Strange "hypnotic" feeling during dive
- Thread starter Gyula Fora
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Caveeagle
Contributor
More Lean than Six Sigma..
What was the exertion level of the dive? Could it be Co2 ?
dead dog
Contributor
Could not sit down for a week, other than that all is well.Narcosis or Alien Abduction, one or the other. Do you feel any residual effects of being probed?
Jack Hammer
Contributor
I'd guess a mild touch of narcosis magnified by the darkness and reduced visibility. Sometimes dark water plays tricks on your mind and can be quite disorienting, even when shallow.
Bubblesong
Contributor
Did you check the Nitrox tank you got for its gas mixture? Even if you paid for Nitrox, you may have gotten plain air.
How would that cause the described symptoms? O2 is usually considered at least as narcotic as N2.
It's interesting that you both felt it, when you both dive regularly under similar conditions and usually don't experience this effect. I wonder if your speaking up had any suggestive effect on your buddy's perception of his own experience.
As for why you felt weird, narcosis or vertigo were the first two things that popped into my head. Or maybe the lake is haunted and you swam through a ghost. I'm watching old seasons of American Horror Story and my God is it tiresome how much the characters resist that obvious interpretation just because ghosts aren't real. Don't be that guy; if all signs point to ghosts, just burn some sage or give the bones a proper burial or whatever it takes to move the narrative along already.
As for why you felt weird, narcosis or vertigo were the first two things that popped into my head. Or maybe the lake is haunted and you swam through a ghost. I'm watching old seasons of American Horror Story and my God is it tiresome how much the characters resist that obvious interpretation just because ghosts aren't real. Don't be that guy; if all signs point to ghosts, just burn some sage or give the bones a proper burial or whatever it takes to move the narrative along already.
100days-a-year
Contributor
Lean towards narcosis exacerbated by dark, cold, constriction and exertion as mentioned already.
OP
Gyula Fora
Registered
Thank you all for the helpful insights!
It seems that the most likely explanation is narcosis that was probably amplified by the dark, murky conditions.
As pointed out by many nitrox alone does not reduce this which was something I completely overlooked on my part.
This could explain why my buddy would experience similar feeling.
I hate diving in alpine lakes, as I get narched very easily at shallow depth. I always remember a bad narcosis in Arona, Lago Maggiore, while doing my open-water exam for becoming 3-stars instructor. I was sent down to approximately 25m, visibility very bad, almost no light, the bottom was mud.
My buddy was another candidate (coming from the Cantonal Police of Zurich, they were being examined together with us); he did badly kick against the muddy bottom, causing the visibility to drop to zero. At that point I was so confused that I had no choice other than ascending 5-6 meters, above the cloud of mud, where visibility was better. I did stay above the bubbles of the others, until also they emerged from the cloud. I signaled to the examiner that I was too narched to stay down at the bottom, and he did signal me "OK".
I was fearing to be rejected at the exam, instead he sacked my Swiss buddy, first as he did cause the visibility problem by improper kicking, and then for not ascending immediately above the cloud of mud, as I did.
So in the end, despite being badly narched, I did pass the exam. But it was probably the worst, dark, sad narcosis I experienced. At the sea, below 50m, I was narched too, but it was very different: much happier, and pleasant sensations...
Conclusion: I have no difficulty accepting that a narcosis episode occurs in a cold, dark lake with poor visibility at 25m. And the episode can well be triggered by a sudden decrease of visibility, as it happened to me. It is like as "the sky is closing over me", and your brain reacts "detaching form your body". What you experienced is very close to my own experience described above...
My buddy was another candidate (coming from the Cantonal Police of Zurich, they were being examined together with us); he did badly kick against the muddy bottom, causing the visibility to drop to zero. At that point I was so confused that I had no choice other than ascending 5-6 meters, above the cloud of mud, where visibility was better. I did stay above the bubbles of the others, until also they emerged from the cloud. I signaled to the examiner that I was too narched to stay down at the bottom, and he did signal me "OK".
I was fearing to be rejected at the exam, instead he sacked my Swiss buddy, first as he did cause the visibility problem by improper kicking, and then for not ascending immediately above the cloud of mud, as I did.
So in the end, despite being badly narched, I did pass the exam. But it was probably the worst, dark, sad narcosis I experienced. At the sea, below 50m, I was narched too, but it was very different: much happier, and pleasant sensations...
Conclusion: I have no difficulty accepting that a narcosis episode occurs in a cold, dark lake with poor visibility at 25m. And the episode can well be triggered by a sudden decrease of visibility, as it happened to me. It is like as "the sky is closing over me", and your brain reacts "detaching form your body". What you experienced is very close to my own experience described above...
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