As someone who has drowned before and was saved, it's nowhere near that peaceful. Sometimes i think about ctb that way just because at least it's a route I'm familiar with so I know what to expect. But it's honestly really painful and terrifying and those moments feel like years and that knowledge is sobering to me every time. When you're drowning there is no "up", just fire in your chest and head and bones. I personally wouldn't recommend it, but to each their own.
It's just incorrect to compare totally unwanted and uncontrolled drowning when you're scared of death with prepared drowning when you actually want to die and apply special techniques that make drowning more easy for you. If you use hyperventilation before breath holding, you reduce the duration and strength of the desire to breathe a lot. If you additionally inhale an asphyxiant gas in order to get rid of oxygen in your lungs before breath holding, you most likely pass out in less than 1 minute before you could even start feeling an urge to breathe.
Totally agreed, although even peaceful methods become relatively easily available when you have a good background and willingness to learn things.
Sure, but how do you know they won't fail or will be entirely peaceful?
If we consider drowning for example, there are a lot of evidences that a hypoxia with a non-high CO2 level does not cause sufferings and you can make drowning nearly as peaceful as dying with exit bag using an inert gas. The basic variant of the method is well known here as SWB, the advanced variant implies the usage of an asphyxiant gas, like with the exit bag method. However, in case of drowning you can safely use non-inert gases such as N2O or propane/butane, and much less volume of them is needed (5 - 10 litres should be sufficient). Propane/butane are much more easy to obtain in tech-shops than huge nitrogen cylinders.
