ABSTRACT
In this activity that is not spontaneous physiological behavior, practitioners implement strategies to overcome some unpleasant sensations (spasms, ‘thirst for air’, pain in the legs), to manage intense emotions and negative valence, Maximise the pleasurable sensations, especially gliding. Whatever the discipline, practitioners evoke, with their own terms, moments of ‘disconnection’ and ‘reconnection’. The analysis of apnea speeches and practices reveals that they are consciously or unconsciously seeking to modify their states of consciousness: to direct their concentration on their breath, to visualise their performance, to project mental images associated with positive emotions, Refrain from thinking (meditation), realise rotations of consciousness, cultivate ‘letting go’, practice self-hypnosis, and so on. Olivier Bessy, drawing inspiration from the work of Roger Caillois, still distinguishes extreme vertiginous (ilinx): extreme loss of landmarks habitual playing with the wind, emptiness, depth; And the extreme energy (agon): the search for confrontation with oneself or others, which tests his personal resources of endurance and abnegation, which methodically exhausts his forces. Would these distinctions be heuristic to think of excesses in apnea?
