Can you be suffocated from being smothered by a pillow? We've all seen it in movies. A villian suffocates one of his/her victims with a pillow while they sleep, killing them in a matter if a minute or so. Whenever I've pushed my head into a pillow as far as it will go, I can still breathe. I even asked one of my friends to pretend to smother me (very realistically) and I could still breathe through the pillow. Is this form of suffocation a myth?

In Belgium there is a well known and documented case (I think it even included video footage) of an asylum seeker which died this way during her expulsion, so I guess there is at least some truth to it. Definitely also depend on other factors as the type of pillow and the force applied. Read about the case here: <