Edward Jessup is a 1970s psychopathologist who, while studying schizophrenia, begins to think that "our Altered state of consciousness are as real as our waking states." Edward begins experimenting with sensory deprivation using a flotation tank, aided by two like-minded researchers, Parrish and Rosenberg. At a faculty party he meets fellow "whiz kid" and biological anthropologist Emily, and the two eventually marry.