The most relaxing experience of my life

The wife and I were staying in a lovely spa hotel a few weeks ago, in deepest County Wicklow, for our friends' wedding. The desperately hungover Saturday morning after the wedding found us down at the pool making use of the complimentary facilities: we swam in the pool, we sat in the jacuzzi, we steamed in the sauna.

Of particular interest to me was the flotation tank. I'd never experienced the phenomenon before, and I was very keen to feel the intense relaxing effect of total sensory deprivation. So I blagged the groom's 45 minute session in it, he being unable to continue due to his collar rash stinging in the salty water.

I entered the chamber, stripped off my trunks, climbed into the tank, and lay naked in neutral buoyancy on the salted water in the warm, darkened room.

New age music gently washed over me. I floated on a pillow of gentle nothingness.

Gradually I realised how tense my entire body was, as bit by bit each muscle let go.

I tried to meditate, focusing my mind on a single point of nothingness.

I felt like I was floating weightless on the surface of a huge sphere, the earth, and my limbs drifted away into oblivion.

A mellow thought struck me: this was probably the most relaxing experience of my life.

Then I opened my eyes.

Oops.

See, I had neglected to put on the goggles provided. I should have realised that the saturated salt solution in which I was floating might not be all that agreeable to my sensitive optical apparatus.

Thus, in addition to my floating bodilessly through inner realms of my mind, it also felt like hot coals were being driven into my eye sockets.

I instinctively put my hands up to my face and rubbed them, which compounded the entrance of the liquid under my eyelids. I lay there groaning in pain, waiting for my tears to wash out the salt, but after another 30 seconds of literally blinding agony, nothing was happening.

I recalled in my brief journey through the room that there was a shower in the corner, and I realised that the only relief would be from getting fresh water from the shower onto my face.

So, blinded, crying "My eyes! My eyes!" and with arms flailing wildly, I staggered out of the tank, slipped and banged my knee, blundered to my feet and limped towards where I thought the shower was.

I walked straight into the wall.

Now shouting wordlessly at the additional pain of a bruised nose, I felt my way to the shower, turned my face upwards, and turned it on. Alas, in my sightless state, I had turned the handle to 'hot', and a hard spray of scalding water burned my forehead.

After frantic scrabbling at the shower fitting, I managed to cool the water off and rinse my eyes, and slowly the agony subsided.

Quivering, I weakly rejoined my wife in the jaccuzzi after only five minutes away. "Are you incredibly relaxed then?" she asked. I turned my bruised nose and scalded forehead to her, and looked at her through my streaming, reddened eyes. "Yes, it was lovely," I said, trying to crack a smile.

Next time I try a new age therapy, I think I'll choose something slightly less relaxing, like Hopi testicle stomping, or maybe a Tibetan gravel enema.