# When the Hero is Underwater, Do You Ever Have the Urge to Hold Your Breath?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 31, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791 "2007-12-31T13:08:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/1 "2007-12-31T13:08:03Z")
When watching a movie, I mean.
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### Author:  [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/2 "2007-12-31T13:57:07Z")
Yes, I’ve done that - to see if the amount of time without breathing is resonable. (granted I’m resting on the couch and the hero is flopping around, but its a good 1st approximation)
Brian
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/3 "2007-12-31T14:04:08Z")
Stupid Star Trek IV. No way Kirk held his breath that long. I know, I tried to do it with him.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/4 "2007-12-31T15:08:15Z")
Hadn’t really thought of it, bit this may explain why I hyperventilated in unconscious hope that Shelly Winters would drown in The Posidon Adventure.
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### Author:  [@Hokkaido\_Brit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hokkaido_Brit)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/5 "2007-12-31T15:14:03Z")
Yes, and that’s why I can’t watch underwater scenes - yuck!
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### Author:  [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/6 "2007-12-31T18:06:39Z")
Yup.
Hm, time to watch “The Abyss” again…
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/7 "2007-12-31T18:49:36Z")
No. But that’s cute.
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### Author:  [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/8 "2007-12-31T18:51:16Z")
[QUOTE=Slithy Tove]
Hadn’t really thought of it, bit this may explain why I hyperventilated in unconscious hope that Shelly Winters would drown in The Posidon Adventure.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with your sentiment about Shelley Winters. Movie spoilers follow.
Assuming you haven’t seen them, you’d probably enjoy _A Place In The Sun_ and _Night of Hunter_, then, because Shelley met her end in the drink in both of those movies. And good riddance.
Yes, I can’t stand “trapped underwater” scenes, either. I put off watching _Titanic_ for many years because I knew it would give me the heebie jeebies. And when I finally watched it, it did.
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### Author:  [@NightRabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NightRabbit)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/9 "2007-12-31T18:53:22Z")
I do that all the time! Last I can remember was the new James Bond movie, where the girl is in the cage. I don’t think that’s a spoiler.
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### Author:  [@anamnesis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anamnesis)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/10 "2007-12-31T20:23:08Z")
The characters fleeing through a flooded portion of a spaceship in **Alien Resurrection** managed to hold their breath longer than the professionals who hold their breath with the intent of setting world records, and those guys aren’t doing anything but sitting still when they try to do it. These characters were panicked and swimming for their lives, which obviously requires a lot more oxygen. Nevertheless, they swam feverishly underwater for at least five minutes as aliens swam after them, all the while screaming under the water and letting even more air bubbles out, naturally. I once made a list of the reasons that movie is so profoundly stupid, and hard as it is to believe, that scene was far from the worst offender. What an awful film. They say that both Ron Perlman and Winona Ryder (who already had a swimming anxiety after nearly drowning as a kid) almost drowned during the filming of that scene. It’s not all that difficult to see why.
There’s also Poseidon …
That stupid remake at least had Kurt Russell convulsing, twitching and writhing during a rather disturbing drowning death that occurred within a believable amount of time … about the time most folks would begin to run out of breath if they tried to hold it with him. What a depressing movie, and it wasn’t even a good kind of depressing either, just a hollow, empty, that-movie-was-both-awful-AND-depressing kind of feeling.
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/11 "2007-12-31T20:56:41Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84]
When the Hero is Underwater, Do You Ever Have the Urge to Hold Your Breath?
[/QUOTE]
No, but I do have a strong urge to hit the screen with the nearest hard blunt object. They ALWAYS have the characters able to see much more clearly underwater than they can in real life, even (or especially) when it is virtually pitch black down there. Even in a brightly lit swimming pool you can hardly make out your friend swimming around at the other end. Instead of the hero swimming along, then recoiling in horror at the floating dead bodies of his girlfriend and mother (c.f **What Lies Beneath** ), or recoiling in horror at the monster about to eat him, he should instead see a dark blur. “Hmm I wonder what that is-too bad I didn’t bring my swim gogg…[GETS EATEN]”
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### Author:  [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2008, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/12 "2008-01-01T12:47:24Z")
Yes! I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I always end up having to breath before they get out of the water though. Those people must have some big lungs!
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### Author:  [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/13 "2008-01-02T00:41:25Z")
I’ve seen thousands of movies. Never did it once.
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### Author:  [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/14 "2008-01-02T00:53:01Z")
Totally. Most recently experienced this while watching the end of Lost Season 3 on DVD, when Charlie, and later, Desmond swim down to the “Looking Glass” station.
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### Author:  [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/15 "2008-01-02T00:57:09Z")
Yeah, fairly regularly. I’ve done it since I was a kid.
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### Author:  [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/16 "2008-01-02T06:06:25Z")
If you’re trying to see if you can hold it as long as the person underwater, keep in mind that holding your breath sitting in a seat is a lot different than doing it underwater while swimming. Even being underwater but NOT swimming seems harder to me than just being out of water…I assume from the added pressure on my lungs?
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/17 "2008-01-02T06:38:00Z")
I do it, but I usually don’t realize it until I run out of oxygen.
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### Author:  [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/18 "2008-01-02T07:05:35Z")
Now that I’m older, I have distanced myself from the “immersion” into a scene like that. I used to instinctively hold my breath while watching underwater scenes. I also would breathe rapidly if someone on screen was gasping (like in _Total Recall_, which I imagine would be difficult for sufferers of asthma). In the same way, eating scenes always made me want some of whatever they were eating, especially if there was a lot of clanging of silverware on the dishes for some reason.
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### Author:  [@neorxnawange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neorxnawange)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/19 "2008-01-02T07:12:42Z")
I _always_ do this, not only on movies where I know its coming, but during films I’m seeing for the first time. Wife has asked me to please not do it in the theater, as I can take it to an extreme and it tends to become distracting. I get annoyed when an underwater scene is split with other scenes so that I can’t try to win the contest.
I wonder if someone has compiled a list of films with breath-holding, with times listed and such. Though I do this all the time I can’t really think of many that I have been able to match or beat, or what, other than Fatal Attraction, may be the worst offender.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2008, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-hero-is-underwater-do-you-ever-have-the-urge-to-hold-your-breath/431791/20 "2008-01-02T07:21:11Z")
Also, people in a movie scene are clapping, I feel the urge to clap along with them.
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