Floating in the deep: why do freedivers push themselves to the verge of death?

Imagine you are surrounded by the most amazing silence. Not the silence that comes at night with your breath on a pillow and the distant hum of everyday life, but rather a deeper silence, one emptied of any sensation so that even the thump of your heartbeat is gone and you are surrounded by nothing.

Imagine that in this silence you are floating with your eyes closed and body weightless as in space, touching nothing, free against any force. Then imagine you can keep this gentle, peaceful feeling of floating quietly through an inky black darkness for more than three minutes, knowing you are touching a depth of human experience almost no one else will ever achieve. And, finally, when you ascend from this tranquility, as the rush of sound returns and your body takes that first breath it suddenly aches to have the glow of that silence will remain for several moments.

You are sitting on earth but your mind is still soaring.

This is what it is like to be a competitive freediver.

“It is so alien to the celestial experience that it’s hard to relate,” William Trubridge says.

Trubridge is one of the world’s top freedivers, the holder of many records and the first man to dive more than 100m (328ft) without the aid of weights. He has descended to depths few humans will ever know, rising each time to tell about it. Want to know why sane people propel themselves into the ocean, dropping deeper and deeper until their hearts slow, their lungs shrink and they come to the edge of blanking out?

“I’ve seen it described as: ‘You get to know yourself better,’” Trubridge says.

The woman he is quoting is now believed dead. Earlier this week, Natalia Molchanova, the best female freediver in the world, holder of numerous world records, dropped below the surface off the coast of Spain for a non-competitive dive and never re-emerged. Though she was not reported to be at an extreme depth when she vanished, her disappearance has brought new attention to an obscure sport, only a couple of decades old, that is intriguing for the outrageous depths its competitors achieve and the threat of death that lingers over each dive.

“It is a bit of an odd sport,” says John Fitz-Clarke, an emergency physician at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, who has studied the physical effects of freediving. “It’s probably the only sport where people voluntarily experience blackouts.”

Though competitive diving is a new sport, the concept of holding your breath and sinking as far into the water as you can go is hardly new. People have been doing this for thousands of years, both for pleasure and in the search for food. Not long ago the idea of a 40m dive seemed extreme, but now competitors drop to distances more than three times that number with the assistance of weighted objects.

Those who approach such depths say there is a remarkable sensation of accomplishment – a knowledge they have found a place most humans will never venture, that they alone have been to a special corner of the planet unknown to all others. Unlike most sports where athletes must be fast or strong divers don’t need athletic skill. Age is irrelevant. Molchanova was still the best in the world at 53.

“You become acquainted with your superpower,” says Ashley Chapman, a North Carolina freediver and instructor who has set three world records.

Her skill, like that of all competitive freedivers, is an acquired ability to hold her breath for several minutes, helping to push her body past its previous limits. For many who do the sport this is the thrill.

“It scratches a competitive itch,” she says. “I love competitions and record-setting. It gives me a goal to work toward.”

But there is something else that drives her, something deeper and more complex than the simple wining in a sport where victories come with trophies and almost nothing in the way of cash prizes. “It’s about mastering your mind,” she says.

Freedivers must fight their nerves and reflexes, putting their body in a near-meditative state. In order to be alert as they plummet deeper below the surface, they must have a feeling for where they are, and an ability to concentrate, follow safety protocols and understand their bodies enough to know if on that particular day it can only handle a 30m dive instead of one that is 70.

Failure to heed these signs can lead to a dive that is too fast or an ascent that is too slow, and this is where the blackouts can occur. It is the blackouts that define freediving to outsiders, giving the sport a reputation of being more dangerous than almost everything but BASE jumping. A few years ago San Francisco writer James Nestor covered the freediving world championships for Outside magazine, describing in vivid detail the ascent of several divers who had blacked out and were pulled from the water – bodies limp and faces blue – only to wake up moments later, seemingly fine. Ask freedivers about the blackouts and they describe them not in the ghastly, ugly terms of watching someone turn blue with their eyes rolling in the back of their heads but instead something beautiful, like a deep, gentle dream.

“I can be somewhere in the sun with my husband Ren, and there are trees all around and it’s very peaceful,” Chapman says. “Then you (wake up) and are on the ocean and you think: ‘Oh crap, I didn’t make it (up without blacking out).”

Competitive divers point out that there has only been one death at a world event, and they are obsessive about safety, making sure to never dive without rescue divers nearby who can bring them to the surface if they pass out. As long as precautions are in place, they say, the sport is safe. Most of the deaths, they insist, come from recreational divers who do not use rescuers. A large number of those recreational deaths are people spearfishing who don’t have a feel for their body’s limits.

“I always have a healthy fear, and I respect that,” Chapman says.

To not have that fear, she says, is foolish.

When Nestor reported the Outside story, he was shocked by what he saw. He found freediving to be crazy. How could so many push themselves to the verge of death and why? He thought freedivers were insane. And in the case of competitive freedivers he continues to believe they are. But he has since taken up freediving on a recreational level and has written a book about the experience called Deep.

Because Nestor does not need to drop hundreds of feet below the surface, descending instead only about 30-50 feet, he leaves his eyes open. What he sees has transfixed him. Even at 50ft the world changes. He is weightless, suspended in the silence, alive in nature. Fish and whales don’t retreat the way they might near the surface but instead come close, circling him, almost communicating.

“They envelope you,” Nestor says. “To have that experience you don’t have to go hundreds of feet down.”

After studying the sport for three years he still wonders what it is that lures people to plunge toward the bottom of the ocean, seeing nothing around them and using only a rope to guide them down. He understands the descriptions of peacefulness and the zeal that makes one person say: “If you can go 500ft I can go 550.” But he doesn’t get the risk the competitive freedivers take, with the blackouts and the pressure placed on their bodies. Why, he wonders, would anyone willingly do this if death were a real possibility?

Still, what happened to Natalia Molchanova will not change competitive freedivers. They might question their methods but not their passion. Nothing can replace that feeling of floating beneath the water, weightless, pushing the body farther than anyone thinks they can go. Nothing beats acquainting yourself with your inner superpower.

“It’s cool to push your limits,” Chapman says.

Alone, in the still of the greatest peace they have ever known.