HBM102: Breath Holder

Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters Podcast

Science, Society & Culture, Social Sciences, Personal Journals, Documentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2018

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Archer Mayo has always loved finding lost things. He grew up on several navy bases and spent much of his childhood swimming and looking for human detritus–sunglasses, teacups, glass bottles. That’s why he takes such delight in searching for old lead weights in the murky waters of the Columbia River in Washington state.

Archer is a free diver and uses no breathing apparatus when he dives. He just holds his breath and gives in to his mammalian dive response. It’s a reflex that allows mammals to hold their breath underwater longer by slowing the heart rate and shifting blood from the limbs to the torso. “Once my mammalian dive response kicks in... I feel much more calm and centered.” Archer says, “I call it ‘The Flip’.”

Archer envies whales and dolphins for living in a world that seems weightless. He can only go so long living as a bipedal mammal on the surface before he feels the urge to dive again.

In this episode, HBM producer Bethany Denton watches from a river bank as Archer dives just outside of his home in White Salmon, Washington.

Producer: Bethany Denton
Editor: Bethany Denton
Music: Circling Lights, The Black Spot

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When you're living life up on the surface, how do you know when it's time to go for a dive? From KCRW, this is Here Be Monsters.
0:17.0	I... I can only spend so much time as a bipedal mammal.
0:29.0	I want to be so supported to live in this really constant world of darkness and it's just a different place.
0:39.8	It's a different reality.
0:45.0	And it's right here. it's right in our town. People drive over the bridge every day, and it's right there.
0:49.0	Can you describe the mammalian dive response?
0:54.0	Yeah, so the mammalian dive response to me I call it I call it the flip.
1:01.0	Right like holding a breath and sealing up everything and feeling the
1:07.9	all the nerves of my face innervated with water and there's a certain level of relaxation and a certain level of calmness that I feel.
1:20.2	And then it happens.
1:22.4	All of a sudden I'm cruising down a rock wall in the darkness,
1:26.8	and I just feel calm and compact. I can feel my heartbeat but it's slow. Watching the
1:51.4	rock wall kind of move past and looking at things.
1:55.0	And I feel for those couple minutes that I could just stay on there for an unlimited amount of time really.
2:06.7	And I don't'm going to have a headache the rest of the day from CO2 buildup, but it's just worth it. It's worth it to have those moments, to have those hours of going down and spending time under 50 or 60 feet of water. Oh, I see what the podcast about.
2:57.0	A wish. I wish for a fish. The
3:05.0	PODESSS A Wish for a Fish. The Podcast about The Unknown. You're I'm going to Well, right now I am about to put my face on the water and purged the CO2 out of my
3:48.5	out of my lungs because really the limiting factor psychologically
3:53.0	the urge to breathe comes from the buildup of CO2 more than lack of oxygen
3:57.1	and then when I feel fully relaxed I'll do a duck dive
4:00.0	and push my legs up out of the water and that drives my body down and then I try to coast down into the water.
4:07.0	So, Oh, I'm going to Hm. Hm. Hm.
	...

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