TED | 我是怎么屏住呼吸17分钟的

中文讲稿

00:18

作为一个魔术师，我总是尝试去创造一个现象可以让人们驻足思考。我也试着挑战自己做一些医生看来不可能的事情。我曾于1999年4月，被埋在纽约一口棺材里整整一个星期。着一个礼拜仅靠水存活下来。但结果是我从中获得极大的乐趣。于是我决定去追求实现更多这样的事。下一次就是我把自己冻在一个大冰块里整整三天三夜，地点是纽约。那次要比我想象的困难许多。接下来的一次，我站在一百多英尺高的柱子顶端整整36个小时。快结束时我开始产生非常强烈的幻觉以至于我觉得身后的建筑看起来像巨型动物的头。

01:14

后来，我去了伦敦。在伦敦，我在一个玻璃箱里生存了44天也是除了水什么都没有。对于我来说，这次是所有挑战中最艰难的一次，但它仍然是非常美好的一次历程。当时有许多持怀疑态度的人，尤其是伦敦的记者们，他们坐直升机徘徊在我的玻璃箱周围到处扔汉堡引诱我。（笑声）我通过这次活动被认可而感到非常高兴，事实上新英格兰医学杂志还以此作为研究供科学参考。

01:48

我的下一个追求便是想试试不呼吸能坚持多久，也就是说什么都没有的情况下我能活多久，甚至没有空气。我并没有意识到，这一次成就了我生命中最美妙的旅程。

02:03

作为一个年轻的魔术师我沉迷于霍迪尼和他在水下屏气挑战。孩童时候，我就开始与其他的孩子们比试，看可以在水下待多久，当他们得反复探头出水面呼吸，大概5次之多，我却可以一直待在水下，完全不需要换气。。当我是青少年的时候我已经可以水下屏气达3分30秒之久，后来我才发现那就是霍迪尼的个人纪录。

02:30

在1987年，我听说了一个故事，一个男孩掉进冰封的河里，困于河底。他45分钟内没有呼吸。当救援人员赶到抢救并唤醒他时，发现他并没有脑损伤，他的心脏温度降至77度。作为一个魔术师，我相信一切皆有可能。我认为如果某个人可以做到某件事，那么任何人都可以做到。我开始思索，如果这个男孩可以如此长时间不呼吸而活下来，那么必定有某种途径让我也可以做到。

03:09

于是我找了最好的神经科医师，问他人若是不呼吸最长支撑多久，也就是哪怕连空气都没有我能撑多久？他告诉我，任何超过6分钟不呼吸的行为，都会因缺氧而造成严重脑损伤的危险。那么毫无疑问，我便把它列入了我的挑战。（笑声）第一次试验，我打算模拟那个男孩遭遇的情况，弄一个水缸，注满彻骨的冰水，然后就跳进那个水缸里，希望我的体温可以下降。当不住地时我颤抖。第一次尝试我甚至连一分钟都坚持不了。于是我意识到简单的模拟行不通。

03:56

我便找了一位医生朋友，询问他我怎样才能屏气那么久，“我想在在水下长时间屏气。怎么样才可以做到呢？”我问他，他回答，“大卫，你是魔术师，设计一个不呼吸的假象岂不是更容易？”（笑声）他想出这么个点子，做一个内呼吸装置，内置一个CO2涤气器，其实基本上就是一个家用的管子，再套一个气球仅此而已。他认为可以把这个东西放到我身体里，然后用某种方式可以循环空气达到再呼吸的目的。他是这么把东西放进来的，这过程看起来会不太舒服...但那是一次尝试。好了，很显然它是不会起作用的。

05:01

接着我开始考虑试试液体呼吸。有一种叫全氟化合物的化学药剂，含氧量特别高，理论上你是可以用它来呼吸。于是我打算尝试这种化学试剂，将它灌满水缸，把脸浸在里面，试着呼吸。但那实在是不太可能，基本上就如医生所说，情况如同一头大象踩住你胸口的同时你还非得呼吸一样。这个法子看来也行不通。

05:29

接着我想到，有没有可能在我的心脏和肺之间用机械搭桥，然后做手术把管子放入动脉，表面没有呼吸但事实上这些装备在为我的血液供氧？但这显然又是另一个疯狂的想法。

05:47

后来，我想出了一个最疯狂的办法：那就是，真刀真枪的来。（笑声）去真正憋气至那一刻，那连医生都认为会脑死亡的时间。于是我开始搜集有关采珠人的信息。因为他们可以只用一口气便在水下待4分钟之久。而且当我在做采珠人调查时我发现了另一番洞天--自由潜水。它几乎可以说是我至今发现最奇妙的事。自由潜水有很多种，有深度记录的，人们可以潜到他们能达到的最大深度，还有静止屏气，就是能憋气多久就憋多久，但必须静止在一个固定的地方。那就是我调查的研究。

06:35

我学到的第一个要领就是当你在屏气时应该一动不动，否则会浪费能量，消耗氧气，并会使血液中的CO2含量升高。所以我试着不去移动。我也学到了怎样减缓我的心率。必须去保证一动不动并且非常放松想象自己已经不在身体里，并且要持续保持。然后我学了怎样净化呼吸，净化呼吸实际上就是强力呼吸。呼进，呼出然后会感到眩晕，耳鸣，这样就可以排除身体内的CO2，接着当你再屏气的时候，就会感到轻松。然后我学到必须要吸很大的一口气，憋住，放松，别让一点儿空漏出去，憋着并放松着尝试忍过所有的痛苦感觉。

07:26

每天早晨，连续几个月，我醒来第一件事就是屏住呼吸在52分钟内，我能憋气44分钟。那就是说我会用净化呼吸的方式，用力的呼吸一分钟然后就马上屏气5分半钟，接着再用力呼吸一分钟，使最大的力气去净化呼吸，然后马上再一次屏住呼吸5分半钟。我会连续重复这样的过程8次。在52分钟内，我其实只呼吸8分钟。在快要结束时，我觉得大脑快炸开了，就好像在一片耀眼中行走，头痛欲裂。似乎我属于做的出却描述不出的人。

08:11

我开始了解到这个记录的保持者叫汤姆斯塔斯。这家伙就像是为屏气而生的，他有6尺4，160磅重。而且他的肺活量是正常人的2倍。我呢，6尺1寸，很胖，或者可以硬是说成骨架比较大。（笑声）所以我必须在三个月内减掉50磅。所有放进我嘴里的东西我都看作是药物，每一小块食物都按照营养价值需要来吃。一天内我都保持吃非常小量的食物，渐渐的我开始保持很好的状态了。

09:01

我越瘦，就越能长时间屏住呼吸。通过饮食控制搭配艰苦的训练，我的心率下降到每分钟38次，比多数奥林匹克选手都要低。在4个月的训练，我已经可以屏住呼吸长达7分钟之久。我在任何地方都训练屏气，尝试在极端的环境下屏气检验是否可能降低心率在如此高压下。

09:33

终于我准备好要打破世界纪录，要在黄金时段的电视频道直播。当时的世界纪录是8分58秒，汤姆，斯塔斯始终保持，我告诉过你们那个家伙有鲸鱼一样大的肺。（笑声）我设想可以在林肯中心放一个巨型水缸然后我不吃饭在那里面先待一个礼拜，就会比较适应了，并且新陈代谢也会缓慢下来，我很肯定这样做可以帮我更长时间的屏住呼吸。显然我完全错了。

10:05

我提前一个礼拜去到中心，感觉一切都渐渐上了轨道，没想到的是，在破纪录憋气尝试的前两天，电视制作人突然觉得光看人憋气像是快要淹死对观众来说太过无聊。（笑声）于是我不得不加上手铐，边屏气边试着挣脱它们。这被证明是个极严重的错误。开始后我因为挣脱的动作浪费了很多氧气，到第7分钟我已经开始不住可怕的抽搐中™到7分08秒时，我开始失去知觉，7分30秒的时候他们必须把我拉出来进行抢救。我输的一塌糊涂。

11:07

所以很自然唯一可以摆脱消沉我可以想到的就是去找奥普拉。（笑声）我告诉他我要提高赌注我要屏住呼吸长过所有人。这是个不同的记录，这次是纯氧静止屏气记录，由吉尼斯目前的13分钟为世界纪录。也就是先吸入入纯氧,充沛氧气，排出二氧化碳。然后你就可以屏气更长时间。当时我意识到，我真正的竞争者是--海狸。

11:55

2008年1月奥普拉给了我4个月准备和训练。我每晚睡在低氧舱里，所谓低氧舱就是模拟海拔15000尺的含氧量，跟终极野营似的。这么做的原因是，可以累积体内红细胞的数目，帮助你更好的保存氧气。每个早晨，同样的，从低氧舱里出来时大脑一片空白。第一次尝试纯氧时，我已经可以屏气15分钟。这已经算是不小的成功了。

12:33

当那个神经外科医师把我从水里拉出来时相当震惊--在他看来，15分钟不呼吸你的大脑就完了，脑死亡--可是当他把我拉出来，我却状态良好，当时肯定有一个人是觉得没什么大不了，就是我的前女友。当我在水下第一次打破纪录时，她却在翻我的黑莓手机，检查我所有的短信。（笑声）我哥哥拍了张当时的照片。那真的是...

13:06

终于我宣布公开挑战斯塔斯的记录，他所做的回应，就是在Regisandkelly节目中，自己打破他以前的记录。然后他的主要竞争者又出来，并再次打破记录。这样，记录离奇被提到16分32秒。比我所做的准备长出3分钟。你知道，比原来纪录长出很多。

13:33

这下，我打算让科学时代杂志来报道这一切，我希望他们也能参与，于是，我做了任何一个严谨探索科学的人都该做的事，我走进纽约时报的办公室给每个人表演纸牌魔术。（笑声）我不知道是魔术的原因还是开曼群岛的信仰，约翰，第尔尼被说服了，还写了一篇论屏住呼吸之严重性的报道。

14:03

当他在那儿的时候，我试图给他深刻印象于是我猛地下潜了160尺，大概有16层楼那么高，可我在上浮过程中，昏了过去，那是相当危险的。那就是人们如何溺水的。幸运的是克尔克看到我他游过去把我救了上来。这下我开始全神贯注了。我彻底严格的训练延长屏气时间，做我该做的事。但不可能完全按照将电视直播的方式而准备，也就是那个奥普拉的节目。

14:34

练习中，我会面朝下，悬浮在水缸中，但上电视时，他们却希望我面朝前，以便观众看见我的脸。另一个问题是，那身衣服让我易悬浮，所以他们不得不用皮带绑住我的脚保持我不至上浮，同时我得用双腿帮助脚站稳在那个松松的皮带里面，那对我来说是非常头疼的事，因为它导致我极度紧张，提高了心率。

15:03

除此之外，他们还装了，我以前从未试过的，就是装了一个心率监测器它就在放置在我的球型水缸旁边，所以，每一次我心跳动时，都会听到哔哔的声音。你知道，那个声音，非常吵。它导致我更加紧张。而且我竟然没有办法去降低心率。一般情况下我的心率是每分钟38次，而且当我屏住呼吸时它会降到每分钟12次，这是可是很不寻常的。（笑声）这一次，它却以每分钟120次作为开始，再也没有降下去。

15:44

在水下前5分钟我疯狂的尝试降低心率，当时我只不住地想，“我必须让心率减速我要失败了，我要失败了。”而且我越来越紧张。心率一直飙升，直到每分钟150次。其实就是出现了和伦敦中心失败时一样的情况，心跳过快浪费氧气.当我坚持到一半的时候，大概8分钟时，我已经百分百确定我不会成功了。我根本做不到。

16:18

然后，我想，奥普拉贡献一整个小时来做这个水下屏气的节目。如果我早早失败了它就会变成一个描述我失败后如何沮丧的节目。（笑声）所以，我发现我还是最好强撑着，直到昏过去，至少这样他们可以先把我拉出来再抢救什么的。

16:41

我一直坚持到10分钟，在第十分钟时我开始有这种非常强烈的手指和脚趾镇痛的感觉。我知道那是血液分流，也就是血液从肢端回流去为重要的器官供氧。在第11分钟，我开始感到腿部的抽搐感，而且嘴唇感觉奇怪。

17:06

在第12分钟我开始耳鸣，而且胳膊开始麻木。我是个忧郁症患者，我记起任何的麻木意味着心脏病。于是我开始恐慌起来。然后在第13分钟，可能由于忧郁症，我感到胸前巨痛。太难受了。在第14分钟，我有一种强烈的欲望，想要呼吸的欲望。

17:43

在第15分钟，我遭受心脏缺氧的症状，心脏开始供血不足，心率从120，下降到50，又从150到40，20，又到150.它会忽然停跳一拍，时而开始，时而停止。而且我能感受到这发生的一切。我很确定我快要心脏病了。于是在第16分钟，我把脚滑出扣带因为我知道如果我确实要离开水面，或是突发心脏病，他们会先跳进来松开我的脚上的扣带再拉我出水。所以我非常紧张。

18:18

我松开了我的脚，开始任由身体上浮，但我没有把头伸出水面，我只是，等待我心跳停止的那一刻...等待着...你知道他们有神经科的医生坐在那里等着抢救我。突然，我听到尖叫声，我想一定是很疯狂的事发生了，比如我死了之类的。然而我突然意识到，我坚持到了16：32！在场每一位观众释放出来给予我的能量让我决定继续坚持...我坚持到了,17分30秒。

18:59

即使那还不够，在出来之后我立刻去了实验室他们尽可能地提取了各处的血液样本以测试所有指标以及我的状况，那样医生就可以把它们记录在案。当然我不希望任何人怀疑，我创造了世界纪录，我当然希望确定它是堂堂正正的。

19:16

这样第二天我去了纽约，有个小孩朝我走过来--我刚走出“苹果”--这孩子走向我，说，“嘿，大卫！”我说“怎么了？”他说，“如果你真的可以水下屏气那么久，为什么你从水里出来的时候是干的？”我没反应过来“什么？”（笑声）这就是我的生活。你瞧...

19:42

作为一个魔术师，我试着展现一些东西那些看似不可能的事。我认为魔术，不管是水下屏气还是捣鼓一副纸牌，道理都很简单。就是练习，训练，以及...就是练习，训练，以及不断尝试。去强忍过那些极痛苦的时刻，做自己能做的一切。这就是魔术对于我的意义。谢谢你们。

The End

英文讲稿

00:18

As a magician, I try to create images that make people stop and think. I also try to challenge myself to do things that doctors say are not possible. I was buried alive in New York City in a coffin, buried alive in a coffin in April, 1999, for a week. I lived there with nothing but water. And it ended up being so much fun that I decided I could pursue doing more of these things. The next one is I froze myself in a block of ice for three days and three nights in New York City. That one was way more difficult than I had expected. The one after that, I stood on top of a hundred-foot pillar for 36 hours. I began to hallucinate so hard that the buildings that were behind me started to look like big animal heads. 

01:14

So, next I went to London. In London I lived in a glass box for 44 days with nothing but water. It was, for me, one of the most difficult things I'd ever done, but it was also the most beautiful. There was so many skeptics, especially the press in London, that they started flying cheeseburgers on helicopters around my box to tempt me. 

01:39

So, I felt very validated when the New England Journal of Medicine actually used the research for science. 

01:48

My next pursuit was I wanted to see how long I could go without breathing, like how long I could survive with nothing, not even air. I didn't realize that it would become the most amazing journey of my life. 

02:03

As a young magician, I was obsessed with Houdini and his underwater challenges. So, I began, early on, competing against the other kids, seeing how long I could stay underwater while they went up and down to breathe, you know, five times, while I stayed under on one breath. By the time I was a teenager, I was able to hold my breath for three minutes and 30 seconds. I would later find out that was Houdini's personal record. 

02:30

In 1987 I heard of a story about a boy that fell through ice and was trapped under a river. He was underneath, not breathing for 45 minutes. When the rescue workers came, they resuscitated him and there was no brain damage. His core temperature had dropped to 77 degrees. As a magician, I think everything is possible. And I think if something is done by one person, it can be done by others. I started to think, if the boy could survive without breathing for that long, there must be a way that I could do it. 

03:09

So, I met with a top neurosurgeon. And I asked him, how long is it possible to go without breathing, like how long could I go without air? And he said to me that anything over six minutes you have a serious risk of hypoxic brain damage. So, I took that as a challenge, basically. 

03:30

My first try, I figured that I could do something similar, and I created a water tank, and I filled it with ice and freezing cold water. And I stayed inside of that water tank hoping my core temperature would start to drop. And I was shivering. In my first attempt to hold my breath, I couldn't even last a minute. So, I realized that was completely not going to work. 

03:56

I went to talk to a doctor friend -- and I asked him, "How could I do that?" "I want to hold my breath for a really long time. How could it be done?" And he said, "David, you're a magician, create the illusion of not breathing, it will be much easier." 

04:18

So, he came up with this idea of creating a rebreather, with a CO2 scrubber, which was basically a tube from Home Depot, with a balloon duct-taped to it, that he thought we could put inside of me, and somehow be able to circulate the air and rebreathe with this thing in me. This is a little hard to watch. But this is that attempt. So, that clearly wasn't going to work. 

05:01

Then I actually started thinking about liquid breathing. There is a chemical that's called perflubron. And it's so high in oxygen levels that in theory you could breathe it. So, I got my hands on that chemical, filled the sink up with it, and stuck my face in the sink and tried to breathe that in, which was really impossible. It's basically like trying to breathe, as a doctor said, while having an elephant standing on your chest. So, that idea disappeared. 

05:29

Then I started thinking, would it be possible to hook up a heart/lung bypass machine and have a surgery where it was a tube going into my artery, and then appear to not breathe while they were oxygenating my blood? Which was another insane idea, obviously. 

05:47

Then I thought about the craziest idea of all the ideas: to actually do it. 

05:55

To actually try to hold my breath past the point that doctors would consider you brain dead. So, I started researching into pearl divers. You know, because they go down for four minutes on one breath. And when I was researching pearl divers, I found the world of free-diving. It was the most amazing thing that I ever discovered, pretty much. There is many different aspects to free-diving. There is depth records, where people go as deep as they can. And then there is static apnea. That's holding your breath as long as you can in one place without moving. That was the one that I studied. 

06:35

The first thing that I learned is when you're holding your breath, you should never move at all; that wastes energy. And that depletes oxygen, and it builds up CO2 in your blood. So, I learned never to move. And I learned how to slow my heart rate down. I had to remain perfectly still and just relax and think that I wasn't in my body, and just control that. And then I learned how to purge. Purging is basically hyperventilating. You blow in and out……

07:01

(Breathing loudly) 

07:06

You do that, you get lightheaded, you get tingling. And you're really ridding your body of CO2. So, when you hold your breath, it's infinitely easier. Then I learned that you have to take a huge breath, and just hold and relax and never let any air out, and just hold and relax through all the pain. 

07:26

Every morning, this is for months, I would wake up and the first thing that I would do is I would hold my breath for, out of 52 minutes, I would hold my breath for 44 minutes. So, basically what that means is I would purge, I'd breathe really hard for a minute. And I would hold, immediately after, for five and a half minutes. Then I would breathe again for a minute, purging as hard as I can, then immediately after that I would hold again for five and a half minutes. I would repeat this process eight times in a row. Out of 52 minutes, you're only breathing for eight minutes. At the end of that you're completely fried, your brain. You feel like you're walking around in a daze. And you have these awful headaches. Basically, I'm not the best person to talk to when I'm doing that stuff. 

08:11

I started learning about the world-record holder. His name is Tom Sietas. And this guy is perfectly built for holding his breath. He's six foot four. He's 160 pounds. And his total lung capacity is twice the size of an average person. I'm six foot one, and fat. We'll say big-boned. 

08:35

I had to drop 50 pounds in three months. So, everything that I put into my body, I considered as medicine. Every bit of food was exactly what it was for its nutritional value. I ate really small controlled portions throughout the day. And I started to really adapt my body. 

08:56

[Individual results may vary] 

09:01

The thinner I was, the longer I was able to hold my breath. And by eating so well and training so hard, my resting heart-rate dropped to 38 beats per minute. Which is lower than most Olympic athletes. In four months of training, I was able to hold my breath for over seven minutes. I wanted to try holding my breath everywhere. I wanted to try it in the most extreme situations to see if I could slow my heart rate down under duress. 

09:33

I decided that I was going to break the world record live on prime-time television. The world record was eight minutes and 58 seconds, held by Tom Sietas, that guy with the whale lungs I told you about. I assumed that I could put a water tank at Lincoln Center and if I stayed there a week not eating, I would get comfortable in that situation and I would slow my metabolism, which I was sure would help me hold my breath longer than I had been able to do it. I was completely wrong. 

10:05

I entered the sphere a week before the scheduled air date. And I thought everything seemed to be on track. Two days before my big breath-hold attempt, for the record, the producers of my television special thought that just watching somebody holding their breath, and almost drowning, is too boring for television. 

10:29

So, I had to add handcuffs, while holding my breath, to escape from. This was a critical mistake. Because of the movement, I was wasting oxygen. And by seven minutes I had gone into these awful convulsions. By 7:08, I started to black out. And by seven minutes and 30 seconds, they had to pull my body out and bring me back. I had failed on every level. 

11:07

So, naturally, the only way out of the slump that I could think of was, I decided to call Oprah. 

11:19

I told her that I wanted to up the ante and hold my breath longer than any human being ever had. This was a different record. This was a pure O2 static apnea record that Guinness had set the world record at 13 minutes. So, basically you breathe pure O2 first, oxygenating your body, flushing out CO2, and you are able to hold much longer. I realized that my real competition was the beaver. 

11:55

In January of '08, Oprah gave me four months to prepare and train. So, I would sleep in a hypoxic tent every night. A hypoxic tent is a tent that simulates altitude at 15,000 feet. So, it's like base camp, Everest. What that does is, you start building up the red bloodcell count in your body, which helps you carry oxygen better. Every morning, again, after getting out of that tent, your brain is completely wiped out. My first attempt on pure O2, I was able to go up to 15 minutes. So, it was a pretty big success. 

12:33

The neurosurgeon pulled me out of the water because in his mind, at 15 minutes your brain is done, you're brain dead. So, he pulled me up, and I was fine. There was one person there that was definitely not impressed. It was my ex-girlfriend. While I was breaking the record underwater for the first time, she was sifting through my Blackberry, checking all my messages. 

12:59

My brother had a picture of it. It is really -- 

13:06

I then announced that I was going to go for Sietas' record, publicly. And what he did in response, is he went on Regis and Kelly, and broke his old record. Then his main competitor went out and broke his record. So, he suddenly pushed the record up to 16 minutes and 32 seconds. Which was three minutes longer than I had prepared. It was longer than the record. 

13:33

I wanted to get the Science Times to document this. I wanted to get them to do a piece on it. So, I did what any person seriously pursuing scientific advancement would do. I walked into the New York Times offices and did card tricks to everybody. 

13:55

So, I don't know if it was the magic or the lure of the Cayman Islands, but John Tierney flew down and did a piece on the seriousness of breath-holding. 

14:03

While he was there, I tried to impress him, of course. And I did a dive down to 160 feet, which is basically the height of a 16 story building, and as I was coming up, I blacked out underwater, which is really dangerous; that's how you drown. Luckily, Kirk had seen me and he swam over and pulled me up. 

14:21

So, I started full focus. I completely trained to get my breath-hold time up for what I needed to do. But there was no way to prepare for the live television aspect of it, being on Oprah. But in practice, I would do it face down, floating on the pool. But for TV they wanted me to be upright so they could see my face, basically. The other problem was the suit was so buoyant that they had to strap my feet in to keep me from floating up. So, I had to use my legs to hold my feet into the straps that were loose, which was a real problem for me. That made me extremely nervous, raising the heart rate. 

15:03

Then, what they also did was, which we never did before, is there was a heart-rate monitor. And it was right next to the sphere. So, every time my heart would beat, I'd hear the beep-beep-beep-beep, you know, the ticking, really loud. Which was making me more nervous. And there was no way to slow my heart rate down. Normally, I would start at 38 beats per minute, and while holding my breath, it would drop to 12 beats per minute, which is pretty unusual. 

15:38

This time it started at 120 beats, and it never went down. I spent the first five minutes underwater desperately trying to slow my heart rate down. I was just sitting there thinking, "I've got to slow this down. I'm going to fail." And I was getting more nervous. And the heart rate just kept going up and up, all the way up to 150 beats. Basically it's the same thing that created my downfall at Lincoln Center. It was a waste of O2. When I made it to the halfway mark, at eight minutes, I was 100 percent certain that I was not going to be able to make this. There was no way for me to do it. 

16:19

I figured, Oprah had dedicated an hour to doing this breath-hold thing, if I had cracked early, it would be a whole show about how depressed I am. 

16:30

So, I figured I'm better off just fighting and staying there until I black out, at least then they can pull me out and take care of me and all that. 

16:41

I kept pushing to 10 minutes. At 10 minutes you start getting all these really strong tingling sensations in your fingers and toes. And I knew that that was blood shunting, when the blood rushes away from your extremities to provide oxygen to your vital organs. At 11 minutes I started feeling throbbing sensations in my legs, and my lips started to feel really strange. 

17:06

At minute 12 I started to have ringing in my ears, and I started to feel my arm going numb. And I'm a hypochondriac, and I remember arm numb means heart attack. So, I started to really get really paranoid. Then at 13 minutes, maybe because of the hypochondria, I started feeling pains all over my chest. It was awful. 

17:29

At 14 minutes, I had these awful contractions, like this urge to breathe. 

17:43

At 15 minutes I was suffering major O2 deprivation to the heart. And I started having ischemia to the heart. My heartbeat would go from 120 to 50, to 150, to 40, to 20, to 150 again. It would skip a beat. It would start. It would stop. And I felt all this. And I was sure that I was going to have a heart attack. 

18:06

So, at 16 minutes what I did is I slid my feet out because I knew that if I did go out, if I did have a heart attack, they'd have to jump into the binding and take my feet out before pulling me up. I was really nervous. I let my feet out, and I started floating to the top. And I didn't take my head out. But I was just floating there waiting for my heart to stop, just waiting. 

18:27

They had doctors with the "Pst," you know, sitting there waiting. And then suddenly I hear screaming. And I think that there is some weird thing -- that I had died or something had happened. And then I realized that I had made it to 16:32. So, with the energy of everybody that was there, I decided to keep pushing. And I went to 17 minutes and four seconds. 

18:59

As though that wasn't enough, what I did immediately after is I went to Quest Labs and had them take every blood sample that they could to test for everything and to see where my levels were, so the doctors could use it, once again. I also didn't want anybody to question it. I had the world record and I wanted to make sure it was legitimate. 

19:16

So, I get to New York City the next day, I'm walking out of the Apple store, and this kid walks up to me he's like, "Yo, D!" I'm like "Yeah?" He said, "If you really held your breath that long, why'd you come out of the water dry?" I was like "What?" 

19:35

And that's my life. So -- 

19:42

As a magician, I try to show things to people that seem impossible. And I think magic, whether I'm holding my breath or shuffling a deck of cards, is pretty simple. It's practice, it's training, and it's -- (Sobs) It's practice, it's training and experimenting, 

20:00

(Sobs) 

20:01

while pushing through the pain to be the best that I can be. And that's what magic is to me, so, thank you. 

The End