Deefstes
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I'm not sure if this is what I was taught in OW or whether it is just what friends told me but I was under the impression that Nitrogen narcosis occurs at somewhere around 30m and differs from one individual to another and from one dive to another. So far so good.
But then they also told me that it is mostly limited to a specific depth and if you start experiencing it to simply go a little shallower or a little deeper for it to go away again.
Now that I've done AOW the course material contradicted that notion and affirmed that NN only gets worse the deeper you go. This would make sense to me and I've read up a little more since. From what I understand, every breathing gas (including oxygen) has some level of narcotic effect which increases with the gas' lipophilicity (solubility coeficient) and with the gas' partial pressure. There's no physics that I could find which would suggest that the narcotic effect of any gas will at any stage decrease with an increase of partial pressure.
I'm starting to think that I must have misunderstood what other divers told me or that they were purposefully misleading me so as to sound smart or not to scare me off scuba. Or maybe they just think the narcotic effect decreases as you go a bit deeper because they become more narced so that they don't realise they're narced. I mean we all know when we're a bit tipsy on alcohol but have you ever encountered a staggering drunk admitting to the fact that he's drunk?
Your opinions?
But then they also told me that it is mostly limited to a specific depth and if you start experiencing it to simply go a little shallower or a little deeper for it to go away again.
Now that I've done AOW the course material contradicted that notion and affirmed that NN only gets worse the deeper you go. This would make sense to me and I've read up a little more since. From what I understand, every breathing gas (including oxygen) has some level of narcotic effect which increases with the gas' lipophilicity (solubility coeficient) and with the gas' partial pressure. There's no physics that I could find which would suggest that the narcotic effect of any gas will at any stage decrease with an increase of partial pressure.
I'm starting to think that I must have misunderstood what other divers told me or that they were purposefully misleading me so as to sound smart or not to scare me off scuba. Or maybe they just think the narcotic effect decreases as you go a bit deeper because they become more narced so that they don't realise they're narced. I mean we all know when we're a bit tipsy on alcohol but have you ever encountered a staggering drunk admitting to the fact that he's drunk?
Your opinions?