I’m floating.
I’m one of about 60 people lying on individual air mattresses, drifting along the surface of the pool inside the giant, glass Natatorium at the Dublin Wave Water Park and Aquatic Center. On this October morning, it also feels like we’re being carried along by a current of sound – a sonorous, shimmering tone emanating from a 20-inch Chinese wind gong that sound healer Lara Sweazey is rhythmically tapping at the front of the pool.
The thrumming sound soon fills the entire space. Amplified by speakers, the thrumming surrounds us and deepens in intensity until it’s the only thing any of us can hear, except for the rush of water in the pool drains.
This is a sound bath, or a version of one that Sweazey, owner of Livermore-based Coastal Verve Sound, hosts at public pools in the East Bay. Sound baths are an increasingly popular form of meditation and healing, immersing people in the soothing rhythms and tones of traditional instruments, such as gongs, crystal bowls, chimes and drums. This immersion is supposed to help people relax, meditate and potentially find relief from chronic pain, depression and anxiety. For some people, Sweazey says, a sound-induced meditative state can surface strong emotions that are ready to be released, leading to a sense of personal transformation.
I came to Sweazey’s sound bath to try something new and to relax. That started to happen as I floated. Going with the theory that sound vibrations synchronize with brain waves and reach energy centers in the body, I fell into a pleasant, interesting state.
With my eyes closed, I began to see shapes and colors behind my eyelids. As the sound became more penetrating, I actually thought of myself floating through stars. Then came the image of the bare winter branches of a tree outside the window of my childhood bedroom. Those branches soon filled with leaves — big, green and luminous. I can’t say what any of this means, but at some point during this hourlong session, I thought, “This could go on forever, and how nice would that be?”
This was my first sound bath, and it was at a pool. Bay Area sound healers, Sweazey included, typically offer sessions in studios or in private homes, where people can stretch out on a massage bed or floor, with pillows, blankets and whatever else makes them feel cozy and relaxed.
Sweazey got the idea of creating larger “floating sound baths” at private and public pools around 2024. As a former swim mom who spent lots of time at pools, she knew that water can do interesting things to sound and to our perceptions of it. She referred to studies that show that sound waves passing through water create vibrations that affect the arrangement of water molecules. Because adult bodies are made up of 50%-60% water according to the National Institutes of Health, Sweazey says she believes sound has a similar effect inside of us.
One thing about Sweazey’s floating sound baths: Participants don’t get in the water, so no swimsuits are required. Instead, they wear whatever’s comfortable. Sweazey’s team includes attendants who help people get on and off the mattresses by the side of the pool and who walk around in the water to keep the mattresses drifting along and to make sure participants feel safe.
Sweazey is a former massage therapist and reiki healer who has a unique relationship to sound: She’s hard of hearing and sees herself as someone who is “more aware of vibrations” than other people. She discovered sound healing as the only way to relieve severe, chronic pain from a 2019 neck injury. She said the pain could be so intense that it was hard to focus her attention on regular meditation. “When I was immersed in sound, I was able to let go and fall into a meditative state,” Sweazey said.
San Jose-based Six Senses Healing owner Sabrina Huang, who hosts Sunday evening sound baths in Saratoga, turned to sound healing about 10 years ago because she was locked in a crippling cycle of depression and didn’t like the side effects of anti-depressants. At the time, she was hard-pressed to find anyone in the Bay Area doing sound healing. Since she started her own business offering sound healing, she has seen studios flourish in the Bay Area. She’s happy to see people finding that sound baths can be a helpful alternative to medications for certain conditions.
That view is gaining currency in the medical literature, with a 2016 study in the Journey of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine noting that different forms of “sound meditation” have been used for centuries across human cultures, from Australian Aboriginal tribes creating twangy, otherworldly rhythms with the didgeridoo to Tibetan monks using metallic singing bowls to fill a space with a chorus of ringing tones. The study also found that an hourlong sound meditation can help people reduce tension, anger, fatigue, anxiety and depression. Another 2015 study showed that low-frequency sound stimulation has “shown promise” in treating physical pain, perhaps because music and other pleasurable sounds can stimulate nerve fibers that affect pain perception.
When Sweazey hosts a session, she tries to ease people into the experience, using a guided meditation to help them slow their breathing. She doesn’t script out her program and follows “the energy” of the crowd. She often introduces sound by gently ringing chimes. “So I’ll bring people in, then I’ll go up on this bell curve, then bring them down into this deep meditative state when I play these longer drone sounds,” she said.
Like me, longtime friends Lynn Bixby and Deb Loftus found their first floating sound bath to be both relaxing and exhilarating. “There was no emotional transformation, but I feel like I’ve already been in it a little bit, so I felt that this was just reassuring,” said Bixby of Livermore. Loftus confessed she was worried about getting onto the air mattress without falling into the pool but felt stable once she was on. After that, the Pleasanton resident let herself go and enjoyed being carried on the water, with sound washing over her. “In my body, I felt an energy,” she said. “And at one point, I felt some emotion. Oh yeah, I felt a release.”
Sweazey offers one-on-one and group sound healing sessions; learn more at coastalvervesound.com. She also has five floating sound baths scheduled at the Dublin Wave Water Park and Aquatic Center in December and January. Sign up via Eventbrite.com. Sweazey also offers floating sound baths in Livermore, Clayton and Newark. Huang, of Six Senses Healing, offers sound baths at 5 p.m. Sundays at the Saratoga Prospect Center-Friendship Hall. Register via Los Gatos-Saratoga Community Education and Recreation.