How did you know you were narked?

[DevonDiver]

A long time ago, I used to do deep air technical dives down to depths of 70-90m. I still do regular dives using air in the 40-55m range. So I'm pretty familiar with the signs and symptoms of narcosis.

I think there's a lot of placebo effect regards narcosis symptoms... especially where those symptoms are perceived as intoxication and drunkenness.

In reality, narcosis is much more insidious and it's generally hard to perceive symptoms. The narcosis itself makes symptom recognition problematic.

Likewise, observers who are equally compromised by narcosis are unlikely to have the clarity to perceive the subtle signs of narcosis in others.

I've done dives where everyone was on air... and nobody appeared unduly compromised. Later, doing the same dives on trimix, the degraded performance of the other air divers was much easier to identify.

There are times where, having done the same site multiple times on air, then later on trimix... my own narcosis compromise was easy to identify in hindsight. I might think I knew a site well from multiple air dives, but a single dive on trimix showed clearly that I hadnt absorbed very much detail and clarity on that site

Nitrogen Narcosis - Perceptions of Susceptibility

 

[Rhone Man]

I one saw Egyptian hieroglyphs in the sand at 180'. I must have been narc'ed because I was unable to read them.

Another time I was astonished at my inability to convert bar to PSI at around 125'.

 

[Centrals]

I started liking the Grateful Dead again.

Never have any problem anytime and anywhere!!

 

[RyanT]

My first four years or so of diving were in the 70-110' range. I never noticed any signs of narcosis. On my first dive to 130' I suddenly felt rather buzzed. My inner monologue went something like this..."Wow, I feel great! I actually feel like I've had a couple of beers. Did I have a couple of beers today? No, of course not, you never drink and dive! Ok so why then do I feel like this...oh crap, this is narcosis! OK, seriously pay attention to what you're doing!" Many 130'+ air dives later, it was always there, but the overall feeling/effect became less pronounced.

 

[Scuba J7]

My deepest is 115' and my narcs have been mildly euphoric. I'm often in the hindsight group, and don't realize I was lightly narced until the debrief.

My first realization came when my buddy and I were discussing video footage he took, he thought it was great footage, until it was reviewed.

 

[Diver-Drex]

I get the darc narc'ed feeling on cold, dark dives deeper than 90fsw, but I've never associated that with narcosis. More a sense of "it's cold, dark and things could go poorly if your focused". It happened on one dive and turned out to be useful. I turned early and surfaced to rapidly deteriorating surface conditions.
The first time I would have said I was clearly narc'ed was at 125fsw on a NC wreck. Swimming along side the wreck fore to aft I just stared out into the open water. After what seemed like a while I realized what was happening, refocused and it didn't happen again.

 

[Rhone Man]

My deepest is 115' and my narcs have been mildly euphoric. I'm often in the hindsight group, and don't realize I was lightly narced until the debrief.

My first realization came when my buddy and I were discussing video footage he took, he thought it was great footage, until it was reviewed.

I have told this story before on SB, but it is a good one so I will tell it again.

My deepest ever air dive was 190' on the San Francisco Maru in Truk Lagoon. During the dive briefing we were told to look for the mines stacked up in one of the holds. I did the dive. It was great. I told the crew afterwards "fantastic dive, but I never did manage to find those mines that you were talking about." Then when I am reviewing my photos on the boat afterward, there are several photographs taken by me of the mines...

 

[Jerome O'Neil]

Stories then!

I was on a Vancouver livaboard (Nautilus 7, before they built the new boats and headed south to Mexico) for five days. It was the last day and we'd be diving like madmen for the entire trip so our bodies were pretty loaded up. The second to the last dive of the trip was off the wall at Hornby Island to look for sixgill sharks. The plan was we drop down to about 140 and work our way back up the wall. The sharks tend to patrol it so it is a good way to catch sight of one.

So we got to depth and I was completely looped. On the ascent at about 75fsw I'm still a bit goofy, and we see a shark, maybe 11 feet long, swimming along the wall with another diver right next to it between it and the wall. That was kind of cool. The shark gets that "spidey sense" thing going on and slows way down (almost to a complete halt) then turns it's head right into the other diver. This wasn't an aggressive move, it was just checking out what the heck was next to it making all that noise. But in my narced up head I'm thinking "Oh $%!#, that guy's gonna get eaten!*" The diver actually made contact with the shark, pushing off of it into the wall.

We were probably 25 - 30 feet away, and perhaps 15 feet above all of this. After the guy pushes off the shark, the shark changes orientation and is now heading right at me. So I'm narced to the gills, hanging vertically in the water, and all I see is shark face making pretty good time in my direction. All I can think is "Oh $%!#! I'm gonna get eaten!" I went horizontal in the water, and the animal swam right under me, about as far away as my computer monitor, and disappeared into the murk.

We decided to call the last dive and just drink instead as there wasn't anything that was going to top that.

So that happened.

* There has never been a recorded attack on humans by a sixgill shark. Narc don't care.

 

[redacted]

Only clear symptom was my face went numb at 140 ft. I remembered the feeling from trips to the dentist in the 50's.

 

[lermontov]

I

Another time I was astonished at my inability to convert bar to PSI at around 125'.

i cant do that at sea level!