What Do You Do When You're a Bit Freaked?

[FFdiver]

I've never had a prolonged true zero viz situation, except in a class, but I've dived in Lake Washington, where the viz can be literally one or two feet. I don't like it at all; I get vertigo when bereft of a visual or tactile reference. So, on the worst dive I've done, I listened to my breathing, to make sure it was slow and regular, and chanted, "I'm maintaining, I'm maintaining, I'm maintaining very well . . . How long are we going to do this again? I'm maintaining . . . "

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When I dove the plane in Lake Washington it was truely black. I didn't slow my descent fast enough and descended down into the bottom silt at 150 FFW which is several feet thick. I kept telling myself you have plenty of gas for this dive, just breathe...just breathe. After I followed our line to the plane we could see about 3-5 feet. DARK!!!

[BillGraham]

There's a HUGE difference between, "I'm doing a zero-vis drill. If it gets to be too much for me I can open my eyes and turn on my light" and "Man, vis just went to zero. I wonder how long and how far I have to swim to be where I can see a darned thing."

Yup, 'tis a fact.

This might sound weird, but I close my eyes, like Medcop said. I figure, I've got the line, I've got my buddy's leg, I can't see &%# anyway so why stress myself out trying? Somehow, it calms me down.

As for singing, I'm told I sing into my rebreather mouthpiece throughout the dive. I didn't realize it until a friend pointed it out.

[Sludge]

This might sound weird, but I close my eyes

No, that's what you're supposed to do. If your eyes are open and you can't see anything, your brain gets confused. If your eyes are closed and you can't see anything, that's normal, so you're much less likely to panic.

[BobK]

No, that's what you're supposed to do. If your eyes are open and you can't see anything, your brain gets confused. If your eyes are closed and you can't see anything, that's normal, so you're much less likely to panic.

Be kind of funny, though, if you spent 1000 ft with your eyes closed, when the siltout ended 995 feet ago

[Sludge]

You open them to check every minute or so, Doofus.