
This form of water torture works by forcing the victim to fear for their life, as the relatively harmless process continues while captors torment them. A Victim of Chinese Water Torture at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, New York, circa 1860. The torture wouldn’t cause any physical pain.

But was this terror always the case? What is Chinese water torture?Ĭhinese water torture is a process in which a victim is tied up, with cold water repeatedly dropped onto a portion of the body – usually the forehead. Like a dripping tap that becomes the mind’s only focus while attempting to sleep, water torture has gone down in history as something terrifying, made exhilarating by Harry Houdini’s later interpretation.

Chinese Water Torture has been long theorized and considered to be the definition of psychological torture – one of the worst known to man.
