What if the secret to happiness isn't found in achieving more,
but in discovering you already have enough?
Plunge into this vibrant, profoundly moving tale about taking risks and chasing horizons—the story of a grateful wanderer, pioneering scuba diver, and passionate jewelry designer who gathered life lessons from the deep and uncovered the precious gift of living in the now.
A transformational guide disguised as an adventure memoir, Diving Into Dreams follows one determined woman’s extraordinary life and inspiring evolution from craving extremes around the globe to balancing career, travel, and family—and discovering true contentment. From escaping communist, landlocked Hungary to becoming Hollywood's go-to underwater stunt performer, Szilvia Gogh will take you on a soul-searching journey to the world’s most breathtaking dive destinations and the inner depths of personal wisdom and growth, exploring how to dream big, break barriers, face mortality, and find your own way forward.
This captivating narrative celebrates the power of respecting the compass within as you seek an unconventional path—an example to anyone eager to embrace challenge, celebrate resilience and joy, and follow your dreams.
What if the secret to happiness isn't found in achieving more,
but in discovering you already have enough?
Plunge into this vibrant, profoundly moving tale about taking risks and chasing horizons—the story of a grateful wanderer, pioneering scuba diver, and passionate jewelry designer who gathered life lessons from the deep and uncovered the precious gift of living in the now.
A transformational guide disguised as an adventure memoir, Diving Into Dreams follows one determined woman’s extraordinary life and inspiring evolution from craving extremes around the globe to balancing career, travel, and family—and discovering true contentment. From escaping communist, landlocked Hungary to becoming Hollywood's go-to underwater stunt performer, Szilvia Gogh will take you on a soul-searching journey to the world’s most breathtaking dive destinations and the inner depths of personal wisdom and growth, exploring how to dream big, break barriers, face mortality, and find your own way forward.
This captivating narrative celebrates the power of respecting the compass within as you seek an unconventional path—an example to anyone eager to embrace challenge, celebrate resilience and joy, and follow your dreams.
Your spark can become a flame and change everything.
– E. D. Nixon
Liquid gold streams through the water, casting an ethereal glow. Imitation coral sways in the artificial currents like a troupe of mesmerized ballerinas. The actors float and move beneath the surface with otherworldly grace.
This is Hollywood magic.
This is my world.
Yet despite the breathtaking visuals, there’s nothing glamorous about this moment. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and someone dies.
My heart pounds with the ticking seconds, and not just from physical exertion. We’re filming an endless loop of takes for the Avatar sequels: four-minute shots, one after the other, with twenty people holding their breath underwater for what feels like an eternity. The burden of responsibility weighs heavy. We’ve created another world down here—so beautiful, so calm, so inviting in the filtered light!—but my job is more than just making sure the scene looks perfect.
Unless everyone in that tank stays safe, even when pushing their body beyond what seems humanly possible, it’s on me.
When the cameras are rolling, the whole crew transforms into a well-oiled machine. At times it’s mayhem—like yesterday, when the water in the 650,000-gallon tank erupted into chaos as a massive “whale” thrashed in its death throes. Members of the stunt team hurtled across the tank on personal watercrafts, weaving around the enormous creature at breakneck speed, their engines howling like jet fighters. The entire production crew stared at the churning water, holding their collective breath. Every move was calculated, every person hyper-focused on their part of the puzzle.
It’s the same today: a carefully choreographed dance, and we’re all in sync. The water, once screaming with action, has become an arena of silent endurance. We’re capturing seconds—fractions of seconds, really—that have to be perfect. There’s no room for mistakes.
Each take stretches out longer than the last. Every single person, from seasoned stunt performers to Hollywood icons, is holding their breath—muscles straining, lungs burning, waiting for the moment they can break the surface and gulp in air.
I tread water at the edge of the tank, scanning faces, reading the subtle signs that someone is nearing their limit: a twitch, a shift in posture, the smallest signal that it’s time to call it.
The pressure is relentless. Hesitation could be deadly.
The air shifts whenever the big names are on set: Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, and of course, James Cameron. When they step into the tank, the water itself becomes a character. Everything gets more intense, more electric. Their presence brings a certain significance—you can feel it in the air, and even in the water sometimes.
I watch them all closely, my eyes constantly moving from face to face, looking for any sign that someone’s about to tap out. Every take feels like a lifetime now, stretched thin by the demands of the scene and the pursuit of perfection. Yet amid the tension and the ticking clock, there’s a strange beauty in the challenge—an unspoken bond forged in the water’s depths, where trust and determination are what keep us going. We’re in this together, every single one of us, from the crew working the cameras to the actors fighting to hold their breath just a little bit longer.
Being in the movie business isn’t always what people envision. I’ve been up since five a.m. for my eight-minute daily drive to Manhattan Beach Studios. An ear infection has been bugging me for days—the third one this month—and another day submerged in a huge tank of highly chlorinated water is only going to make it worse. My skin stings from spending twelve or thirteen hours a day in that water, though the burning sensation has become so normal, I hardly notice it anymore. And let’s be honest: At a balmy 90°F, the tank is more like a petri dish hosting all of our microscopic secretions.
It’s hard. This is where the real work happens—the effort behind the magic. And I love every minute of it.
I’ve been in constant motion for decades, traveling around the globe and looking inward, always chasing something just beyond the horizon. But how did I end up here? How did I go from a landlocked, communist country in Europe to being submerged in the heart of Hollywood's most ambitious film project?
What is it that draws me to the sea again and again, like a magnet I can't resist?
When did I learn that the biggest dreams require the hardest work—and the deepest faith in yourself?
How did I persevere through illness, heartache, missteps, and the crushing weight of starting over in foreign countries with nothing but determination and a duffel bag?
How did I find my way when every path seemed to lead somewhere I never expected?
When did I finally realize that the journey itself, not the destination, is the point?
And why does this moment—suspended between breaths in a Hollywood tank—feel like both the most unlikely and the most destined outcome of a life lived without limits?
This is a story of going anywhere and everywhere while learning to be present wherever I am—about discovering that integrity, resilience, and sheer, stubborn determination can carry you farther than luck. It's been a wild journey, one I never could have imagined as a kid staring at maps and dreaming of oceans. But I made it here, by diving into my dreams, exploring the depths of my gypsy soul, putting in the hard work, and following my wanderlust, wherever it took me.
And every step of the way has been worth it.
----------------------------------------
Chapter 1
Hungary: Survival in a Shifting World
Life isn’t about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.
– Sydney J. Harris
The summer I turn fourteen, my entire life fractures and reshapes itself. It’s 1990, and the Berlin Wall has crumbled. Communism ends in Hungary. My period starts. I discover that I love scuba diving. And my dad dies. These seismic shifts happen so close together, they blur into one long, disorienting earthquake that leaves nothing unchanged in my world. But I survive that summer, because I’ve been preparing for catastrophe my whole life.
Disaster has always felt near, even when I was a baby and had no words for what was happening to me. I wept relentlessly as an infant, or so I’ve been told. Driven by necessity, my mother returned to work when I was just three months old, and I sobbed myself sick as my tiny body tried to keep her close, to keep her from leaving. She later recalled the desperation of my never-ending cries—my plea for her warmth, her presence.
I was often placed in the bathtub to sleep so my father, exhausted from the weight of our new life, could get some rest. Our family had recently moved from a tiny apartment in a dodgy district of Budapest to a house with a huge garden in the green District XI neighborhood. Too young to understand anything beyond my mother’s absence, I spent long days in early childcare yearning for her arms, aching for her voice. Not yet able to express the agony of abandonment, I cried for her until my body surrendered and the pain manifested in other ways. By the time I’d turned two years old, I had undergone nearly twenty ear surgeries, each one a silent testament to trauma I do not remember.
This deep-rooted trauma is woven into the fabric of who I am at age fourteen. It is why I am hardened—why I’ve learned, far too soon, to rely on no one but myself. This early lesson in self-reliance serves me well when everything falls apart. I already know how to survive when the people who are supposed to protect me can’t . . . or won’t.
As a teenager, already I see that some childhoods are filled with happy moments, with countless memories of a warm, loving family. But my own memories are isolated snapshots—fishing with my dad, hiking through the forest, gatherings with family friends—brief reprieves from an undercurrent of tension that defines our everyday life. Everything was always rushed. My parents—exhausted, impatient, and distracted—only half listened when I spoke. Their minds were preoccupied with dreams of a better future, one they were determined to build, no matter the cost. When their good intentions did not unfold as planned, their frustration seeped into our home, onto my sister and me—a tense, looming storm that we learned to navigate.
Csilla and I might never have picked each other as friends, but we have an unbreakable bond: sisterhood. When we fight, I am usually blamed—the older child who should know better. We are expected to be playmates, and I love my sister deeply, but harmony doesn’t come naturally. I take after our father: practical, hands-on, grounded. Csilla is emotional, drawn to excitement and bright lights—our mother’s mirror image. Our arguments flare quickly, often escalating beyond words. At a time when the harsh discipline of wooden spoons and leather belts is the norm, my sister and I are just copying what we’ve seen as the standard way to resolve conflict.
Love existed in our childhood home, but it was complicated, tangled with unspoken expectations and restless ambition. Mutti—my mother—called me her “sunshine” and Csilla her “star,” showering us with affection and taking us to art exhibitions and concerts. Apu—my father—taught us to build practical things, like bookshelves, that are both functional and beautiful. His love of animals, nature, and gardening created a closeness with Csilla that I envied. But I’ve always preferred the solitude of a quiet corner and a good book.
My beloved grandmothers understood me as a child in ways that my parents never could. They had all the time in the world for me and Csilla, and treated us like true young adults. Mutti’s parents were eternally cheerful despite facing a lifetime of adversity, and their home in the Pest side of Budapest, only a short bus ride from our house, was like a breath of fresh air—a haven of serenity and generosity. Their patience seemed limitless. Pesti Nagyi (or “Happy Grandma,” as I call her) in particular was a beacon of light, radiating warmth, kindness, and an inspirational desire to help others. Around her, I felt unconditionally loved.
Childhood summers with my father’s parents in the Komarom countryside were always perfection. We’d help around the farm, feeding ducks, pigs, and chickens, and harvesting fruits and vegetables from her garden. When the chores were done, “Grumpy Grandma,” as I call Komaromi Nagyi, taught us to shoot with a shotgun and excel in chess. Most nights, we played gin rummy and other card games for hours—Csilla and I, with Grumpy Grandma, cousin Edit, and Aunt Vera, who usually won. Competitive and sharp, Aunt Vera helped me make sense of the world. In Komarom, I’ve always felt encouraged and understood.
Back in Budapest, Dad worked three jobs to build our house on the outskirts of the city, close enough to the city center but still quiet and, most important, with space for a garden. He laid the floors, framed the closets, planted vegetables. He was always tired, always working, whether overtime at one of his jobs, in our home, or at his mother’s place in Komarom. Even on holiday visits, he was fixing things.
By age eleven, I was on the cusp of adolescence, my world still defined by school and family routines. Then Chernobyl happened.
***
The news seeped in slowly, like a dark shadow creeping toward us.
There's no real danger, the media insisted, calm and detached. But my parents exchanged glances that told a different story. My father continued tending his tomato and paprika plants, defying the invisible threat with his calloused hands even as the worry became etched day by day on his face. This was something he could not fix.
The uneasy days dragged on. We followed the advice on the radio and the television, staying indoors and clutching at the normalcy of our routines like a lifeline. The outside world, once so familiar, felt distant and alien, hidden behind closed windows and locked doors.
Hungary is far enough from the disaster to be untouched, the media assured us. Only a few months later, the illusion of safety shattered.
It started with a cough—just my father frequently clearing his throat, a rasp that lingered longer than it should. He waved off Mutti’s concerned looks. It's nothing, he claimed. Probably just dust from the electrical factory.
But the cough didn’t go away. Instead, it deepened, becoming wet and violent, shaking his whole body until his face turned red and his eyes watered. Soon, he was struggling to catch his breath after climbing the stairs . . . then after walking across the room . . . then simply from sitting up in bed.
The doctor visits became frequent, then urgent. Fragments of hushed conversations between my parents reached my ears, words like mass and spread and time that sent ice through my veins. My mother’s face grew hollow, her eyes red-rimmed from crying when she thought we didn’t see.
The man who built our house with his bare hands, who could fix anything, carry anything, outlast anyone, began to shrink before our eyes. His clothes hung loose on his frame. His rough and capable hands, once so strong they could split wood with a simple blow, now shake with the effort of holding a coffee cup.
The worst part wasn’t watching him waste away—it was watching him try to maintain the illusion that everything would be fine. He still attempted to work on the house, help with homework, make plans for next summer’s garden. He tried to hide it from us—stepping outside to cough, muffling the sound with his sleeve, forcing a smile when we caught him doubled over. But you can’t hide the sound of a man drowning in his own lungs.
We all knew. The knowledge sat heavy in our home like the toxic air we breathed. Even so, when the final diagnosis came, the words landed like physical blows: lung cancer, metastasized, liver, lymphatic system. This man had spent his life working with his body—building, fixing, growing—and now, at thirty-nine years old, his body had betrayed him in the cruelest manner.
The doctors spoke in careful, clinical language about treatment options and managing expectations, but their eyes told the real story. My mother clung to every word about chemotherapy and radiation, desperate for hope, while my father simply nodded with the resigned acceptance of a man who already knows his fate.
The treatments were brutal. They turned my father’s skin gray and made him vomit until there was nothing left but bile. He lost weight so rapidly, his wedding ring slid off his finger—a loss that made my mother sob harder than anything else. When his hair fell out in clumps, she secretly gathered them from his pillow, as though she could somehow put him back together, piece by piece.
When the time comes to let him go, I want to scream. I want to shake my mother until she understands: This isn't love—it's torture! But she can’t bear to let him go, can’t accept that no amount of wanting will bring him back. So he endures weeks of agony on life support, a week past my fourteenth birthday. Machines breathe for him. Tubes feed him. His body is a shell that no longer contains the father I remember.
But I'm fourteen. What do I know about losing the love of your life? What do I know about watching your dreams die in a hospital bed? So I sit beside my father in that sterile room, holding his hand that feels like paper over bone, listening to the mechanical rhythm that keeps him alive when his spirit has already fled. I tell him about school, my friends, anything except the obvious: that we’re all just waiting for him to die.
When Mutti finally agrees to turn off life support and Apu’s heart stops beating, nine days after my birthday, I feel nothing but relief. The long nightmare is over. No more watching him struggle for breath. No more pretending that everything will be okay. No more hoping for miracles that will never come.
I don’t cry at his funeral. Not because I don't love him, because I do—desperately, completely—but because the tears are frozen inside me. Everyone expects grief, but what I feel is more complex and shameful: liberation. I am free from the suffocating weight of watching my father die slowly, free from the false hope that had poisoned our home for months.
But of course, I can’t say this out loud. How do you explain to people that your father’s death is a mercy? How do you admit that you’re relieved when you’re supposed to be devastated? So I stand there, dry-eyed and composed, while people whisper about how strong I am, how well I’m handling it, how mature I seem for my age.
I’m not strong, I’m numb! I want to shout. The little girl who once cried herself sick in a bathtub has learned to bury her pain so deep that it can’t reach the surface. I’ve become an expert at surviving, at functioning when the world collapses, at taking care of everyone else when I’m falling apart inside.
The peace that follows my father’s death is almost worse than the chaos that preceded it. No more arguments about money, no more fights about the house, no more tension crackling through our dinner conversations—just silence. Just my mother’s muffled sobs from behind her bedroom door. Just my sister’s confused questions about what’s going to happen to us.
Just me, left to pick up the pieces.
***
Now that the Iron Curtain has fallen, and our world is opening up, I trace my fingers over the atlas, dreaming of distant shores. For most of my life so far, Hungarians could only travel to Mother Russia, but I've always dreamed of living by the ocean, where the sun shines golden and palm trees frame every view. This deep, out-of-the-blue love for the sea has been a part of me for as long as I can remember.
Magnificent documentaries by David Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau fuel my desire to experience the ocean firsthand. But watching isn't enough—I want to dive in, discover its depths, and live the lifestyle I see on the screen. The mysteries of the deep sea are too compelling to remain just a dream. I long to visit exotic places, taste new foods, and swim in oceans teeming with colorful fish and dazzling coral reef empires.
Unlike my classmates, who can now jet off to foreign destinations for summer vacations, my sister and I spend our summer breaks in Komarom. After my father’s passing, when our family’s financial situation changes for the worse, we find ourselves with even less disposable income. Summer visits with Grumpy Grandma are a mix of resilience, warmth, and a touch of melancholy.
Her story is one of survival. After World War II, her family was uprooted from their prosperous farm in northern Hungary, now part of the Czech Republic, and relocated to a poor village in southern Hungary. They were forced to leave everything behind—a life of wealth reduced to dismal poverty. My grandfather became ill from the strain, and Grumpy Grandma juggled caring for him with the hard labor needed to survive. She managed the family farm with unwavering dedication and later became a school chef.
Despite hardship—losing her parents, then her husband, and now burying her son—Grumpy Grandma rarely speaks of the pain. Her strength endures, and she fills every corner of her home with the effervescence of life. She is hardened by life, yet filled with courage. She sings and hums folk songs all day long. Her cooking is an especially true reflection of her love and care. When I spend time with her, I feel strong and smart.
To label me as a "tomboy" barely scratches the surface of my true identity, but it’s true that I prefer the company of boys over the girls I know. Once absorbed by dolls, these girls now spend their time on superficial pursuits like makeup, hair, and shopping, all in an effort to capture male attention. Their focus on appearances and validation feels alien to me—a stark contrast to the stimulation and spontaneity I crave.
In my eyes, being one of the boys seems far more appealing. Their easygoing nature and interest in escapades and mischief resonate with me, and we find common ground in our shared enthusiasm for riding bicycles, playing ping-pong in the park, and spending hours swimming and boating. My friends and I seek out heart-pounding, adrenaline-fueled adventures, often skirting the boundaries set by our parents. We are drawn to the thrill of the forbidden, to experiences that defy the constraints of traditional norms. Even more than the exhilaration of dirt-streaked clothes and the exhaustion of physical activity, I revel in the delight of being immersed in the water.
In those brief moments underwater, nobody talks to me or tells me what to do. It’s like stepping into a completely different life where I can just . . . be. This is something I can get nowhere in my real life on dry land: absolute freedom.
Hungary, though landlocked, offers plenty of water bodies to explore—lakes, quarries, and rivers that provide infinite opportunities to row, kayak, and swim. I even play ice hockey when they freeze over in the winter. Last year, at age thirteen, I tried orientation diving for the first time and was immediately hooked. I joined the BHG Scuba Diving Club, marking the start of my underwater expeditions.
Orientation diving is a fascinating challenge, like a treasure hunt: finding buoys in near zero-visibility while aiming for the fastest time. We glide through the water with large monofins secured to our feet, keeping our legs together and moving like dolphins. Instead of carrying the air tank on our backs, we push it ahead with our arms to be more streamlined. Attached to the tank’s skeg (the fin on its underside, used for steering and stability) are a compass and a distance-measuring device. The air hose dangles from the tank, its loose end a mouthpiece that we grip with our teeth to keep the air flowing into our lungs.
I love everything about diving. Like my younger childhood self, I’m drawn to the thrill of the unknown and forbidden, to experiences that defy the constraints of traditional norms. But at fourteen, I'm no longer a child.
In the wake of my father’s passing, the world seems to shift beneath me. Somehow I'm the keeper of our family's fragile stability, the one who has to be strong because everyone else is broken—helping Csilla with homework, managing household finances I'm too young to comprehend, becoming the emotional support system for Mutti, who has collapsed under the weight of her loss. Somewhere in the depths of my frozen heart, I know I'll never fully trust anyone to take care of me again.
As I grapple with this immense loss, another profound shift unfolds—one that reshapes me from top to bottom. Puberty descends upon me with its tumultuous force, ushering in a tempest of changes that leave me disoriented and vulnerable. Overnight, my girlish chest swells to a 34D, a physical transformation that feels alien and uncomfortable. The sudden emergence of breasts is a major inconvenience, a distraction that undermines my adolescent efforts to blend in with the boys. My first period, too, is an unwelcome reminder of my transition from girl to young woman, a painful milestone I feel ill-prepared for. The notion of future childbirth adds to my sense of discomfort and disgust.
At age fifteen, my frustration boils over. One day, in a fit of anger, I take an axe to an old walnut tree in my maternal grandparents’ orchard in the hillside of Budapest. My grandfather’s usual calm dissolves into genuine anger. It’s the first time I see him upset. That moment becomes a pivotal lesson in managing my emotions constructively. From then on, I learn to channel my frustration into gardening and shoveling dirt. Turning over the soil with a shovel each spring to prepare the ground for planting becomes a therapeutic ritual and provides a healthier outlet for my emotions.
I struggle to conceal the changes in my body beneath loose plaid flannel shirts and a hunched posture, hoping the guys will continue to see me as one of them. The thought of being treated differently, of being seen through the lens of womanhood, fills me with dread. I long for the uncomplicated camaraderie of my childhood and the simplicity of that world—a world where I felt at ease and accepted for who I was.
***
In high school, the seeds of my ambitions find room to grow.
Academically, I excel in subjects that spark my interest. Math has long been a cherished subject, but now I fall in love with literature and storytelling, imagining myself on quests far beyond the classroom. I develop a love for analytical reasoning and join the debate team, wrestling with thought-provoking ideas and tough topics. My excitement comes not just from winning, but from learning how to present a persuasive argument—a skill that begins to shape how I approach every challenge.
I have started to think for myself.
Emotionally, I’m a storm of highs and lows, a social butterfly who also needs time alone to recharge and often gets lost in a book or a creative project. My teenage years bypass cliques and social division yet are marked by crushes that come and go, each one feeling intense and significant. The drama of young love plays out in stolen glances and whispered conversations, but it’s all fleeting—just part of growing up. Each time a whirlwind relationship ends, it feels liberating and bittersweet.
At home, life is still hard without my father. I continue to step into his role, taking on repair duty and learning to drive. This responsibility alters how I see myself. My hair gets shorter, and stress triggers eczema. Compared to my slim, Angelina Jolie–like sister, I struggle with body image and insecurity. While she indulges in Nutella and pizza without consequence, I seem to gain weight just watching her eat.
I try diet after diet, hoping to shed the weight that feels like a drag on my confidence, but end up stuck in a cycle of frustration. Solace arrives in the form of my diving teammate Nóra. Her family becomes a second home to me, offering stability and warmth. Our friendship is special, a lesson in the connections that truly matter.
During physical education class, I show talent in handball and get recruited to the team, but quickly realize that team sports aren’t for me. I hunger for more personal pursuits, where success relies entirely on my own efforts. So, I pour all my energy and focus into diving. The underwater world becomes my sanctuary—a place of silence, solitude, and lightness.
Summers are filled with outdoor camping, training in nearby lakes and quarries alongside my teammates and competitors across Hungary. Our schedule is packed with competitions and coaching sessions at the finest diving sites the country has to offer: Ócsa, Ecséd, Budakalász, and my personal favorite, Gyékényes. The team, a mix of older leaders and younger members, becomes like family, creating revered memories. We bond over shared challenges, from navigating murky waters to hitchhiking when our old military truck breaks down. Rarely do we return home except for a quick change of clothes. Even during Hungary’s harsh winters, while training in indoor pools or beneath frozen lakes, I embrace the cold with a sense of wonder.
To keep our training affordable, we participate in “Communist Saturdays” at Kopaszi-Gát, our base camp. We maintain the team’s equipment, refill scuba tanks, repair neoprene suits, mow the grass, and paint fences—creating a scene that feels a bit like something out of Tom Sawyer. These experiences instill in me a sincere sense of responsibility, gratitude, and work ethic.
I realize that to represent my team, my city, and my country effectively, I must train diligently and excel in competitions. Many of my colleagues are superior swimmers, so I work to develop my navigational skills. In clear water, where the buoys are visible from far away, my faster competitors outswim me, but in poor weather and bad visibility, my precision with the compass makes me the winner.
My family’s connection to the church further boosts my self-esteem: Sundays bring peaceful services. Wednesday Bible classes deepen my friendships and faith. Saturdays are spent at dance lessons, learning to waltz and tango. The church provides community, love, and acceptance—a place where I feel valued.
Slowly, as I realize my worth isn’t tied to a number on a scale, I let go of the pressure to conform. Confidence, I learn, comes not from changing who I am, but from accepting and celebrating it. Embracing my natural shape becomes liberating. I shift focus to what truly matters—living fully, savoring my qualities, and finding contentment in each day.
I dedicate myself fully to the world of competitive scuba diving and get my first glimpse of life beyond Hungary, visiting neighboring countries like Austria and the Czech Republic with my dive team. Their lakes are pristine, bordered by lush plants and wildflowers, not to mention modern amenities like toilets and showers. Their teams are better equipped, too, with new gear and stylish attire, while we make do with hand-me-downs and worn-out scuba gear in constant need of repair.
Being part of the club also comes with other costs that I’m too young to fully understand. Most of our training is funded by military sponsorship, and they don’t give money away for free. They depend on us to traverse the pitch-black depths where others can’t, using skills that are crucial for search-and-recovery missions and intelligence gathering that no one talks about in daylight.
At age sixteen, I think I’m ready for anything. I’ve spent years diving in zero visibility, steering by compass and rangefinder alone, pushing my lungs to their limits in freezing water. I’ve proven myself capable, reliable, unafraid. But nothing prepares you for the moment when your hobby becomes a crime scene.
The call comes on a Tuesday evening. Our coach’s voice is different—clipped, official. There’s been an incident in Budapest. The police need divers. We’re to meet at dawn.
I don’t sleep that night. Not because I’m nervous about the dive—I’ve done hundreds of training dives in worse conditions. But something in the coach’s tone, the way he avoided details, sends a chill through me that has nothing to do with the water temperature we’ll soon face.
We arrive at a lake in the heart of city just as the sun rises, casting everything in an eerie golden light that feels wrong for what we’re about to do. Police cars line the shore, their radios crackling with codes I don’t understand. Uniformed officers huddle around maps, pointing at coordinates and speaking in hushed voices.
The briefing is matter-of-fact, almost casual: A high-speed police chase ended here two nights ago. The suspects ditched evidence before they were captured—a duffel bag full of money, thrown from a bridge into the gloomy depths. The water is twenty feet deep, visibility less than a foot. Standard recovery dive.
Except it’s not standard at all. This isn’t training. This is real crime, real evidence, real consequences if we fail. And I’m sixteen years old, strapping on gear that weighs almost as much as I do, preparing to dive into water as dark as outer space.
The descent is routine . . . until it isn’t. My fins stir up silt with each kick, turning the already poor visibility into complete blindness. I must navigate by touch, my hands extended in front of me, feeling along the lake bottom through thick gloves that make everything alien and distant. After the designated thirty minutes of searching, I surface without the missing bag. Gasping, with the taste of lake water bitter on my tongue, I am both disappointed and relieved.
The atmosphere is tense as my teammates surface, one after another, all empty-handed. Then, an excited scream: “I found something!” our team leader cries. “I think this is it!”
He secures the line thrown to him by the surface support guys, gives the all-clear signal, and watches as they haul up evidence that will put someone in prison for the rest of their life. And somehow, I’ve become part of that chain of justice, a sixteen-year-old girl who now knows too much about how the adult world really works.
The worst comes three months later—another call, another dawn meeting, another crime scene. This time, the briefing is even more clinical, even more sanitized. A murder case. Missing evidence. Critical to the prosecution. They don’t tell us what we’re looking for until we’re already geared up, already committed: a severed head.
The words leave me nauseous and dizzy on the dive platform.
“We need this evidence to identify the body we found nearby,” the detective says, noting my pale face. “Same as any other recovery.”
But it’s not the same, and we all know it. This is someone’s child, someone’s parent, reduced to evidence in a waterproof bag. And I’m expected to dive down into that black water and bring it up, as if this is just another training exercise.
The descent feels like falling into hell. Every sound is amplified underwater—my breathing harsh in the regulator, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. The water is even murkier than usual, stirred up by recent storms, and once again I must choose my route by touch alone.
When my hands close around something round and soft, I nearly bolt for the surface. Only years of training and the knowledge that my teammates are counting on me keep me down there, securing the piece with shaking hands, fighting back waves of nausea.
The ascent is the longest of my young life. Each foot upward seems to increase the weight of what I’m carrying, threatening to drag me back down. When I finally break the surface, wheezing and retching, I see my own horror reflected in my teammates’ faces.
Then . . . relief, like someone has lifted a rock off my shoulders. In my hands is not the disposed head, but an old, torn-up medicine ball—the kind used in PE class or at the gym.
We continue to search for hours without finding the missing piece for this police investigation. Despite returning the next day, luckily—for me—we do not prevail in our search. How would I even have handled it if we did?
This experience follows me. For months, in the dim, cloudy waters of every subsequent dive, I see shadows that might be evidence, shapes that might be secrets, mysteries that might be better left buried. The water, once buoyant and free, now carries the weight of the world’s darkness.
***
Amidst my teenage struggles, the world around me is undergoing a profound transformation of its own.
In my elementary school, conformity was enforced. We learned Russian as a second language, sang the previous generation’s revolutionary songs, and wore red neckerchiefs while participating in propaganda-filled school events. Rebellion seemed impossible. But then the Berlin Wall came down, and communism came to an end in Hungary.
Growing up in a communist country brought a mix of benefits and disadvantages. Education was free and accessible, extending through university. We had free lunches, afterschool programs, and healthcare, along with access to concerts and theater performances. These opportunities enriched our lives and fostered a love for the arts, but the adult world was different. Yes, the government provided a safety net for retirees, offering security in old age after years of hard work. But financial rewards were low regardless of the work, whether you were a doctor or a waiter.
The fall of communism ushers in a new era of empowerment and possibility—an exhilarating contrast to the rigid constraints I've grown up with. Suddenly it feels like stepping into a world without limits, where dreams can finally become reality. The taste of freedom is as sweet as my first Coca-Cola, and it fills me with hope for the future. The world opens up just in time for me, offering opportunities that would have been out of reach just a few years earlier.
Meanwhile, as I dive deeper into the realm of competitive scuba, I discover purpose and connection that transcend the surface world. In the water, I shed the burden of limitations and constraints, and instead find liberation, inner strength, and authenticity. I face each challenge with courage and determination, knowing that every step of my journey holds significance.
I never set my sights on a world championship or envision myself as the best in the field of orienteering diving. The pursuit of such lofty goals, with relentless training six days a week, morning and evening, would strip away the joyful essence of scuba and what it means to me. My devotion to diving isn’t driven by rankings; it’s derived from fellowship and the sheer pleasure of being immersed in the water.
I already know deep down that my dream will become reality—that my determination to traverse the world and its oceans, from the Arctic to Antarctica, will drive me forward. When I set my sights on something, I pursue it fiercely. The doubts of my friends and family only make me more committed: One day I will live by the ocean, in a place filled with sunshine and life, lined by palm trees, where I will revel in summer all year long.
I just need to find how to get there.
Diving into Dreams: Navigating Life’s Deepest Waters to Discover the Secret of Having Enough by Szilvia Gogh is a deeply reflective and surprisingly grounded memoir that blends high adventure with introspective wisdom. I was initially drawn to the book because the author, like my grandparents, is Hungarian, a connection that piqued my curiosity more than the diving aspect. I can say that while I still have no personal desire to dive beneath the ocean’s surface, I found myself completely immersed in Gogh’s world.
Her descriptions of the underwater realm are vivid and captivating, rich in sensory detail and emotional depth. She doesn’t romanticize her profession; rather, she presents both the beauty and the grueling realities of underwater work. From Hollywood film sets to remote dive sites, she takes readers on a global journey that’s as much about internal discovery as it is about external adventure.
What sets this memoir apart from many travel and adventure books is its maturity. Gogh isn’t just chasing thrills for the sake of them. She examines the cost of ambition, the drive to achieve, and the fine line between passion and restlessness. I’ve read numerous travel memoirs, and too often they focus on self-indulgence or youthful recklessness. Gogh’s story, by contrast, reflects hard-won wisdom and self-awareness. She questions herself constantly about why she keeps pushing for one more challenge, one more journey, or one more success.
Her evolution from a daring, risk-taking young woman to someone who understands the meaning of “enough” is moving and relatable. It’s an emotional deep dive into identity, satisfaction, and balance. Her achievements are remarkable and include building a unique career as an underwater stunt performer, designing jewelry inspired by her experiences, surviving cancer, and creating a balanced family life. Yet the true treasure of the book lies in her realization that fulfillment doesn’t come from what we do or own, but from who we become.
My favorite line captures the essence perfectly: “True happiness is not acquisition or accomplishment, but alignment—knowing that the life I’m living reflects who I actually am, not who I thought I should become.”
This memoir will resonate with anyone searching for peace after years of striving, or with readers who crave authenticity in an age of endless achievement. Inspiring, honest, and beautifully written, Diving into Dreams is a book to savor.