# Question about Chinese Water torture

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-chinese-water-torture/126387>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 30, 2002, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-chinese-water-torture/126387 "2002-08-30T23:36:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-chinese-water-torture/126387/1 "2002-08-30T23:36:01Z")

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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?

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**Author:** ![peasea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc79bd/32.png) [@peasea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peasea)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2002, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-chinese-water-torture/126387/2 "2002-08-30T23:48:41Z")

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