysregulation like high blood pressure or other stress related disorders to learn to re-regulate themselves and bring these stress related disorders under a certain degree of their own personal control. We held the first international conference under us in 1983. Pete Silverfell and Jack Stanley, a group of Jets, organized that. We had about 20 papers presented, and those were published in 1985. We formed IRIS and IRIS was on its way to that point. After the 1983 conference, an explosion in the tank had occurred with a wide variety of tanks. We were fortunate enough to be in Ontario. We also had a research comparator to the wet flotation. In total, there were six international conferences on rest. The last one was held in 1997 in San Francisco. While IRIS faded, other researchers did carry on with the work including many in Sweden and some in Japan, but we see research in the interest of the public. Our experimental work involved measuring a wide variety of physiological variables. Many of them related to stress. Our plot work looked at essential hypertension, chronic pain, and rheumatoid arthritis, using flotation rest as a treatment for those. We made many publications, over 20 publications in record journals or news articles or books, and we were involved with the editing of four books. Here are some pictures from the various IRIS conferences. We carried a re-found on this. Peter Sootfeld, myself, John Turner with one period, and John Turner myself with John Ford. We're very excited with the resurgence of interest in the clothing that's occurring, and we wish everybody great success in being able to resurrect flotation tanking sensation and bring more and more people to this exciting technology. How many of you read The Deep Self? A couple? Well, it always intrigued me. John Lilly at the beginning of The Deep Self gives his description, the flotation tank. This place I found, invented, discovered, was led to, guided in such a way that I hunted for the first one of these places, or I needed such a place for my own research on myself, the universe, the divine, the new and unexpected, never before seen or programmed by any known persons, the isolation tank, flotation tank, the solitude tank, the womb to tomb wet box. The place one can rent for money to seek nothingness. The isolation, solitude, confinement, happiness, freedom, domain. So, that's what we're working with. Move it to the light. Move it to the light. Okay. Well, I'm going to have to, I'm going to work from here because of pages. What I'm going to do is kind of give you dates as to when things happen, kind of put us in context of where we are now, and then we're going to go into, you know, really making the formal, breaking the bottle over the formal opening, reopening of the flotation tank association of the U.S. Let's see. We had the, no, no, not that one. So there was the woman who actually started the flotation tank association was Alma Daniel. She was talented at organizing and she had already formed an organizational, organizational infrastructure with a name, newsletter, a four member board of directors, an advisory board with John Lilly, a large base of correspondence in the U.S. and Europe, and a certificate of incorporation from the state of New York. Her stated purpose was the safety and comfort of the floating public, the physical and psychological considerations, and she became the executive director of the flotation tank association. In winter of 1984, Tony Lilly suggested that the advisory board of John Lilly, Tony Lilly, Jay Shirley, Tom Fine, Terry Hunt, Peter Sudfeld, John Turner, Glenn and Lee Perry become members of the board of directors in order to become voting members. So the same names keep on bouncing over and over again. For many years it goes on like that. So what started happening as this started coming into the news, the media came into play. We were all over the news. We were Esquire, Vogue, New York Times. There were 500 written requests for information. Connecticut was the first state to say, okay, if you want to have a tank center, you don't have to do anything, it's legal. Summer of 1984, nine new tank centers are opening and FTA is gathering data to print a directory of float centers. Yeah, that's great. Fall of 1984, France pops. They invite John Lilly to come and speak. 200 people show up in Paris within one year's time. Four tanks for different tanks are manufactured and they had 125 tank centers opened. That was one year, 1984. Elma Daniel went over there and she said that the lack of training of those bringing tanks to the public made it so that the tanks didn't work, they didn't know how to invite people to come in, and in one year all that vanished. 1985, the centers are growing rapidly in the U.S. There were lots of single tank centers that opened, just one tank, like what we have now. And they were opened by people who loved floating. They loved walking into tank centers and they saw somebody very relaxed, just sitting around, looking good. And they said, well, it was still a time when work was not a very good thing. People didn't have good jobs that they liked. They thought that work was the bad thing that you did, not like what Graham is doing with the work he's doing. Your work is your life. At that time, your work is what you had to do in order to have a life. We heard reports at that time that the tanks were not clean. The temperatures were too warm, too cold, and nobody cared whether they were clean or not. The center operators were far from being experts on the working of the tank. There were even reports of women floaters being hassled by male center operators. These centers were opening and closing quickly. So here you have this kind of a trajectory of an industry moving up very fast. Membership in FTA at that time was bigger than 220 members. And now the next thing that happened was the first FTA conference. Oh, that's not right. It was in, let's see, what year are we in now? This is 1985. And Iris, the organization that Peter and Rob were members of, were putting on a scientific conference in New Orleans. The subject of that conference was mainly flotation. And Alma Daniel brought her a bunch of people along. And Peter Sudfeld made the address there called The Research Connecting Science and Business, as well as a bunch of successful center operators sharing their experience, just like today. The flotation tank people were finally meeting each other and exchanging information about their successes and failures. Michael Hutchison, the author of the Book of Floating, he arrived unannounced and the mood of the event was a huge celebration. The conference proved the growing influence of the floating experience. And that was the official recognition of the flotation tank association. 1986, how long ago is that? Where are we, 22? Okay, a long time ago. Alma Daniel, at that time, announced her resignation after that first conference happened. The number of centers in the U.S. is dwindling. The change in leadership and the aftermath of the AIDS scare is right in everybody's face. AIDS had become a big issue in this country. 1986 was Tony Lilly passed. Alma Daniel is going to resign. The first owner's group forms in Los Angeles and meets monthly with their first subject being lucid dreaming. And 1987, the first three issues of Floating Magazine, 87 the first issue, and we have them here at this conference today. Alma Daniel resigned, the clerical duties, and by the March 1st of 87 she was gone. The board of directors appointed Rod Punnett, a Canadian, who had been using flotation in academic research. He had a four-tank center in Vancouver and also had some financial experience in his family business as the treasurer. So he could summarize the financial status of FTA with hopes that he could become, the board wanted him to become executive director. The board appointed Rod Punnett and myself with the goal of getting, we were an ad hoc committee to get an objective report of the current situation and to support the board in determining the future direction of FTA. The country was still in the fears that surrounded AIDS. That was shortly after Rock Hudson had died. He was the big star who died of AIDS in the U.S. and reached a kind of fever pitch of fear about AIDS in this country. The public was very shy about using public water environments. Rod Punnett and I completed the report when his health demanded that he leave California, return to Canada and his health insurance. Finances of FTA were pretty much used up with the money that the board of directors voted to pay Alma based on her request for unpaid debts. Early in 1987, the number of North American centers had dwindled to 55. The manufacturers Flow to Relax was sold and closed. Ova joined forces with Flotarium. Flotarium had a major fire which shut them down. Samadhi Tank Company survived a partnership that cost them the Beverly Hills Center. They continued to manufacture tanks in Los Angeles until that factory burned and production was moved to Grass Valley where a small single tank center was built. The board of directors meetings disappeared as the members dispersed into the responsibilities of other aspects of their lives. FTA was now dormant. University of Toledo kept medical research going until early 1996. Even though research couldn't be supported in the usual manner, it was funded by giving students laboratory experience under the teachings of Tom Fine and Dawn Turner. Now here we are, we're quiet, we're very quiet until 2011 last year where there was a public upsurge in interest in floating. The Float Summit meeting called by Mark Frickle, an American living with his family in France, who wanted to breathe some life into FTA and ask that small group of 30 if they would like to revitalize FTA and the answer was yes. Which really brought us here is that this current board has been meeting for the past year trying to figure out what are we going to do. We knew that a conference would be the next thing to invite people who are still working with tanks to get together and you know, let's see what we can do to get everybody to join together in an organization that could show its muscle to the various people who were stopping float centers from being built that was number one purpose and number two was get the name of floatation out into the world. And so that's when FTA heard about it, we said oh we're going to have a conference and then Float On said well we want to have a conference and we said well let's join forces and see if we can't do this together and that's what happened. And I'm thinking this was a really good idea all the way around and Float On has been an outstanding partner. And some of the things like the last when Graham's report about how to use time efficiently and I think that's just an incredible idea of being able to use centers for the life support really of their owners. It's not just, you know, we're no longer working because we have to but our work does become our life and this, you know, so many of us here are on that mission we want to get floating out there. What a difference it will make in the world to have floating as part of the system. It was like the, there was this princess from Dubai who showed up at our center. Move this way. Into the light. So she, when she came out of the tank she had that glow on and she said that her country is governed by 17 ministers and that the picture she saw was they would be 17 tanks in a circle, arranged in a circle and each of those ministers would get into the tank for an hour then get out and have their meeting and she thought that might make a big difference in the Middle East. So there, people have a lot of visions about the possibilities of many, many people being under the influence of floating and those of us who work in centers, you know, you know it. You see when people come out of the tank, they're not going to be packing a gun. You know, it just wouldn't make any sense. So, what we would like to do, Glenn, did you want to say anything? The mission includes safety and cleanliness of water supply, entrance and exit safety, water temperature range, 93.5 to 95. Air and water should be the same temperature to eliminate the sensation of air, water, interface keeping a record of float experiences, importance of ambience, a list of things that make this quality experience, sense of security, set and setting and mood employing questionnaires to obtain feedback about floating, physical, mental and emotional use questionnaire based testing to expand knowledge about floating and its benefits. So, we think you might enjoy becoming members of FTA so you can participate in all of the committees that we have. There are going to be a lot more committees. That's, where's, there we go. Oh, I guess we don't get to see the committees until we join. Well, okay. That's an example of one. When Richard, yesterday, is this on? No. When Richard talked yesterday about Awesome, his organization called Awesome, I thought that would be a perfect FTA committee that might turn into something else, so that as you get the instructions as to what to do to join and what committees you can get on, if that was something that interested you to be working in lucid dreaming, then I think that will be something amazing. And that's the kind of things, in addition to being able to be accepted by different health boards, but to be doing work, not only like the fibromyalgia thing, but there are so many different areas that we could be interested in. And because having the ability of using the, you know, online resources, we don't have to be all in one center. We can be all over the world, definitely all over the United States, and having committees that meet together online, and are pursuing things that other people could be interested in and produce the information that would come out of that. There will be a bunch of benefits from joining, including 20% reduction on conferences that are FTA-sponsored. And you will get to, we will disseminate all new news. So any research, any studies, any new data on how to interface with health departments and so on. For instance, if we look right here, you can see that we have a place where health department information is. There we go. So here's three documents that you can give your health departments to assist in communicating with them. And as we continue to get new things, new things will go up here and we'll send stuff out to the members to let them know about it. So we'd like y'all to join. And you can join right now. You can go to the membership. I think Graham's going to help to set that up. Okay. Well, you can go to your, with your computer, just go to the members only. Oops, sorry, we don't want that. The membership. There we go. The membership part. And then you just scroll down. Oh, I got the membership one rather than the members only. Yeah, that's right. Oh, go to join. Thank you. And then a regular member is 50. Manufacturer is 250. And then if you're a commercial, one tank is 100. If you have two or three tanks, it's 200. And four or more tanks, it's 400. So we'd love to have you all start registering. Hey, guys, and just a little encouragement too with the FTA, which is we've been working with them on a subcommittee, I guess, unofficially since we're not actually members and hadn't really joined up yet. But we've been helping with the health department committee, which has been amazing over the last year. Well, they've been kind of trying to get formed. And it's really astounding just the ability to talk and reference with other float tank people in the industry, even just in this small group, has been incredible for the amount of information we've been able to gain and put together in regards to dealing with health departments and specifically just figure out what's actually going on with a lot of the protocols and a lot of what's happening with the chemicals. And I really like just being here too and looking around and getting a chance to hopefully, you know, some of you for the first time interact with other people in your field. I think it's really incredible. And it gets lonely sometimes owning a float tank center, especially if you're not like in Portland and a lot of other people who are doing it. I strongly suggest signing up for this with whatever, even if you don't have a center yet, just signing up for the $50 membership. And it's going to be a lot of a building process together too. We already have some materials put together. But in general, I mean, this is the beginning and you definitely want to be a part of this if you're in the U.S. especially. So that's all I had to say. Just my little float-on endorsement of the FTA. Thanks. And don't leave. And Shoshani, you want to come up here with the Health Department Committee, Oshkan, you want to come over? And this is Dave Wasserman, also as a member of this committee. If you have any questions about how to interface with the Health Department or anything having to do with Health Departments, now is a good time to ask questions. Also very true. I have a Health Department question over there, Katrina. I think once you join the FTA... Oh, so let me repeat the question really quick. Good question. And that was, will you have access with the Health Department by joining the FTA of a lot of letters or just kind of templates for contact and how kind of the wording to get in touch with people? Did you want to tackle that? That's exactly what I was going to say. Oh, gotcha. So yeah, I can tackle that, which is, yeah, we definitely hope to provide as much information as possible and as much help as possible in general to getting float tanks all on the level and passed in the different areas. Any other questions just on health regulations or on, yeah. Good question, yes. Do we have different rules or regulations in different states? Yeah, there are. I mean, there's a lot of different, slightly different or very different. Ashkan was gracious to call and investigate about 30 states. I think all 50. All 50? About 40 actually, so. Okay. There's actually, so there's only one rule that all states share the same, which has to do with what type of grate you can have on your inlet. So beyond that one thing specifically about inlet grates, everything else is decided on a state by state level and then below that on a county by county level and then below that on a city by city level. So it's a big hodgepodge. But you ended up actually being able to speak to a lot of different representatives in 40 states and getting much more information. He started compiling this information. So that's sort of the first step or the first document we use when someone calls from a state will look there and see if there's absolutely no regulations. But it still doesn't necessarily make it easy to get a permit even if there's no regulations because even if they don't, some of these officials don't know that there aren't any regulations. So it's still a process to go through. And in typical float-on fashion too. We put that up online for you when we announced that down in San Francisco. So if you go up to floathq.com, our main website, slash summit, because that was one of Mark's float summits down in San Francisco, you'll find our open source beginners guide there as well as the calls around to the different states for the health departments, which the information now is about a year old. A little over. And it's changing. Yeah, and it's changing. But you can find at least a good template for where things were a year ago there. And any questions to just about the FTA in general, even not specifically about float tanks? Am I right here? Yeah. Is the question why don't we try to tackle it on a national level and not a state level? It's because most of the laws that have to do with it and the regulations are decided on a state level is basically what the thing is. I mean, doing it a national sweep would be amazing. But there is not necessary, like the body of regulations that regulates these sort of activities just happen on a state level. There is an effort happening right now in the pool association, which then you got to go back and forth whether you want to try to enter yourselves into the pool association and find special regulations or that we want to just say we are something completely different. We have nothing to do with pools. So that comes into the play. But the pool association right now is making an effort to take all these 50 states regulations and actually turn them into one standard that is adopted by every state. So that effort's going into play. It hasn't been enacted yet. It's in the process of it. So if that happens, there is the possibility of trying to enter into pool regulations with our own rules and have it go national. But the current state is that, yep, it's just every state is doing its own thing. And that would be about a three-year process that's just started again this last September, a new round. So our committee bats around these ideas and we're trying to figure it out. And we'd all really like it if it was just a national decision instead of independent states. Well, we're trying. Oh, yeah. And this right here is a standard that the committee here has tried to put together as to what we hope are just really good solid practices and regulations for keeping a sanitary float tank. And we tried to make it exactly that. It is what you need to do to make sure your float tank is sanitary. And so, yeah, we have this up here. The more people abide by this, the more legitimized it'll just become by the nature of everyone following it. And that I think is a really big step. If then you are struggling with a health department or going towards something and you say, look, we use these standards and everyone in this industry uses these standards, that just gives those standards legitimacy. And that's an important step towards actually having it just become, I mean, it's how the world works, everyone's like, oh, yeah, of course. These standards that everyone uses, and all of a sudden, those are official. So it really is just a group effort of all trying to come together and get on the same page and have an outward appearance of this real big, unified thing that seems to have been around for hundreds of years. And then that's just it. Then everyone will completely respect these forms and that's a good step towards getting them into actual state regulations. Yeah. So the board is going to be expanded and when you become a member, there's a couple of things that you can do. There's a members-only page. And so once you become a member, you should go to the members-only page and you can nominate people for the board. Including yourself. Including yourself, right. And once we have those nominations, then we'll let you all know who those nominations are so that the new board can be elected. And in addition to that, you can also, you'll see the committees that we have so far, there's going to be more committees and you can make suggestions for being on a committee or you can volunteer for being on a committee or more than one if you want. And I think that's the next big step that the FDA is trying to take. Pretty much as soon as this conference is over, holding elections to flesh out the board to 15 people rather than five and creating a term structure and yearly elections to kind of keep an active board going. And then once that board is assembled, the actual organization will start to exactly form these committees and start to produce and move. Yeah, it's an exciting time and we'd really like you to be a part of it. And the way the term limits will work too, but the goal of it on that is we'll kind of have rotating terms. The goal is to get up to a 15-person board, hopefully with three-year terms and then switching out five members every year. So every year you'll have five new members coming on board. And the forward board, is that what you were calling yours? That's what it was called. Yeah, yeah. And so they'll be serving that kind of first five positions for three years and then that position will be, we'll go up for election after that and we'll either serve the two years or one year initially upon signing up here. And then after that, it'll kind of hit this regular system of everyone gets to serve three years. Yeah, yeah. And one in three years, I think. One in three? Yeah, the five people on the board now will do two more years to complete their three-year term, including this first year that they've spent organizing it. And the rotation will just continue like that? No, the thing... Yes. You can tackle that if you want, Ashkan. The question too was, when we're talking about health departments and getting past there, are we talking about just clean water or are there other issues that come into play there? I mean, clean water is part of it, but there's a lot of pool regulations that have to do with other safety around the pool. I mean, slipping and like everything that goes into having a safe pool environment. And all those things start to become imposed on the float tanks as well, which is why you start to get things like lifeguards on duty. Continuous filtration is a really big one. That's just really standard for pools is to have the water very slowly filtering, which makes sense for a giant body of water. But that's just not how float tanks work. We can't have water filtering while people are in there because it's loud and you'll be sloshing around and stuff. Yeah, I mean, there's, of course, the use of chlorine and bromine, which is its whole own other thing. I mean, some states don't even allow bodies of water that aren't cement in the ground. Like even those fiberglass hot tubs and stuff aren't allowed. Some states have rules where, like, it has to be blue, like you can't have black walls on the inside. Every state has lights, like some states are like, no, you can't have it dark in there. So yeah, there's lots of things that go beyond water sanitation that also are the float tanks just butt up against because they're so different and they're just not meant to be put into the category with all these other regulations. Any other questions? Yeah. So your thoughts on membership for people outside the U.S.? It's same as for the U.S. You'll be getting all the same stuff. I think much of, you know, if you're in Canada, most of this stuff will apply to you as well as the U.S.? Yeah. Correct. The question was, though, is it only members that can apply to vote on the board? Yes. So the question was, can float enthusiasts be members or do you have to own a tank or own a center? And I think that was that first level of $50 was for anyone who was interested in joining. You can join at that $50 level. Sure. Definitely. Yes. Except you, Katrina. Any other questions out there? Yeah. So the question was, do you see the association towards a certification program like the Swedish Association just presented on? That will be an issue for the board. And, you know, the new board, as it gets elected, will decide that. And, you know, we'll come up with our own point of view about how we want to do it. Will you be for it or against it? Okay. Yeah. Hopefully the idea here is that it is really kind of your organization. And the work that's been done so far has really been working to kind of get the legs under it to literally be a legal organization. And once there is a board, the organization will move in the direction that we want it to move in. And will hopefully represent everyone's like opinions and interests in what we want it to do as best as we can. So that's really the goal. So questions like that, I mean, yeah, it's up to you as much as it is up to, like, anyone else here on stage. And also to just a note on that is that we've tried really hard to make this as democratic and organization as possible. And part of that too is hooking up the FTA with the helm software that we were just talking about a little bit customized so that member voting can occur really easily on subjects that aren't even as important as elections. And basically so that material that we're planning on doing can get reviewed by every single member who can comment on it and add their own opinions. So really just trying to engage people as much as possible, yeah, and what actually happens there. Yeah, we'll have a blog. Like, two of them. The other thing is if you have reactions, suggestions, thoughts about the next one, what you'd like different, what you'd like added, what you'd like expanded on, what maybe wasn't at this one that you would like to see, just send us an email. In fact, communicate with us on anything you'd like to. We want your input. Yeah, we're a pretty sophisticated bunch of people who can, who probably have some pretty strong ideas. Probably most pretty good. What do you mean? Except you. Great. Any more questions we had? Perfect. So we're going to head into a break then. The FDA is going to have a table right outside these doors with the laptop out there with this membership screen open. We're actually going to take a, I don't know, the 2025 in a break here. It seems like how long our breaks end up anyway, so that's perfect. So I'll see you guys back here in about 20, 25 minutes.