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Where?
The first center opens in Cancun, others will open in Palm Springs, LA, Las Vegas, Orlando... You heard about the place on airport commercials and you saw "THE MAKING OF" on TV last year. Wealthy investors helped create a sensational experience. It is a brand new concept that merges elements of a high-end spa treatment with wellness and a 4-hour rejuvenating fantasy journey. Famous actors lent their voices to the audio elements of this voice and dream guided experience. It costs $95 per person and is highly recommended by your hotel. The JOURNEY is featured on various TV channels and you feel it is a must-see. During your vacation you promise yourself to go and find out what the hype is all about.
From outside ...
The place looks like a huge modern glass building with trees lurking out from atop the rooftop terraces. The tilted walls are entirely covered with solar panels. An environmentally friendly building. After paying the entrance fee and filling out a form with some personal preferences and your body type, you enter a dressing room with lockers and change to swimming gear or, to just a towel. Complete privacy for the entire 4 hours is guaranteed. You also get a little wrist band with a button, which, if pressed, calls service personnel, should you have any wishes at any given time.
The journey begins...
A voice calls your name and prompts you (or you + your spouse) to walk into the next room. The door closes behind you. It is warm. From a distance you hear meditative indian music with sitar, tabla and chanting. There are huge tropical plants and waterfalls on each side. You hear birds. The sun shines through the lush tree canape but the light is dim like at the bottom of the rain forest. You hear and feel the wind blow through the leaves and the humidity makes you sweat.
The voice tells you to sit down on the big wicker chair in the middle of the room. Once you sit down comfortably, the chair automatically reclines and gently starts moving forward on a hidden rail. You feel relaxed and begin to unwind as the chair moves through moist green plants and beds of flowers. You draw in magnificent scents as you pass by a section with lots of beautiful magnolias, colorful lillies, intriguingly scented roses, and every breath you take feels special.
Welcome...
Your chair comes to a Hawaiian looking cabana with a beautiful woman, dressed like a fairy, who offers you a basket filled with tropical fruits and a freshly brewed exotic tea. She greets you by your name and smiles. You take some of the fruit, sip on the tea and simply feel good. Time seems to stand still as you taste the intense herbal tea. A few minutes pass, then your chair climbs up a slope through the thicket of plants into a clearing.
Earth...
You find yourself in a desert like environment. The air is hot and dry like in a sauna. Cacti dominate the scenery. Rocks on the walls paint a scenery reminiscent of Arizona and you hear cicadas.
You stretch out as the chair reclines into a bed. A person walks in, asks you nicely to turn around and gives you a wonderful 15-minute Shihatsu back massage. It feels great and the distant ethnic music lures you into little dazes and daydreams.
Air...
You hardly notice when the masseuse quietly leaves and your bed continues to move. It gets darker and you feel a breeze of refreshing cool air. You arrive in a cool and very humid area. Steam fills the room and the change of climate after the intense heat is very relaxing. A person walks in and carefully puts a padded belt around your ankles, your lower waste and your shoulders, attaches ropes to the belts and leaves again.
Suddenly the ropes begin to lift you up. It is pitch black now and you feel as if you were flying through a vast dark space. The movement is very gentle and it's hard to tell if you imagine this or if this is really happening. You make out faint distant shapes while the ropes sway you through the air. Soft sounds of giant wing flaps make you feel like a big bird. Now it gets brighter and suddenly you are outside, hovering above the trees, above the building. After a few thrilling turns you re-enter the building through a tunnel and you are back in complete darkness. The "flight" takes a long time, maybe 10 minutes. You pass through misty clouds, above treetops, glide through the darkness like the black night sky, climb, descend, accelerate,... You don't want this incredible experience to end. Compared with a short theme park attraction you feel this ride is entirely yours and it goes on forever. All your dreams of flying, rising and falling seem to become real.
Darkness. It is quiet now. You don't know if your eyes are open or closed. You don't know if you are still awake but you know that you feel happy like a child who dreams of flying, basking in the pure joy of existence. You hear waves in the distance and the sound gets louder as the lights get brighter.
Water...
You arrive on a bed of fine white sand. Two friendly people appear and help you out of your "flying gear". As you want to thank them you look around and they are gone. You smell the ocean and the waves come closer until they reach you. You feel good just lying in the sand, like a child on the beach and you play with the small waves. One after another they reach further and surround you with warm salt water. A few minutes later you bathe in the water like in a bathtub that slowly fills up and you notice a floating device floating towards you. You climb onto it and as the water gets higher and higher you get comfortable on top of the floater.
A current gently pulls you backwards. Now you are on a river and it takes you through curves with lush vegetation, down little rapids and back into slower waters. A shallow meandering stream with a riverbed of shiny pebbles. Everything looks real. You even see fish in the clear blue and you smell river water as you drift along and let go of the last occasional thoughts that got lost in your head. You have no sense for time and space and you feel complete and fulfilled. Every river bend looks different with amazing shapes, plants, rocks and you notice that the rocks look like artwork. Nature transforms into a sculpture garden like Joshua Tree Desert's granite formations. After several minutes on the river you float through several dark caves until you arrive at a huge cave that looks like two praying hands.
Curiosity...
The water moves in circles inside this cathedral and after rejoicing from the peaceful river ride you look around and decide to get out of your floating device. Light shines through from behind a rock and you are curious what to find behind it. So you walk around the rock into an opening in the wall. A limestone white cave opens as you begin to explore the tunnel and it feels good to walk barefoot over the uneven granite cave ground. You hear the sounds of dripping water and a voice tells you to walk straight and upright, breathe deeply and to intensify your sense of awareness for your body. The path is longer than you thought and after a few unexpected corners you get to a chamber where a woman asks you to stretch and bend you body. As she makes you do various exercises she massages your limbs. It feels a bit like Yoga but more effortless.
The Womb...
After maybe 15 minutes of "work out" you are exhausted and you get to lie down on a bed that is shaped like a giant shell with a surface texture similar to soft mud. You curl into the mold and the instructor puts a few heated mud-blankets over your body. The shell is heated, too, and you feel like an embryo in a warm mothers belly as the "mud" completely adapts to the shapes of your limbs. The light goes off and enticing music starts to play. A symphony that feels like the score to your dreams. You fall asleep.
You awake to a soothing voice, telling you wonderful words of wisdom. It is the voice of a famous actor and his words are like music to your ear. You feel complete. The voice has a hypnotic quality to it and you fall asleep again.
Ice....
You wake to the sound of chimes in the wind and you can feel a fresh breeze. A person helps you out of the hot mud shell and asks you kindly to be brave and jump into the deep blue tub of water in front of you. You are just half awake but you follow the instructions and.... the water is ice cold and a freezing shower completely soaks you head to toe. Now you are awake and once you get over the initial shock the temperature actually feels great to cool down your body after sleeping in the hot shell. The person helps you out and shows you a hot tub. The tubs look like mineral springs. Steaming bubbling irregular shaped natural pools in the granite ground. Your skin seems to burn in the hot tub and you get chills. The third pool is surrounded with snow and ice floats in the water. You duck into it. Then you enter pool number four, which is surrounded by hot flames bursting out of gas torches. The steamy fifth pool finally has whirlpool temperature and once you enter it, you gently slip and you notice that this is not a pool but the beginning of a water slide that takes you on a long ride. The ride isn't very fast and thrilling but rather relaxing and you feel like a kid on a playground slide. It takes you through a tunnel with intense colors and fresh scents. First a stretch of orange, then some yellow curves leading into blue hilly bumps. Then a green rapid and finally you arrive in a small lilac pool with wooden sides and a Swedish look to it. There are pine trees and you notice beautiful birds flying around. Wind strokes the tall needle trees and makes a quiet whistling sound. A Swedish dressed person welcomes you and brings you choices of freshly brewed herbal teas, lemon water and fruits. The pool is yours for a while as you stretch, taste the teas and fruits and feel good.
Massage...
A masseuse asks you to follow her along a short hidden path through the woods to a massage bed under the swaying trees. You lie down and enjoy a 20-minute Swedish hot oil massage. After the treat the masseuse moves the bed into a small cave that feels like a steam bath with an intense smell of sage. The smell clears your sinus and every breath feels like pure medicine.
Birth...
A few minutes later a person opens the door and asks you to follow her through the woods to a little hole in the granite ground, hidden under pine trees. It reminds you of the Xenotes in Yukatan/Mexico, large limestone caves with the purest underwater lakes. You get a breathing mask that is attached to a thick long air tube coming out of the hole. Now the person helps you climb down into the grotta and asks you to hold on to a handle on a line. The handle slowly pulls you under water and you submerge in the crystal clear water. At first you want to resist, but as soon as you take your first breath underwater, all your fears are gone and you float three dimensionally like an astronaut in space...or like a child in a mothers womb. The grotta is, unlike expected, not a replica of nature but a retro futuristic almost 70's Barbarella'ish neon colored cave with hypnotically changing patterns and shapes. You hear a heartbeat while the handle pulls you through the underwater cave. You feel safe at all times. Even though the tank is really deep you know that atop the surface there would be air to breathe in case you should panic. You move in slow motion as you experience the dive. The handle guides you into various sections of the tank. Now the walls of the tank become invisible and it looks like all you see is stars, the universe, and planet earth. The animation of the images projected on the walls is incredibly realistic and you become an astronaut approaching planet earth from a long journey through the universe. You float through space on a handlebar and an exhilarating feeling of freedom prevails. You come closer to our planet, dip through the atmosphere, dive through layers of clouds until you can make out rivers, streets, houses, people and boom! lights turn bright. You shiver and as if with a snap of the finger the water disappears and the walls lift up. You look around and discover cascades, lush trees, birds, the sun... it looks like the garden of Eden. A profound satisfaction overcomes you as you slowly begin to recall who you are, where you are, what is meaningful in your life, where you are going...
The END
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