Item from Stranger Things by The Duffer Brothers
A saltwater immersion tank that amplifies Eleven's psychic abilities, allowing her to enter the Void and project her consciousness across dimensions.
The sensory deprivation tank is the instrument through which Eleven's power reaches its full potential — and the device that started the entire Hawkins nightmare. By eliminating all sensory input, the tank allows Eleven to focus entirely inward, entering the Void where she can locate anyone on the planet and even reach across dimensional barriers. Brenner designed the original tank at Hawkins Lab to push Eleven's abilities toward military espionage, but its most consequential use came when Eleven, floating in the tank, reached into a dimension she didn't understand and touched the Demogorgon — tearing open the first gate. The Party later improvised their own version in a school gymnasium, using salt and a kiddie pool, proving that the technology is less important than the psychic doing the floating. The tank represents both Eleven's tremendous power and the way adults weaponized a child's gift for their own purposes.
A large, enclosed metal tank filled with heavily salted water heated to body temperature. In Hawkins Lab, the original was a clinical stainless-steel chamber with monitoring equipment and vital-sign readouts. The improvised version the Party built used a kiddie pool, bags of road salt from the hardware store, and a dark gymnasium — crude but functional. When Eleven floats in the water, eyes closed, her consciousness leaves her body entirely. The water ripples faintly even when she is perfectly still, as if something in the Void is moving.
Also known as: the sensory deprivation tank, the deprivation tank, the tank, the salt bath, the isolation tank