C2 - Wednesday, October 24, 1984 - North Shore News

Restoring energy st

FROM the inside out, Hamilton takes a picture from his
perspective, above, inside the tank looking out. At first the
body rejects total relaxation, but eventually Hamilton gives
in to the soothing atmosphere, below.

(\dgemont

Carpet & Lino
(2 blks. behind the Avalon Hote!)
985-O 1 TA 083 Roos 1. 985-0011

From page C1

haustion is due to the pro-
cessing that we have to do.
When you get into the tank,
because the senses are
drastically reduced as far as
stimulus goes, all that energy
comes back to you. All of a
sudden, you find yourself
with all this energy. That’s
why a tot of tankers talk
about being high or
whatever.”’

Drope first floated in 1978
in India, where he'd gone to
study meditation and tech-
niques for altering states of
conciousness.

‘i'd been very interested
in the creative process and
how it can be nurtured for
years,’’ he says. ‘‘l started
looking for ways to enhance
the creative process, gol very
involved in meditauion tech-
niques and various forms of

therapy. When | tanked |
knew immediately that this
was it, this was the very
tool.””

When he ran out of
money, Drope returned to

Canada, moving to Calgary
where he worked to re-
establish himself financially.

‘*AS soon as I secured
myself, 1 opened my _ cen-
tre,’’ he says. ‘‘As soon as |
could get out | sold (and
moved to Vancouver).”’

The ‘‘profound state’’ of
relaxation is one part of the
tank equation according to
Drope. The second part 1s
putting the energy to work.

Says Drope: ‘‘The sensory
input is reduced drastically.

3
NEWS photos Chris Cameron

ress drains

The brain starts to secrete
the chemical endorphin
which is a natural tran-
quilizer, a natural opiate of
the system. Subsequently
there is a profound state of
relaxauion, a switch from the
left hemisphere to the right
hemisphere of the brain,
moving into what we call the
hypnogagic state. In this
state you fire your heavy
theta patterns, the pure stuff
that we create with. You can
do self-affirmation, stop
smoking, -weight tess,
foreign language learning,
visualizavion techniques.”’

Drope cites examples — a
Vancouver educator who has
overcome insomnia, a mara-
thon runner who cut 12
minutes from his time after
his first session, and others.

‘‘When one is relaxed, all
of a sudden one has more of
something of themselves to
bring to bear on any iSsue,”’
Drope says.

Drope’s own two-hour
tank sessions consist of an
initual half-hour of relaxa-
tion, a senes of exercises to
correct a spinal problem
(‘Eve cut my visits to the
chiropractor drastically,’’ he
says), and creative problem
solving.

“Then | let go of that and
just go into my breathing
and when that happens |
trequently get visions or in-
sights which | write my poet-
ry from,’’ he says. ‘‘In the
last month and a half I’ve
been purposefully losing
conerousness. I've
discovered in the tank that
you just dip from con-
ciousness to unconciousness,
so | can easily pick out
dreams for recall. That's
what I've been exploring."’

Only a small minority of

his clrents don’t like the
tanking procedure and much
of his business 1s repeat
business.

““At some point when you

start repeating, you now
want to start doing things in
the tank,’’ Drope says.
“You want to listen to
music, you want to do some
sort of self-affirmation pro-
gramming, you want to deal
with your insomnia,
migraine headaches, arthritis
in the jomts. You want to
start doing something with
the tank and that to me 1s
when it starts to get really
exciting and makes my job

an absolute pleasure. | see
magi¢ happen. Daily.”’

This reporter?

No magic. Just a deep
feeling of relaxation and
weightlessness, freedom

from sight and sound for a
while and a chance to think
about nothing in particular.

And then, for who knows
how much of the hour and
15 minutes, sleep.

Caroline

them at:

We are pleased to announce Caroline and
Angela have joined our staff of profes-
sional stylists. They extend an invitation
to their former clients and friends to visit

Andres Hair Salon

4390 Gallant Ave., N.V.

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