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<h1>Experiencing static</h1>
<p>Static apnea: the art of holding your breath as long as possible.</p>
<p>Never dive alone.</p>
<h2>Diving</h2>
<p>Before the dive it's important to put yourself into a particular, relaxed but aware mental state. You begin by taking a few deep breaths, making sure you don't have any oxygen debt and starting to put yourself at ease.</p>
<p>You then commence your breathe up: inhaling shallowly, exhaling long, slow breaths. You try a deconcentration technique to blur your focus; instead of your regular day to day single point of attention you are becoming aware of all your surroundings at once.</p>
<p>Knowing you will soon loose that feeling for the time of a breath hold, you concentrate on the simple pleasure of effortlessly sucking air into your rib cage.</p>
<p>One last full inhale-exhale cycle, and you're now breathing in your last gulp. Straightening your spine, almost bending your body backward, you feel the sections of your torso inflating and stretching to accommodate as much air as possible.</p>
<p>Your close your mouth and let your head sink slowly into the water.</p>
<h2>Before the contractions</h2>
<p>You're below the surface and you can sense your lungs yummily filled with air. You feel a bit of pressure on your epiglottis or your tongue, depending on how you close your airways.</p>
<p>There isn't the slightest need to breathe and your attention is quickly jumping among random parts of your body, amusedly stimulated by the new environment you find yourself in — coldness of the water on your face, tingling on your feet, full stretching of your rib cage — to extra short thoughts and emotions.</p>
<p>As if you had just kicked the sand on the seafloor before watching it slowly get back to rest, your mind, initial euphoria and flashing sensations all start to settle down. The feeling that you have a limited amount of oxygen resurfaces; it's time to get focused and start enjoying the breath hold.</p>
<p>With a mental grin you slowly, methodically shift your attention from one body part to the next. You feel your right foot as a whole, then refine the sensation to separate all of the toes. You don't wiggle them, but know you could. They're already relaxed, and you send them relaxing impulses nonetheless. Feeling the blood slowly, rhythmically pulsing inside.</p>
<p>You know that in a few moments the contractions will start and you won't be able to focus as acutely on them. So you keep your attention there while you can, flattening your mind, dissolving your thoughts into focused body awareness.</p>
<p>This is the first phase of static: your spirit is clear and you have full cognitive abilities — but time has started running, you know this phase won't last forever and any mistake made here will be paid harshly in the following steps. Knowing the end of that stage is close allows you to concentrate intensely on what you're doing.</p>
<p>This is a place for expressing yourself without mental discourse: focus and feeling will be your voice. There is no room for error, and no fear either. Knowing (not "thinking about") that the lack of air is coming is a strong force, pushing everything towards being how it should be, ironing any disturbance. You still have thoughts, but though you acknowledge them you don't pay them conscious attention.</p>
<p>Thoughtlessly, you continue your body scan and move your awareness to your other foot.</p>
<h2>Start of the contractions</h2>
<p>At the fringe of your consciousness, the weight of a shadow starts to be felt on your belly. Curious, and a little amused, you contemplate the thought: is it cast by a yet-unborn desire to breathe, or by a figment of your anticipation? That pleasant indecision lasts for a while, until almost surprised by your own moving body you watch your rib cage expand a bit, getting ready to receive the contractions to come.</p>
<p>The first one is slow and very light. It's not uncomfortable, you feel a little pressure and get the sense that you're entering a new state. This is the smooth transition to the second phase of the static breath hold.</p>
<p>A few more slow contractions and your attention has now left the body part you were dedicating it to, moving to your belly and diaphragm. The phenomenon happening there seems more interesting, and though not yet a problem the desire to breathe has become a reality you now live with.</p>
<p>You start getting curious, playing with them: how long can you delay the next contraction if you try relaxing your diaphragm as much as you can? Blocking your breath in a clenched state feels instinctive, but can you relax from there without triggering an immediate contraction?</p>
<p>Many people describe the process of "fighting the contractions" but there's not much harmony in that approach. They need to be appreciated.</p>
<p>You begin feeling grateful for experiencing these sensations. They're not unpleasant, as the term has no meaning when you've quit evaluating to fully contemplate them. They're no more than what they are: sensations, with no pre-assigned judgment color. Why not try enjoying them?</p>
<p>Waves of love for the experience starts merging with the waves of discomfort that comes with each contraction. They work at a unison, then get out of sync, then mix their rhythm again. Your memory and sense of time begin to alternate between stretching and shortening periods as well: events are popping up out of order and your mind has trouble getting a consistent view of what is happening.</p>
<p>You let go of your attempt of using your thinking mind to make sense of it and the picture gets much clearer. Though time does not make that much sense anymore, you feel the experience very acutely. You forget the observer and become the experience — short, intense thoughts are flashing by, the ego is compelled to take a step back and you don't really know where your limits are anymore.</p>
<h2>Ebullition</h2>
<p>Contractions are becoming more violent. Very rapid color bursts, images, sensations, desires, fears, unfinished half-thoughts are alternating at a lightning, searing speed in your ravening mind. At some point, you've transitioned into the third phase of static apnea.</p>
<p>Your mind is now boiling, incapable of forming what you would consider a coherent train of thought. But you're still here. It's a different state of consciousness, that's all. Almost with rage, you push a gust of loving feelings towards the pulsating sensation originating from your belly, now shaking all of your body on each contraction. This alleviates your spinning mind for a moment, and for a split second you rest in the memory of stillness. The roar of your internal storm is still here but the noise is lessened: all is Love, and all is well.</p>
<p>That doesn't last. With a strong burst, a body-contraction wrist you from your solace. Or was it a senseless thought that came in much too loud? Time isn't linear any more. As you're recovering from the mental spasm, you're completely unable to formulate any sort of thought anyway.</p>
<p>Which makes you wonder — what makes you keep your head underwater? You can almost feel the muscle move that would enable you to get back in the air and breathe again in an instant. In a single one of those random, maddening flashes, to reassure yourself, you have already played that move dozens of times.</p>
<p>Between the violent bursts of love and gratitude and the equally violent contractions that tear you from them, you try to think back of the reasons that you could have to push forward. You want to be a better diver, you want to break your old record, you want to impress your friends, you want to stretch your limits. Like a carousel of pictures that's going too fast for the eye to catch, they pass in front of you in a blur with no more weight than the crazy thoughts that you've now become all too familiar with.</p>
<p>Thinking won't help here. Out of your frustration, something else slowly emerges from the midst of the storm. It's an inarticulate emotion, that feels like a long forgotten memory. You're remembering that you are actually enjoying the experience. The joy of a new state, the feeling of exploring uncharted territories, the pleasure of letting yourself go and float on the stream of sensations wherever they may take you, connects you to something very deep inside yourself.</p>
<p>With a mental smile, you dive back into the torrent of splashing sensations where love, anger, surprise, fear and stillness are merging together.</p>
<h2>Breathing</h2>
<p>Your lungs are filled with fresh air. It seems that somewhere in the last 10 seconds, you chose to pull your head out of the water and open your mouth. You don't really feel like you, yourself, decided to end the breath hold. The decision just happened — the body moved, that's it.</p>
<p>The first breath brings a very pleasant sensation of freshness, right to your core. Your mind is still in a thoughtless mode and the shock of the arrival of new air flushes everything that was previously boiling inside, leaving it empty and very still. Somewhere in that vast, quiet space, there's happiness.</p>
<p>You keep your giant, cool breath for two seconds, then let it out and breathe in again.</p>
<p>After a few breaths, your ego reappears and you start being able to think again. The impression of freshness is still very much here and the mind feels very clean; with the sensation of tingling that accompanies the full reawakening of your bodily and brain functions you feel a smile appearing on your face, slowly stretching itself from one ear to the other.</p>
<p>The light reflects unusually brightly on the surface of the water shining around you.</p>
<p>Welcome to apnea.</p>
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