Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

If you enjoy stream-of-conciousness style of writing, then this book is for you. If you are looking for information organized in a logical format, don't bother. I found it irritating that the valuable 2 or 3 sentences of information were imbedded in lots of convoluted horn tooting of all his and his family's accomplishments. The only thing that forced me to keep reading was waiting for the author to get to the point about mind mapping, which he never did! I gladly passed this book on; it's not one that I would want to keep in my library.

I wanted to like this book. I love adventure/survival books. The author, instead of telling a captivating story, mixed a bunch of physiological B.S into the mix which took away from the stories he was trying to tell. Want to read a compelling survival book? Go with "Into This Air" or "The history of the Whaleship Essex" or Endurance- Shackletons Journey.

This book is poorly written and while the examples were interesting, the writing unfortunately was confusing and unclear. Save your money and buy "The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why" by Amanda Ripley instead, which is very well written and informative. Deep Survival was too shallow and did not have enough information or details to be helpful.

I was hoping for a great book about stories of survival, what they did, lessons learned and who died, and why - Like the title says. This book, however doesn't even come close to what its advertising. The narrative is chaotic and the ideas somewhat obscure. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Deep Survival can often be quite an interesting journey, although occasionally, like many of the hikers in the true life stories within, it gets a little lost and goes in circles. Laurence Gonzales has made a nice selection of survival tales and presents them in a very useful and illustrative manner. The author shoehorns himself in a little too much (particularly as humility is supposed to be one of the main virtues possessed by a survivor.) These true tales make a nice balance and counterpoint to much of the fascinating scientific research. The book does ignore anything that does not help its thesis so luck is downplayed as is the fact that non-survivors, who tales cannot be told, may often experience and exhibit the same charateristics as survivors, such as a sense of humour, but time was never on their side. Still, it makes for great reading and, despite the author's final insistence that survivors are born, may offer many useful tips for mental attitude adjustments during a hike or a climb gone wrong.

Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales is a riviting, well-told read from the inside and the outside of what makes a human being a survivor. Gonzales, trained in the military arts of paratrooping and reconnaissance, was raised in the shadow of a father who overcame his fear to fly and became a fighter pilot in WWII, only to fall from a plane... and survive. Gonzales knows the conceptual, emotional, and practical obstacles that a human being must face in expected and unexpected danger. What sets his book apart from others is his ability to write from the inside of what it is like to survive and from the outside, using the work of dozens of psychologists and scientists to explain the functioning of the brain.

Gonzales' stories broadly revolve around two scenarios, the trained fighter pilot who uses his mind to suppress emotions in order to fly but who then fails to pay attention to his reality and crashes his plane, and, the novice boatman left to drift at sea without compass, radar, food, or water, yet who finds the will to survive even though he has no training and no tools. Through his lucid prose, Gonzales reveals the human brain that functions at three levels -- analytical, emotional, and visceral. It is when these three levels over function, underfunction, or fail to talk to one another that danger turns into disaster. After all, why does the trained fighter pilot blow it and crash his plane into the ship when his instrument panel, the ship's flight tower, and the flight commander all tell him to abort his landing? Why does the clueless novice figure out how to survive 72 days on the open sea?

For Gonzales, there are two sets of dynamics. First, how are we defining reality? Fighter pilots actually become successful because they can use the analytical part of their brains to follow discrete instructions even though the visceral brain stem is telling them to not fly. Connecting the analytical and visceral regions, the emotional portions of the brain through the successful flying experience bookmarks for the brain, "This sequence of activities leads to happy results and this one doesn't." However, if the pilot comes to see survival just as remembering that one sequence and the scenario changes, the pilot then cannot suspend belief in past experience and thus the organizing part of the brain blocks out the information that contradicts this perspective. Through that disconnect, the brain freezes and the pilot crashes his plane.

Second, if reality is changing, can we change with it? Gonzales tells of survivors, such as the lone sailor, who realizes right from the get go that he is in serious trouble and rather than fit his reality into a preconceived map (which is why it takes experienced hikers longer to realize their lost), he immediately begins to seek out clues for survival.

Gonzales also points out something that I have not seen any adventure or survivor writer observe: The lost find a beauty in their dire situations. I have read most of the mountaineering and sailing accounts that Gonzales retells. Also, I have been lost; faced death, and have rescued others, yet no one but Gonzales has remarked on this odd fact. Retelling the story of Joe Simpson's Touching the Void, the most gripping story of survival I have ever read, he brings to light a certain strength that is present in survivors but overlooked. Gonzales quotes Simpson who is laying atop a pile of ice, knee broken inside an ice crevass, "A pillar of gold light beamed diagonally from a small hole in the roof, spraying the bright reflecions offthe far wall of the crevass. I was mesmerized by the beam of sunliht burning through the vaulted ceiling from the real world outside. It had me so fixated that I forgot about the uncertain floor below and let myself slide down the rest of the slope. I was going to reach that sunbeam....I just knew."

I must admit, the beginning of Deep Survivor struck me as another macho, jock, how-I-made-it-in-the-wilderness survival read. However, this was was more due to Gonzales own awkwardness with his feelings -- that the traumas he had survived were insignificant compared to the exploits of his father. Gonzales finally resolves that fear of insignificance and with humor points out his own capacity for error. He closes his book with a very poignant meditation of gratitude for his father, a man who faced so many threats to his own life and conversely endowed his son with a phenomenal will to live.

The excellent balance between personal emotion and detached analysis makes Deep Survival a wonderful read. I have recommended it to doctors, psychologists, mountaineers, and people of the spirit. They all have come back with resounding praise for the book and found that it spoke to them beyond the confines of science and deeper than the thrills of adventure. Perhaps it is not danger that motivates the human heart, but rather it may be beauty, and life without beauty is not a life well lived.

This is a book to be read by everyone, because whether or not

you mountain climb or go river rafting, life is nevertheless about survival. Understanding the psychology of those who survive and those who perish can enable anyone to better withstand the trials of everday existence: divorce, being fired, having your house burn down, general frustration, etc.

An interesting fact is that people who are "rule followers"

are less likely to survive. Who knew?

I couldn't put this book down - I read until my eyes were crossing at night and I learned a great deal. I want all of my kids to read this (when they're older) because there is a great deal of philosophy here; keeping one's cool, trusting one's instincts, being self-reliant, having a sense of humour and an appreciation for the wonder of one's physical environment: all of these are key ingredients to surviving. This is a book that could be read every few years. Highly recommended.

Many of us worry about being caught in a flood, or airplane crash, or earthquake, but what do we really do to survive? This book is the best source of factual information on what it takes to be a survivor. Not just having a Navy Seal as a best friend, but what choices you can make to allow you to survive when other well-meaning and intelligent people end up as worm food. My sister-in-law is constantly worrying about how to protect her children: what she needs to do is to apply the logic and advice in this book. It was given to me by a base camp doctor at both Denali and Everest, and he says that if more people read the book, they'd have fewer fatalities in the climbing community. I heartily recommend it, although it has more physiology than I was able to understand. Still, very worthwhile.

If you are interested in learning about the science and psychology of survival while being entertained by powerful survival stories, I highly suggest you read Deep Survival. This is not a "how to" book on survival, but you will learn some invaluable knowledge on basic survival tips through the short stories in the book. Even more important than basic survival tools is the information Laurence provides about the psychology of survival - if you don't stay calm and control your mind you may not survive no matter how much you know about survival essentials like building a fire or shelter.

There is a book review comment on the cover by Sebastian Junger, "I tore through Deep Survival like I'd been waiting to read it my whole life." It was definitely one of those books I didn't want to put down. He has a unique way of mixing survival stories with survival science where he tries to explain what is going through the mind of the survivor or victim. The survival stories he writes about are some of the best, including the incredible story about his own father who survived a fall from 27,000 feet after his plane was shot down during WW II. Adding to the book is the selected bibliography that provides several other books to help you expand your knowledge of the subject.

I read Deep Survival after reading Chris McNab's How to Survive Anything, Anywhere, which is a "how to" book on survival. The first chapter in his book is on survival psychology, but you really need to read Deep Survival to fully understand the importance of this topic. The book made me realize how lucky I am to still be alive as I survived many "hairy" outdoor adventures myself (As described in my book, "Rocky Mountain Adventure Collection"). Many of my adventures as a child, teenager and young adult could have easily got me killed - I frequently wandered into the Rocky Mountains without anything but the clothes on my back. I guess I had an uncanny sense of direction and confidence since I could wander into the woods for hours and always find my way back. The only time I really felt lost was in a large campground in Wyoming when I was a child. I can really relate to the way Laurence describes how our minds fill in gaps in reality that don't meet our expectations. One time while climbing the Mount of the Holy Cross (One of Colorado's 54+ peaks over 14,000 feet) my climbing partner and I ignored obvious signs of avalanche activity down the snowfield we wanted to climb up. We rationalized that it was the first day of summer; the avalanche signs had to be old; etc. We had made a plan and wanted to stick to it, which can be very dangerous - plans are good, but should be abandoned if new information makes them look bad. Even though it was a clear day, when I heard the boom of the avalanche high above us, I shrugged it off as thunder. My mind was conditioned to the common thunderstorm activity in the Rockies, and I assumed it was from clouds we couldn't see behind the mountain. Seconds later a wall of rock, snow, and ice rocketed toward us - at that moment our heart rates skyrocketed and we quickly took evasive action that saved our lives even though we had made a bad decision by taking that route to start with.

Everyone should have some basic knowledge about survival. You never know when you could find yourself in a survival situation possibly caused by a terrorist event, natural disaster, a recreational outing, or just bad luck. Reading the 295 pages in Deep Survival could be one of the most important decisions you make for your own future survival. One of his best recommendations is "be here now" - you'll have to read the book to understand what he means by that important advice.

The term "Amygdala Hijack" is so dry - this book is filled with stories of folks who DIED because their emotions took control when rational behavior might have saved them.

If you THINK you have the "right stuff", consider say the high-altitude-with-belay stunts on Fear Factor. The intellect can trivially verify the integrity of the belay - there is in Fact nothing to worry about. For the losers the amygdala hijacks Anyway. Even people of high-armchair-IQ can still have a winning amygdala when it's choke-time. The quoted "armchair IQ" googles no matches, I LIKE that - what's your armchair IQ, how much does your mind degrade at "show time".

This book should therefore be on the list of Essential Children/Teenage books - way back when I grew up in the 1960's emotions were discounted as being unimportant, to be suppressed. However that is not a winning strategy ! Thus, his is not airy-fairy psychobabble, this is of vital importance, ah how I might have done things better having read this one as a kid.