I guess I'm presuming that the only difference between a "regular" narc and a "dark" narc is psychological, not physiological. But of course that may not be true.
So, what kind of consciousness-altering substances also cause similar "regular" vs. "dark" varieties of experience? I've heard of LSD, mushrooms, and other hallucinogenic drug users having "bad trips" vs. "good trips". What's the difference there? I've never used a hallucinogen, but something tells me narcosis isn't really a very similar experience. Anyone here ever had a "bad trip" before who has also experienced narcosis and can compare the two (and is willing to talk about it)?
But you just don't usually hear those "dark" terms with cannabis or alcohol. Has anybody had a "dark whippet" experience? What's a "dark drunk"? I'm not talking about a bad experience doing something stupid under the influence or having a bad hangover - I mean, where the experience itself is dark and terrifying, such that if you experienced it you would not voluntarily want to do it ever again.
I've noticed that some individuals are highly resistant to and paranoid about "losing control" to almost any consciousness-altering experience. I suspect for them almost any such experience is likely to be "dark". While others of us see consciousness as a more fluid thing to begin with and aren't as bothered by that aspect.
If so, then personality itself might be involved, lending one person more predisposed to "dark narc" than another - if so, my guess is that folks who rank as a Myers-Briggs "J" would be more susceptible to this control-loss paranoia than those who rank "P" (roughly corresponding to the "conscientiousness" variable in the Big Five).
Additionally, a diver already has a lot to worry about, so just the sheer suddenness and awareness of the narcosis effect is perhaps likely to push someone over into a paranoid "dark narc" experience. That might also be possible under the influence of THC, for example, and cause a "dark high", but it's not likely simply because it's not going to happen suddenly and unknowingly on the part of the recipient - and the onset would be less sudden as well.
The specific affect of "tunnel focus" while narced - i.e. the tendency not to be able to keep too many things in mind at once, and the corresponding tendency to over-focus on just one thing - might in itself be the cause of a lot of "dark narcs", because the diver knows they need to focus on several things, but can't.
That one characteristic of "over-focus" seems also to be very common on nitrous, which is why I joked that you might be able to simulate a dark narc by watching The Wall whilst huffing whippets.
