A potentially great method that I haven’t seen discussed

[BlissfulEnigma]

So I'm sure most of you know how SWB works, it basically takes advantage of rapid breathing (hyperventilating) so that you get rid of as much CO2 as possible, and then you hold your breath underwater to deplete your oxygen until you pass out (without ever getting a sense of "drowning" because that is caused by high CO2 and you've reduced it drastically by hyperventilating).

However, this seems to be quite a risk, because if you don't pass out before the CO2 builds up high enough then you might still drown and not even be able to save yourself because your oxygen is too low to think (but not quite enough to pass out).

Now, I'm not saying that would happen if you did everything right, it's totally possible to SWB without pain. But it's also quite disturbing for those that discover you in the morning (or whatever time).

But then I realized that you can do this all on land! All you have to do is hyperventilate as much as possible (I recommend wim hof lying down), breathe out as much air as you can, and tape your mouth and nose shut immediately afterwards. At this point, you would hold your breath as long as possible until you inevitably pass out and die a peaceful death (with no drowning). Now, in practice, I don't know how well this would work. I imagine you should tape your nose shut first so that you only have to tape your mouth later. And obviously practice is important, but if anyone has any comments or if this has been attempted please comment.

 

[prompt_critical]

This is really interesting, how do you make sure you stay down under though? Or do you essentially guaranteed die after you have a lungful of water I've wondered about that.

The land one makes me worry about accidentally ripping off the tape when you're semi-conscious.

So I'm sure most of you know how SWB works, it basically takes advantage of rapid breathing (hyperventilating) so that you get rid of as much CO2 as possible, and then you hold your breath underwater to deplete your oxygen until you pass out (without ever getting a sense of "drowning" because that is caused by high CO2 and you've reduced it drastically by hyperventilating).

However, this seems to be quite a risk, because if you don't pass out before the CO2 builds up high enough then you might still drown and not even be able to save yourself because your oxygen is too low to think (but not quite enough to pass out).

Now, I'm not saying that would happen if you did everything right, it's totally possible to SWB without pain. But it's also quite disturbing for those that discover you in the morning (or whatever time).

But then I realized that you can do this all on land! All you have to do is hyperventilate as much as possible (I recommend wim hof lying down), breathe out as much air as you can, and tape your mouth and nose shut immediately afterwards. At this point, you would hold your breath as long as possible until you inevitably pass out and die a peaceful death (with no drowning). Now, in practice, I don't know how well this would work. I imagine you should tape your nose shut first so that you only have to tape your mouth later. And obviously practice is important, but if anyone has any comments or if this has been attempted please comment.this

 

[Whale_bones]

Even in water, this is a very unreliable method, with many reports of trying and seemingly no cases of success. It happens accidentally due to many different variables, as @hell toupee explains here:

You can't just hyperventilate, pass out, and drown. That's not what SWB is.

SWB is when a diver hyperventilates, remains conscious, and then proceeds to hold their breath so long that they pass out. But the reason they pass out has to do with many physiological variables, one of them being the compression of the lung at depth (allowing the free diver to hold their breath even longer), and then the decompression of the lungs as they surface. They then pass out because they have been holding their breath for so long, part of which hyperventilation allows them to do.

Everyone who I've seen hyperventilate, including myself, passes out for less than 5 seconds. If you were to hyperventilate then attempt to pass out and drown, you would wake up immediately and experience everything that goes with drowning - which, according to a few anecdotal reports on here of people who survived accidental drownings in their youth, is very painful.

I don't know why they closed the mega thread on this method, but I suspect it is because it is not viable.

 

[BlissfulEnigma]

Even in water, this is a very unreliable method, with many reports of trying and seemingly no cases of success. It happens accidentally due to many different variables, as @hell toupee explains here:

Ok but I'm talking about hyperventilating and then holding your breath for a few minutes, not just passing out from hyperventilating. Cause getting rid of CO2 is just one part of the equation, you also have to hold your breath and pass out before you feel the urge to breathe again. People have literally been able to pass out from wim hof breathing, so maybe I'm not understanding something?

 

[hell toupee]

Ok but I'm talking about hyperventilating and then holding your breath for a few minutes, not just passing out from hyperventilating. Cause getting rid of CO2 is just one part of the equation, you also have to hold your breath and pass out before you feel the urge to breathe again. People have literally been able to pass out from wim hof breathing, so maybe I'm not understanding something?

Doesn't wim hof's method involve a bit of training before they do that? I would assume the extreme cold also plays a factor.

I don't know much about wim hof other than a few documentaries I saw of him many years ago, so I might be off on this - but the video I watched had a group of guys stay with him, they then went through some training exercises and finally went out to an icy river to submerge themselves in.

You can certainly try all of this without needing to go to water. Just hyperventilate and try and pass out - if you manage to do that, by standing up real fast, or pinching your neck immediately after hyperventilation (which is what I did) and you will see that you pass out for just a few seconds, which, imo, would not be enough to overcome the sensation of filling your lungs with water.

 

[Whale_bones]

Ok but I'm talking about hyperventilating and then holding your breath for a few minutes, not just passing out from hyperventilating. Cause getting rid of CO2 is just one part of the equation, you also have to hold your breath and pass out before you feel the urge to breathe again. People have literally been able to pass out from wim hof breathing, so maybe I'm not understanding something?

I see this as unrelated to SWB, though. Death occurs after SWB when a swimmer is unconscious, their body automatically tries to breathe in, and their lungs fill with water. The cause of death is drowning. As the post I quoted said, factors like compression of the lungs at depth contribute to the reasons why people end up going unconscious (and staying unconscious) long enough to die while underwater.

Those factors don't apply on land, so it's a different situation. I don't think tape on your mouth and nose would be an airtight seal at all. I do think all should keep in mind that it's risky to practice something like this, because depriving your brain of oxygen repeatedly can have bad side effects.

 

[BlissfulEnigma]

Doesn't wim hof's method involve a bit of training before they do that? I would assume the extreme cold also plays a factor.

I don't know much about wim hof other than a few documentaries I saw of him many years ago, so I might be off on this - but the video I watched had a group of guys stay with him, they then went through some training exercises and finally went out to an icy river to submerge themselves in.

You can certainly try all of this without needing to go to water. Just hyperventilate and try and pass out - if you manage to do that, by standing up real fast, or pinching your neck immediately after hyperventilation (which is what I did) and you will see that you pass out for just a few seconds, which, imo, would not be enough to overcome the sensation of filling your lungs with water.

No no the wim hof breathing is different than the cold exposure, although he claims that doing both is beneficial (and the science certainly supports the idea that hyperventilating lowers your CO2 a ton)

I see this as unrelated to SWB, though. Death occurs after SWB when a swimmer is unconscious, their body automatically tries to breathe in, and their lungs fill with water. The cause of death is drowning. As the post I quoted said, factors like compression of the lungs at depth contribute to the reasons why people end up going unconscious (and staying unconscious) long enough to die while underwater.

Those factors don't apply on land, so it's a different situation. I don't think tape on your mouth and nose would be an airtight seal at all. I do think all should keep in mind that it's risky to practice something like this, because depriving your brain of oxygen repeatedly can have bad side effects.

I mean yeah what I'm describing is not technically SWB, and I do agree that the drowning part does seal the deal if you go that route. But I'd argue that by drowning you better hope that you did everything right or it could be an excruciating death (again, depends how you execute the method). Fundamentally, though, the two methods are similar in that oxygen deprivation occurs before CO2 triggers a pain response. So if you can last maybe 4 or 5 minutes before the pain response sets in, you will die a peaceful death. And yes, the tape needs to be sealed well, but something like gorilla tape (multiple layers) should work fine (even if there are microscopic amounts of air passing through). Oh and everyone has different lung capacities so it's important to breathe out as much as possible (cause then the oxygen in the extra air will lead to production of CO2 which is not want you want).

 

[hell toupee]

No no the wim hof breathing is different than the cold exposure, although he claims that doing both is beneficial (and the science certainly supports the idea that hyperventilating lowers your CO2 a ton)

Certainly, we know that hyperventilation "blows off" co2, that part is not in dispute. What I would be concerned with is that it seems like loss of consciousness from hyperventilating only lasts for a few seconds.

As I mentioned above, this can be tested without any need to submerge yourself in water. You can certainly hyperventilate and see just how long it knocks you out for...

I would think, if you are intent on drowning yourself, that you would need something additional that puts you in to a semi-comatose state such that inhaling water is not enough of a shock to wake you up. You could simply hyperventilate and then lower a plastic bag over your head. If the loss of consciousness is sufficient to bypass the agony of drowning, then I would think it would be enough to overcome co2 poisoning and plastic bag asphyxiation.

Unless you are one of the minority who does NOT want a painless death, it just seems that drowning is taking a big risk that your last few moments would be filled with panic and agony.

 

[BlissfulEnigma]

Certainly, we know that hyperventilation "blows off" co2, that part is not in dispute. What I would be concerned with is that it seems like loss of consciousness from hyperventilating only lasts for a few seconds.

As I mentioned above, this can be tested without any need to submerge yourself in water. You can certainly hyperventilate and see just how long it knocks you out for...

I would think, if you are intent on drowning yourself, that you would need something additional that puts you in to a semi-comatose state such that inhaling water is not enough of a shock to wake you up. You could simply hyperventilate and then lower a plastic bag over your head. If the loss of consciousness is sufficient to bypass the agony of drowning, then I would think it would be enough to overcome co2 poisoning and plastic bag asphyxiation.

Unless you are one of the minority who does NOT want a painless death, it just seems that drowning is taking a big risk that your last few moments would be filled with panic and agony.

What do you mean loss of consciousness from hyperventilation lasts just a few seconds? Just to be clear, the loss of consciousness is caused by the breath hold which deprives you of oxygen, not the hyperventilation. The hyperventilation just makes the fatal breath hold possible. Hyperventilation on its own probably won't be very effective for making you pass out (even though you can reduce oxygen flow from hyperventilation alone, it's not as much as holding your breath).

 

[hell toupee]

What do you mean loss of consciousness from hyperventilation lasts just a few seconds? Just to be clear, the loss of consciousness is caused by the breath hold which deprives you of oxygen, not the hyperventilation. The hyperventilation just makes the fatal breath hold possible. Hyperventilation on its own probably won't be very effective for making you pass out (even though you can reduce oxygen flow from hyperventilation alone, it's not as much as holding your breath).

My apologies for misunderstanding you.

There have been many posts on this forum about using drowning as a method, and I may have confused you with others who've suggested simply hyperventilating, passing out, falling in to water or even using a bathtub to then drown in.

It sounds like you are referring to shallow water blackout.

Yes, blowing off co2 allows you to hold your breath longer. However, swb occurs with people who have trained themselves to hold their breath for long periods of time.

However, blackout doesn't just happen from holding their breath for a long time - it's part of it, but there are many other physiological variables that lead to blacking out, one of them being the compression of the lungs at depth (allowing the free diver to hold their breath even longer), and then the decompression of the lungs as they surface. This is what causes loc. Pressure at depth contributes to the extra long breath hold.

It's not enough for your average person to simply hyperventilate, hold their breath for as long as possible, and expect to lose consciousness. Maybe there are some people who can, but I would not say it's something that most people are able to do.

Regardless, I don't want to turn this in to an argument and will bow out of the thread. I hope you can find peace in whatever you choose to do.