Trust the Process Revisited

In this particular situation most of you will cringe in disbelief that the process was, indeed trusted. In fact those of you that have children will understand we clearly went against  sane and solid parental advice. We are adults so we can make our own irrational  decisions!  I have to give us some credit,  we did follow the “safety in numbers” rule. Three of us embarked on this unique adventure together.

The adventure was the 15-Ton Sound Bath that made its way to DC from The Burning Man Festival. We signed up for a 45-minute, fully reclined “zero-G” immersive experience designed with research from MIT, Harvard University, and NASA. The session uses 360-degree sound and light to induce deep relaxation. On the surface it appears legit, right? It presented like something I defintely wanted to experience. Desire and curiosity will often abandon rationality.

The address of the venue was 1237 W St NE. As we approached the neighborhood it looked familiar. It was in the same location where Richard and I went to see Ralph Fiennes in Macbeth. The fact that the GPS led us to the same venue led temporary credibilty to what we were to embark upon. We discovered that the Soundbath was NOT in that space, but around the corner behind the theatre space. As we drove around the side of the building we came upon what looked like an apocolyptic scene. A giant made out of found objects partially covered by a tarp was the first thing that greeted us. There was a stage with debris scattered across the floor. It was eerily quite and void of any signs

of life. This elicited a simultaneous feeling of wariness and discomfort.

We were early for our scheduled time so we decided to explore. Richard stayed in the car while Colleen and I ventured out. There was one other car in this huge parking lot. It was what I would describe as a “mom” van. Strange and out of place, but so were we! Everything felt weird and disconnected. The opposite of what the Soundbath promised; a state of deep relaxation.

As Colleen and I approached the entrance there was a woman in a black tank dress that was manically cleaning the windows of the entrance to the buildling. We were still unsure we were in the right place. It was too strange to be true. Life sized rubber aliens reclined next to Amanita Muscaria mushrooms in a lobby painted completely black, but all of us were all in and ignored all of the signs that a normal person would have taken into account and fled! We paid $100 for the experience without signing any disclaimers. We were not asked if we had any preexisting conditions that may exclude us from the experience.

We were sitting in the alien abduction room waiting for our allotted session time which was 11:00 on a Sunday morning. We were all a bit apprehensive after our initial greeting. I leaned over to Colleen and said. “Where did you hear about this?” Her response: “Instagram.” We both burst out laughing realizing the absurdity of it all. At this point we had clearly surrendered to the reality that we were going through with it. At one point Richard said rather loudly, “Since its a bath, will they give us towels?” We were trying to humor our way out of our nervousness and apprehension with sophomoric humor.

When it was our time to enter the very dark room I jumped up first. Crossing the threshold into the room we couldn’t see a thing. There was a person in front of me with a flashlight that led us to a table that was lit with candles. In front of us was a wooden tray with a glass lid and a cup with a liquid refreshment. We were told not to touch anything until we were presented with the explanation of the next step of our experience. Underneath the glass lid was a pill which we were told was L-theanine. L-theanine is naturally occuring amino acid found in green and black tea that promotes calm and focus. The drink in front of us was Kava tea which promotes relaxation and stress relief. I took both without hesitation. Many of you are thinking “crazy and not smart” at this point. I no longer felt fear. I felt an immense curiosity and was hopeful that this would be an intensely interesting experience. I will admit that the thought of an abduction still lingered in my sympathetic nervous system. There was no record of us being here other than our receipt for our ticket. There was no disclaimer signed or any conversation about preexisting conditions other than preganacy. Those that may be pregant were told to avoid the party favors resting in front of us. After we listened to the information about how our brains are still essentialy cave man brains. We are living in a constant flight or fright mode where our sympathetic nervous system are constantly pumping cortisol as a response to this stress. This, as we know is extremely unhealthy. The theory of the Soundbath is that through the intense sound it will disrupt the flight or fright response. And guess what? It did. We all felt extremely altered or changed by the experience. It was 45 minutes of intense, sub woofer reverberation followed by meditative sounds of crickets, whales, birds. The entire 45 minutes would alternate between the energetic assault of the loud, sonic sound which literally felt like it was shaking up every cell in the body. After it was over they gave us some chamomile tea while we decompressed in the lobby. We definitely felt a difference. I was abnormally relaxed! My only regret is that we didn’t have time to listen to or participate in the decompression phase. I know Colleen and I would do it again, Richard not so much! We were all relieved that we were not abducted or murdered and thrown in cold storage. It was definitely a strange space.

As we were leaving the room where the Soundbath occured we all noticed a black Hearse and a phone booth. The space obviously turned into something completely differerent at night!