I'm new to the forum and unable to post a reply to the thread that caused me to join. It involved hyperventilating and holding your breath and whether or not it was safe. The post I wanted to address, suggested that if you went unconscious, you would start breathing again automatically, and therefore not die. THIS IS NOT TRUE WHEN YOU HYPERVENTILATE before holding your breath!! I died at the age of 18 by hyperventilating, then holding my breath until I went unconscious. YOU WILL NOT START BREATHING AGAIN!!! When you hyperventilate, you blow off ALL of your CO2 and hyper oxygenate your blood. Carbon Dioxide is what tells your brain to breath. So when you go unconscious from lack of oxygen, you brain also has no CO2, so the reflex to breathe doesn't kick in. I only survived because two people gave me CPR for 5+ minutes before I came back. THEY ALMOST GAVE UP! Please be careful with this!!! It is definitely NOT SAFE! Under ANY circumstances

not sure why anyone would want to hyperventilate and then continue on to even hold their breathe

but thanks for that info

With that said, so far nobody has died from absorbing dimethyltryptamine into their lungs. ;]

note to self: don't hyperventilate and hold DMT in

I take it back, I've died countless times...

...I always seem to come back though!

Whoa, thanks for the heads up. Obviously then one shouldn't hyperventilate before smoking spice.

I used to hyperventilate and/or deep breathe before hitting spice but then saw a post by Corpus Callosum basically saying you'll just lower your oxygen level with this. Trust your body to breathe as much as it needs to even when in hyperspace.

As far as hyperventilating or holding breath until passing out, sounds sketch. But Stanislov Grof does have his Holographic Breathing program - a kind of specific sort of hyperventilation aimed at achieving a deep altered state. Perhaps worth checking out.

Peace & Love

I was thinking of Stan Grof myself Pandora when I first read the post, but then again, he never said anything about hyperventilating and then holding your breath.

I don't believe this. I hyperventilate and then hold my breath all the time and I never pass out or lose consciousness. There are some ancient pranayama exercises that do this. Even if you do pass out, eventually you will start breathing again and regain consciousness.

I've done stan grof's breathwork many times and I've read in his books about how he invented holotropic breathwork by studying ancient breathing techniques that involved either hyperventilation or holding your breath for extended preiods or both.

I hold my breath during holotropic breathwork sessions, after hyperventilating for an hour or more straight. And it takes me deeper every time, but I've never lost conciousness.

To the OP, you said that you "died". How do you know?

What you are saying here is correct but needs some qualification.The first point is you hyperventilated and THEN held your breath UNTIL you fell unconscious which is deliberately (impressively!) extreme and I doubt that those with no cardiorespiratory disease would get such an effect from moderate hyperventilation followed by limited breath-holding, in a similar fashion to that employed by say ,pearl-divers.

I agree, that such extreme behaviour which is deliberate is potentially unhealthy because of the fainting (and sometimes seizures) which can result from the reduced levels of ionised calcium in the blood plus cerebral vasoconstriction seen with low CO2 and alkalosis.The constricted vessels are also prevented from supplying adequate oxygen to the brain which increases risk of damage.I doubt fans of smoking DMT would need to push it that far at all, particularly the part where you held your breath till you fell unconscious.We are talking about degrees here and IIRC, some people employ breathing techniques which do employ hyperventilation in some form for a variety of reasons.The brainstem is very clever but I guess if you really really push it in a deliberate manner you could have problems, but for those worried about the effects DMT has on ones subjective sense of breathing/not breathing, then hyperventilating for a short time followed by holding a lungful of DMT is not going to be problematic.

You say you were given CPR; did you have a pulse whilst unconscious?