It's been decades since I hit a balloon - but man those moments when I did were incredible.
One promising technology that may gain some traction is compressed air [https://casupercharging.com/]. It's still a forced induction method and relatively simple to install compared to procharging or supercharging. That said, forced air has some major drawbacks — a very large tank, for one.
Two of my kids were born using nitrous as anesthesia. This was years ago in San Diego, CA. I very clearly remember leaning in to my struggling wife and trying to motivate her: "Honey, remember, you need to breathe for the nitrous to work. Don't just hold your breath and bear down. You've got to breathe."
This is not a could. Repeated abuse of nitrous, perhaps as little as daily use over 2 months, does cause neurological issues, including spinal cord damage and paralysis [1].
[1] https://sci-hub.ru/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31625167/
> Most patients also had psychiatric symptoms. Nearly every patient estimated using 100 or more canisters of nitrous oxide per day in the months before being seen. Four patients also reported engaging in B12 supplementation (both oral and parenteral), aiming to circumvent the harmful sequelae of prolonged nitrous oxide misuse.
So I breathed out as much as I could, breathed in a full lungs-full of nitrous, and held my breath. I wish I had timed it, because I have no idea how long I held my breath, but at least 15-30 seconds, because I held my breath for a bit, then I was talking a bit (not breathing in, just out) somewhat, then holding my breath again and thinking.
My whole body went numb. I was giddy. My vision closed in and started to dim. And through it all I felt no need to breathe at all. As my vision was going away I was idly thinking, "Hmm, still no need to breathe. But my vision is going away, so I should probably breathe. What was I thinking? Oh yeah, no need to breathe but I should breathe anyway. What was that? Oh yeah, breathe before I lose consciousness because these idiots are all high and if I just died here, they'd let me. What? Oh, breathe, moron." And I breathed.
Like I said, I didn't time it, so I don't know how long it lasted. I idly breath-hold for fun, and I can easily go two minutes with no prep, but obviously that's with oxygen in my lungs, so it could have been anywhere from 20 seconds up to a minute or more?
I did the counter-experiment a bit later: we had dry ice, so I put some in the sink and let it build up to a foggy unspecified concentration. I breathed all the way out, carefully lowered my face in, and breathed in.
Or, I tried to. My entire body was instantly on fire, and I violently coughed it out in a split second. Hypothesis confirmed! :-)
[Inhaling nitrous has a voice effect more or less opposite that of helium]
I should mention that I have taken to purchasing bottles of Heavy Whipping Cream, for recreational culinary purposes, i.e. I simply drink the stuff straight, as if it were a bottle of milk. Yum.
