For an otherworldly good experience, drop in at Stardust Float Spa in Midway.

The new wellness center at 3589 Midway Drive in the old Hollywood Tans building offers float therapy, massage, and skincare all under one roof. “My cousin opened the first float spa in Santa Cruz in 2016,” noted Stardust owner Rebecca Schulman, a longtime massage therapist about the origin of her business. She added she’d always been searching for something as good as a massage. “And then I floated at my cousin’s center and it just clicked for me how beneficial it is for people to feel weightless, graceful like they don’t have any pressure on their body,” she said.

Flotation harkens back to our earliest experience in life, noted Schulman. “It’s a core experience,” she said. “We all have that shared experience of being in the womb, being cradled and rocked in a saltwater solution. We at least have those nine months when we were pretty safe. So, it can be a very special kind of meta experience.”

What are the benefits of flotation?

Schulman offered an example to illustrate the potential positive impact of isolation and weightlessness in water. She had a client who exited her first-time flotation session and exclaimed, “I have this presentation to give next week and I have this one section I was really getting stuck on. I wasn’t sure how I was going to go forward and it came to me in the float tank.”

Added Schulman: “When we can relax, create space in our bodies and our minds, oftentimes things will intuitively come to us. We’re tapping into that unconscious or subconscious part of ourselves that maybe has a different perspective or a different answer. For me, the body is that bridge for tapping into our psyche. It is another tool.”

Schulman added flotation and related therapies can help people cope with daily stress, hustle, and bustle aiding both the body – and mind – to relax. She conducted a tour of her extensive wellness facility that features work and recreation spaces including a relaxation room, several treatment rooms, and multiple flotation tanks with showers.

“Everything is provided for you,” pointed out Schulman adding, “We keep it warm, nice and toasty, which is encouraging to people.” Stardust flotation tanks offer push-button control for light and music. There is even a post-float area for those transitioning out of the tank.

Concluded Schulman: “It’s a tough world out there nowadays. We try to make this experience as accessible for as many people as possible. We try to keep our prices at a very reasonable range.”

STARDUST FLOAT SPA

Where: 3589 Midway Drive

Hours: Open weekdays and weekends, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. daily except Tuesdays.

Info: stardustfloatspa.com, @stardustfloatspa, 619-988-9609.

FLOAT TANK THERAPY

Also referred to as Flotation-REST (reduced environmental stimulation therapy), float tank therapy is a form of alternative medicine used for the treatment of many conditions from muscle tension, chronic pain, hypertension, and rheumatoid arthritis to PMS. It involves floating in an isolated sensory attenuation tank in a watery environment with a high concentration of dissolved Epsom salts.

The flotation tank was originally developed in 1954 by John C. Lilly, a medical practitioner, and neuropsychiatrist. during training by men and women on sensory deprivation and weightlessness for moon missions at the US National Institute of Mental Health. Widespread commercial interest and use of the isolation tank however did not occur until 1972, when Glenn Perry, a computer systems programmer, began selling the first commercial flotation tanks after he attended a five-day workshop by Lilly.

Flotaion-REST was associated with the human-potential movement, humanistic psychotherapies that first became popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. Those therapies emphasize the development of individuals through encounter groups, sensitivity training, and primal therapy

Advertised as “one of the most relaxing experiences you can have,” float therapy involves dissolving large amounts of Epsom salt in saltwater so individuals float effortlessly achieving total weightlessness. The entire volume of water is highly sanitized through an intense disinfection process three times after each client, ensuring extremely clean and hygienic water.