... well, we didn't call it waterboarding, but the effect was the same.  It is not imaginable, nor actually describable.  The effect (as desired) is of total physical and mental panic -- a panic that can't be described even after experiencing it.  One is reduced to a primitive state of physically fighting (though that's too weak a word) for one's life.  It is not surprising that this permanently disturbs one's brain.

My point here is just that torture -- like most extreme pain -- is simply beyond the powers of art to describe -- and that it should be understood as being beyond the powers of art to describe.  It is a wholly separate category of experience, unknown to those who have not experienced it.  (Perhaps ... and I apologize for reaching ... like childbirth, which is simply unknowable for those who have not experienced it.)

I think it is important to always keep that in mind.  Torture is not a distant point on some continuum of experience.  It is another realm altogether.