Hi Katman333,
Welcome to the Mattress Underground, we are happy you have become a part of the community and thank you for your question.
When one thinks of a “cloud-like” experience, I think what we are really imagining is a feeling of weightlessness, little to no pressure, very little pushback, and nothing that makes you feel restricted or held in place. The closest thing most of us will ever experience to that is probably floating in microgravity like an astronaut. Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, was the first human to experience sustained weightlessness when he orbited the earth in 1961, and he spent roughly 89 minutes in that condition.
Now obviously I’m not suggesting that any mattress is going to make you float around the bedroom! Nor am I suggesting you hitch a ride on Spacex. But there are mattress materials and combinations of materials that can give you some of the sensations we associate with that experience. The interesting thing about latex is that it can approach that feeling without having to become completely passive. A properly designed latex comfort layer can allow your heavier areas to sink in progressively, relieving pressure, while the elasticity of the material provides enough resilience to keep you from feeling trapped in the mattress. That’s a very different sensation from memory foam, where the “hug” comes largely from slow response and contouring around your body. Latex is more of a “float on the surface while being gently cradled” kind of experience.
I think the thing to keep in mind is that latex isn’t really trying to duplicate the feel of memory foam or coils. Its elasticity is what gives it that buoyant quality, and because it recovers almost immediately, you get pressure relief without the “stuck in the mattress” feeling that some memory foams can have. Something my wife absolutely hated, when I chose a Tempurpedic 3" Viscoelastic memory foam topper on one of our previous mattresses.
A good softer Talalay layer can have a surprisingly plush, cloud-like surface feel, but underneath that you’re still getting progressive resistance as the material compresses. That’s a big part of why latex can feel both soft and supportive at the same time. The foam is doing more of the work progressively as you sink into it rather than simply bottoming out against a firmer layer.
Mechanically, there is a pretty good reason why a well-designed latex build can feel so different from a typical all-foam mattress. Latex has a very high resilience/elasticity compared to memory foam, so it returns energy rather than absorbing most of it. That gives you some of the lively, buoyant sensation people associate with good coils, while the continuous surface of the latex gives you pressure relief that you don’t necessarily get from a spring unit alone. And because latex is generally more breathable and durable, you’re not necessarily trading those “ineffable” comfort qualities for longevity, you can actually build around them. The trick is really in the ILD/firmness and layer thicknesses rather than simply saying “latex = good.” A 2" soft layer over a firmer support core is going to behave very differently from a thick slab of relatively firm latex. That’s where I think the fun is with latex, you can tune the feel instead of accepting whatever the manufacturer decided was “plush.” My current topper is a 3" Talalay Latex with a 36-38 ILD. I can tell you, it is not a cloud like experience. It is “a sleep on top of the mattress” experience, but for context, it is resting on top of a Brooklyn Bedding Plank Luxe (firmer side) mattress. It is all a matter of perspective. (We like the Plank Luxe, by the way, without any topper, but I like testing every topper I can get my hands on, so I can offer first hand experience.)
Latex is not the only material that can provide this sensation. For a mere $800,000 give or take, you can experience a weightless feel mattress, perhaps like no other. The Hastens Grand Vividus, and for those on more of a budget, the 2000T, is only $90,000 for a king.
When I actually laid down on the Hastens Grand Vividus and the 2000T, that textbook explanation of layering becomes alarmingly clear, both the 2000T and the Grand Vividus felt incredibly plush, and it was like stepping into an entirely different dimension of weightlessness. Instead of feeling the mattress push back against my hips and shoulders like a standard bed, it felt like the hand-teased horsetail hair and triple-pocket springs were dynamically melting away every single ounce of my body weight. I told Issac, the person training me on the Hastens experience, that I wanted to test the firmest version they offered. He explained Hastens do not work that way, and he was correct. He had me lie on what they considered a medium firmness. There wasnt a single stiff spot or pressure point because everything is held together by flexible hand-stitching rather than rigid glue, making the mattress breathe and move with me in absolute silence. It honestly didnt even feel like I was resting on a physical surface, the climate-regulating wool and cotton layers kept me so perfectly cool that it genuinely felt like I was just suspended in mid-air on a temperature-neutral cloud.
Sorry to drift off on a bit of a tangent, but sometimes putting things into perspective can help us see that there is more than one way to arrive at a solution.
My advice… just think, if you skipped that $8 Starbucks coffee on your way to work every day, it would only take about 418 years to save enough for the Grand Vividus and a mere 43 years to save enough for that $90,000 King-size 2000T. So really, what’s the problem? 
All the Best,
Maverick
