Spatial Disorientation

[DawgPaddle]

Which Way Did I Go?

This question stems from pure curiousity...the flyers here are familiar with the term Spatial Disorientation or Vertigo, but do divers ever experience this. I suppose I could see it happening to those using rebreathers due to the lack of rising bubbles. Others may experience this in low visibility situations...

Comments?


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DawgPaddle

:fly:

 

[The Chairman]

Everytime I buy new Dive Gear. I look deep into my wallet and its a bottomless pit: completely empty!!!

 

[DivingGal]

the only time I've experience this was when for a short time I didn't have any stationary visual reference. I couldn't see the boat, or any uw landmarks. A wee bit disturbing, but it soon passed as I descended to a depth where I could see the wreck I was diving on.

 

[TwoBitTxn]

I had a low vis situation do it to me. I had to close my eyes and get upright so I at least knew one direction. It was spooky.

I would imagine it could be a problem in a wreck that is on its side or upside down. Your eyes and your ears would be telling your brain two different things.

Tom

 

[Starfish]

I experinced this when I was doing navigation at 40 feet in a quarry. As soon as the other buddy pair's fins went into the dark I felt like I was turning and may in fact have been. I just looked over at my dive buddy to reorientate myself and it passed in a couple of seconds.

The classic answer is to look for your bubbles going up. --Starfish

 

[Rick Murchison]

Spatial disorientation is not really knowing where you are relative to other things, and may or may not involve vertigo. Just getting turned around where you don't know which way is back to the boat is "spatial disorientation" and is pretty common, and often disturbing.
Real vertigo, however, is spatial disorientation combined with a proprioreceptive/optic/vestibular disconnect and can be extremely disturbing - even leading to nausea and panic. One of the most common exteme examples can happen if you get a reverse block in one ear on ascent - can make you feel like you're tumbling through space, even *knowing* that the bubbles are going up. If it ever happens to you (it can happen going down, too, but usually is less of a tumble for some reason) stop! Go back down (if you can) and get balanced before starting up again, then come up *very* slowly.
Rick

 

[sea nmf]

I'm experiencing vertigo right now. Or at least an hour or so ago when our company "net doc" was here.

Seriously, the person I took OW with has experienced vertigo a number of times diving locally. I think it is the low visibility. On most acsents here, you are usually in "pea soup" and if you don't have a visual reference, it is easy to slip into spacial disorientation.

 

[The Chairman]

But he can't be as cute as me...

 

[IndigoBlue]

During limited vis, when you either cannot see the bottom or the surface from where you are, then a digital read-out on a depth gauge or computer is really nice to help you with your ascent or descent. Going down, it is nice to know about how deep you are, since you know to expect the bottom or the seamount at some point. Going back up, since you would normally want a slow ascent, one foot every 2 seconds, the gauge comes in really handy.

If you can see the boat or the descent line, you do not really need this. Without it, and without a digital read-out, I am sure I would get vertigo every time. I have tried following bubbles but that does not work for me at all.

 

[Diver0001]

DawgPaddle once bubbled...
Which Way Did I Go?

This question stems from pure curiousity...the flyers here are familiar with the term Spatial Disorientation or Vertigo, but do divers ever experience this. I suppose I could see it happening to those using rebreathers due to the lack of rising bubbles. Others may experience this in low visibility situations...

Comments?


---------------------

DawgPaddle

:fly:

In zero vis situations I've occasionally had the feeling that I'm rotating in circles (always to the left for some reason). It's usually a combination of lots of silt and some current that makes the silt move while hovering in mid water. To make it stop I need to focus on an object that I know isn't moving. It could be my own hand or one of my gauges like my compass. I've only had this a few times and always at the same dive-site but it's really disorienting.

BTW, I associate vertigo with being dizzy but what I get is more like an optical illusion.

R..