I have heard several variations of ‘chinese water torture’. The Houdini one, which sounds the least plausable, has a person in a box upside down full of water. Unless the water was very slowly poured in the box, this isn’t really torture IMO.
Another version of Chinese Water torture involved a tied up person placed underneath a container which dripped water very slowly. As the person became thirsty, waiting for the next drop of water would become agonizing supposedly.
The final version I’ve heard of is a tied up person’s mouth in the path of a jet of water. The idea is even with the person spitting out/closing their mouth a little bit of water would get into the lungs and after time, their lungs would fill up with water and they’d drown.
So which is the real McCoy?