dkatchalov
Contributor
Thanks Rickg, that is some damn interesting reading.
Handling Narcosis
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Rickg
Contributor
dkatchalov
Contributor
Awesome, there goes the morning at work 
Thanks Rick!
Thanks Rick!
I will go to 150' on air under the right circumstances, but I am also willing to call the dive if the conditions are not what were expected and/or if I start to feel uneasy about anything.
I think the degree to which a diver can function and deal with emergencies below 100 ft on air depends on several things.
1. The diver. Some divers seem to have more cognitive reserve to spare than others.
2. Experience. You have more resources to work with if you are very experienced and can do all the normal diving tasks on autopilot, leaving you less task loaded and better able to assess the dive as it progresses and to deal with things as they develop.
3. Judgement. Superior divers use their superior judgment to avoid situations that require their superior skills. This usually goes along with #2.
4. Conditions. 150' in good viz with no current or other hazards is much different than 150' in the dark, in low viz, with known or unknown hazards.
5. The given day. Some days divers do better at depth than others.
6. tolerance. It's controversial but whether the effect is physical (as is the case with alcohol and the ability for some serious alcoholics to be less impaired at a given BAC than a run of the mill drunk - and in turn be almost non functional with a total lack of alcohol in the synapses) or due to experience, focus etc, I seem to do much better when I work up to deep dives over the course of several dives over the course of the season and in particular over the course of a couple weeks.
7. Psychology/expectation. There was a very interesting study done that showed that divers who were not indoctrinated into the whole "narced" thing showed much less of an effect at depth and were better able to function at depth than divers indoctrinated to expect to be severely narced at depth. And in fact the divers who expected to be narced were narced far more than they should have been when told they were deeper than they really were, so there is apparently some placebo effect as well.
8. CO2. CO2 buildup accellerates the effects of both narcosis and oxtox. So use a good reg, do not exert yourself at depoth and do not abnormally slow your breathing to stretch your air at depth.
9. Emotion. Narcosis tends to exacerbate your emotional state, so if you are normally anxious or anxious about that particular dive, you can usually depend on narcosis making those feelings worse. If you tend to be exhuberant, a little ADD or just a little goofey to start with, you can probably expect to have those traits be exacerbated at depth. In my experience, calm and more or less unflappable divers tend to do well at depth on air. Also, If you are properly trained, properly configured, and very experienced, you will in general be calmer and less stressed and will be less prone to "dark narc" type symptoms in addition to having more legitimate things to worry about at depth - such as being at 150' feet on a single tank with no redundancy and an indadequate gas reserve.
So in short, your mileage will vary. Get proper training. Dive properly configured for deep/decompression diving. And go slow and develop and possibly expand your own reasonable limits as your experience and ability develops.
And don't go below 150' on air. Even superman would have problems on air any deeper than that.
I think the degree to which a diver can function and deal with emergencies below 100 ft on air depends on several things.
1. The diver. Some divers seem to have more cognitive reserve to spare than others.
2. Experience. You have more resources to work with if you are very experienced and can do all the normal diving tasks on autopilot, leaving you less task loaded and better able to assess the dive as it progresses and to deal with things as they develop.
3. Judgement. Superior divers use their superior judgment to avoid situations that require their superior skills. This usually goes along with #2.
4. Conditions. 150' in good viz with no current or other hazards is much different than 150' in the dark, in low viz, with known or unknown hazards.
5. The given day. Some days divers do better at depth than others.
6. tolerance. It's controversial but whether the effect is physical (as is the case with alcohol and the ability for some serious alcoholics to be less impaired at a given BAC than a run of the mill drunk - and in turn be almost non functional with a total lack of alcohol in the synapses) or due to experience, focus etc, I seem to do much better when I work up to deep dives over the course of several dives over the course of the season and in particular over the course of a couple weeks.
7. Psychology/expectation. There was a very interesting study done that showed that divers who were not indoctrinated into the whole "narced" thing showed much less of an effect at depth and were better able to function at depth than divers indoctrinated to expect to be severely narced at depth. And in fact the divers who expected to be narced were narced far more than they should have been when told they were deeper than they really were, so there is apparently some placebo effect as well.
8. CO2. CO2 buildup accellerates the effects of both narcosis and oxtox. So use a good reg, do not exert yourself at depoth and do not abnormally slow your breathing to stretch your air at depth.
9. Emotion. Narcosis tends to exacerbate your emotional state, so if you are normally anxious or anxious about that particular dive, you can usually depend on narcosis making those feelings worse. If you tend to be exhuberant, a little ADD or just a little goofey to start with, you can probably expect to have those traits be exacerbated at depth. In my experience, calm and more or less unflappable divers tend to do well at depth on air. Also, If you are properly trained, properly configured, and very experienced, you will in general be calmer and less stressed and will be less prone to "dark narc" type symptoms in addition to having more legitimate things to worry about at depth - such as being at 150' feet on a single tank with no redundancy and an indadequate gas reserve.
So in short, your mileage will vary. Get proper training. Dive properly configured for deep/decompression diving. And go slow and develop and possibly expand your own reasonable limits as your experience and ability develops.
And don't go below 150' on air. Even superman would have problems on air any deeper than that.
Please don't feed the trolls. This joker has been asking this question for years http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/60261-deep-deep-diver.html
Maybe the deep air has been affecting his memory?
Good thing I use mix. I have no memory, something something....
dumpsterDiver
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OK, maybe it was mostly scaredLet's just call it narcosis induced fear.
I think part of the reason was that I was diving a single tank and felt funny without the redundancy of my doubles.
I claim to feel no real narcosis until about 160 feet. I often go to around 200. This weekend I was seperated from my buddy, shot a fish and put it in my catch bag clipped to my belt and then a very big bull shark and another shark came around. I was only at 125 ft, but bailed early because I was scared. The sharks didn't even come with 40 feet of me. Maybe I was a little narced and chicken like you were. I just don't enjoy being out of control and when I'm carrying bloody fish and having multiple sharks around I just get nervous. I think I probably would not have bailed so early if it was shallower. I was kinda embarassed when I got on the boat with 2000 psi in my tank.
Also, I pretty much agreed with everything DA Aquamaster said on the subject, except that my comfort level is around 200 (for air) rather than 150.
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