ON Nitrogen Narcosis

“I am personally quite receptive to nitrogen rapture. I like it and fear it like doom --- l’ivresse des grandes profondeurs has one salient advantage over alcohol: no hangover. If one is able to escape from it’s zone, the brain clears instantly and there are no horrors in the morning. I cannot read accounts of a record dive without wanting to ask the champion how drunk he was.”
---Jacques Cousteau, in The Silent World