the bittersweet .euphoria
of nitrogen narcosis

First published on DAN’s Alert Diver blog here, September 2026.

That damn aircon

When we were running the resort in the Philippines, we had one weekend once per month, when we were off. We always went off the island and spent the weekend in “the big city”.
Hotel, mall, cappuccinos, croissants, bookstores… and aircon. A little bit of luxury once a month.
Already early on we were taught not to put the aircon colder than approx. 4°C from the outdoor temperature. But there… the aircon was on position F, for Freezer. So every time you stepped outside, you were covered in a damp, humid cloth of 30+°C and when you stepped back inside, you were hit with an ice brick.
And every time we got back from our weekend, I had a cold for a day.

Recovered. Pretty much

This time was different, though. Usually I’d go right back into the water to guide dives, do courses, or just for photographing. I’d sniff up a good amount of salt water before the dive, gag, spit and/or blow out the salt water again, and the sinuses would be clear enough to go for a dive.
But not this time. I was completely stuffed until Wednesday, and only on Thursday did things open up enough to take my sniff of salt water. And I desperately wanted to go. I had been out of the water for nearly a week, which was terror!
I didn’t have any courses lined up, and our dive guide was doing the dive, so I happily trailed along with the dive.

The bittersweet euphory of nitrogen narcosis

As a dive professional I of course knew about “nitrogen narcosis”. I knew of it theoretically, but I had never before experienced it in person. I’d been well below 40 meters on compressed air, and never had even so much as a hint of something like it.
And it didn’t occur to me for a single moment I would experience it. I never saw it coming, even though I should have considered it a possibility with the fading cold still lingering in my head.

I’d done this dive site hundreds of times before, also solo, and my dive guide was minding his group, not me, because he knew I’d done this hundreds of times before.
I wanted to drop a bit further down the slope to around 25-26 meters. I found the slope always fascinating, because on the sandy, gritty bottom with only a few lost corals here and there, there were always really funky things to observe. But getting below 18 meters seemed to be the comfortability line where my nose started having trouble staying open. I got a bit heavy in my head because of it, enough for me to decide to pull off the mask, and blow my nose forcefully in the water. Replaced the mask, cleared it, and everything was fine again.
More than fine, actually. I felt light in my head again. Breathing was easy as it ever was; easier even, maybe. It felt like the visibility had improved tenfold. And I felt giddy. If it hadn’t been for the regulator in my mouth, I swear I would’ve had a face-wide mega grin on my face. Everything looked colourful, even the sandy, gritty bottom.
And especially that big triggerfish digging away in its nest way further down. That was something which definitely required a closer investigation.
So down I went, straight to the triggerfish.
It was sooo nice.
And soooo big!
And soooo pettable.

Wake up call

On my way down to the triggerfish it felt like I stepped out of my physical self. It sounds very woowoo, but that’s the nitrogen narcosis speaking. It’s a form of hallucination.
Looking at myself, floating a few meters above myself, I saw myself gliding off and I realized what was happening. I’m not sure that’s what is supposed to happen during nitrogen narcosis, and I was probably incredibly lucky that it did, but it may have been that realization was what snapped me back into myself, or what woke me up from this hallucination. My dive computer told me I was at 37 meters and had still 2 minutes of deco left.
The triggerfish was another 5 meters ahead of me, and was slowly turning its gaze at me, trigger up.
It was for many reasons time to turn around, which I did, as quickly as my dive computer allowed me. I still had 120 bars left, so I was fine there. There was still that lightness in my head, but at that point there was also that profound realization that I had a really close encounter with the other side. And with that came a brief, intense moment of panic. The swim back from 37 meters up the slope to 18 meters took me about 7 minutes, and an incredible amount of persistence not to go as fast as I could (I didn’t want to go up in the blue), but when I got to 18 meters my air gauge pointed at 60 bars. Never before, or ever after that moment, have I used that much air in such a short time.

Hindsight, 20/20

I found the group again, signaled I would go straight up for the safety stop and waited on the boat. To think…
In hindsight I recognized the symptoms. Of course. And the progress of the narcosis from start to where I─thank [insert deity of your choice here]─timely realized what was going on and could turn it around.
I realize how insanely lucky I was.
Sure, I’ve been out again. To 30+ meters. I’ve been out again on solo dives. But not anymore so shortly after a cold. I’m sitting it out now and not take a chance.

Nitrogen narcosis doesn’t stick to depths. There’s no hard rule that it starts after 30 meters or something like that. In my case here it set in at around 22-23 meters. I have no real memory of drifting down to 37 meters, when I snapped back into it.
There are so many variables which can cause nitrogen narcosis to set in earlier.
Have you slept enough the night before, or are you tired?
Did you drink (too much or a lot of) alcohol?
Were you just recovering from an illness?

Consider everything before you go down. And if you don’t trust it, or don’t feel well, don’t be afraid to call the dive.
For your own safety AND the others in your group.