You both took what I meant too extreme. Saying that breatholding is against our isntinct doesn't mean that you have to keep continually breathing every second, that is definitly not an instinct.
I can definitly say that there is an instinct for not holding your breath long (though time is personal) if that will satisfy you.
after all, why people stop holding their breath? as far as I know, nerves can feel temperature and pressure. Pain is an interpertation of our brain to overstimulation of the nerves or based on previous expiriences AND instincts.
It is the same as saying that jumping from hight is against our instinct. People jump from low places all the time. But when going bunjee junmping or skydiving you discover that even though you know (or hope.
) that your perfectly safe, and that you've wanted to do it all your life, and that it must be one hella'f a fun, something inside tells you to abort. And even if not, all that andrenline you're feeling - is defenitly your instinct expressing itself in the face of danger.
When asking normal people to stop their breath, after 20 seconds/minute they'll think it's madness to go further.
When I played in the pool with my 3.5 y/o nephew he was terified of the idea of puting his face in the water, and when accidentaly he did he started crying after that. All he could say to explain was "I couldn't breath! it felt bad!". As far as I know he was'nt brainwashed by society yet.
I had similar expiriences to yours. I never understood why people swim in the surface when they can swim underwater.
Playing is in our instinct, we explore our environmnet skills and limits. Iit prepares us for a later phase in life when we'll need to get food, face dangers and such. Playing underwater is understood just as playing on trees. And we are equiped with the MDR to help us in that task.
We have an instinct to play, and we have an instinct to explore our abilities and boundries - and maybe also the inherent will to become omnipotent.
I also held my breath against the clock a couple of times already in pre-school (in class). But, consider that, do you think men has ever tried holding their breath ON LAND before the clock? or even before the concept of time was invented? sure, a few individuals wanted to know what happens if you stop breathing, or maybe even everyone stopped a couple of times per life, but I don't think there was any instinct pushing for that.
For the other examples you gave, I can keep relating to them one by one, but they are just not valid to the point as far as I see it...
Freediving is natural, and if holding your breath is necessary, no problems. But there's definitly an instinct limiting it, if there was not, those individuals were probably vanished from existance. The same as there are reflexs to make you stop breathing when face fire or the smell of a carcass or when underwater or when getting something in your troat (laryngospasm) etc. All point to one direction - survival.
Remember that human species is realtively new, and most of what is discussed here is more to do with our nature than choise or abilites, and most of our nature was designed LONG before the human specie ever existed, we share a huge amount of common nature with the rest of the mamals.
