The incident getting so far to discomfort that I had to concentrate on my breathing pattern was at my first solo cave dive. I had dove with a Buddy with Twinset and stage.. We did some nice jumps on and of the line of some sections of Ponderosa, but never made it to the other section of the cave (again do not remember the exact sections out of my head right now).
When we surfaced after about 120 minutes or so fo caving I still felt the urge to continue since we had the stage along with us anyways and there was still "plenty" of gas.. My Buddy did not not want to go on so I decided to go into the other section (left of the "river run") myself for a Little bit on a limited Penetration and roughly on fourths of the stage only giving me an Overall gas together with the BM doubles of at least a sixth.. (Having double redundant gas supplies made me comfortable to do that as well)
Since this was shallow though I really made it into the cave for about 15 Minutes straight Penetration (it is shallow there) I decided to turn since I also felt a slight strange Feeling in my gut even when I had not quite reached the supposedly "super safe" turning pressure..
Already on the way out the discomfort kept raising and I really started thinking what I was doing there.. I started to think through Scenarios which could potentially happen which I had not thought through before the dive, cursing at myself that actually in the cave was the wrong place to think about that, this should have been done BEFORE I went into the cave on my own. Essentially I had not entirely thought through how some protocols might change due to being solo in the cave.. This was getting me unease warping me into a spiral of bad thoughts. I realized that fast enough, decided These Scenarios should not be applicable now and I needed to Focus on my breathing.. Thus I calmed myself and recognized formations indicating me I was getting Close to the Exit so all was good again. I was also thinking what would have been had I continued till turning pressure.. not sure if it would have escalated further..
Lesson learned: really work through Scenarios and applicable protocols before a dive not during.. Be conscious about the comfort zone and take even smaller steps when caving solo.
