HOUSTON -- You may have heard about it and believe your child isn't doing it. But the choking game is spreading coast-to-coast, killing kids of all ages, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday.

"It's like you're waking up from a dream," a child said.

Last month, the choking game claimed the lives of four children between 8 and 12 years old. It's spreading across the country with pre-teens.

The choking game achieves a brief high or euphoric state by stopping the flow of oxygen containing blood to the brain.

"After you do it the first time, you want to do it again and again and again," a teenager said. "So it is a drug in itself."

Last November, a San Antonio teacher caught a group of middle school students playing it. In January, a Dallas teenager was hospitalized.

"I think one of the things about this that is catching on with kids is kids from 11 to 16, a lot of times, they have peer pressure," said Dr. Ronald Peters, a professor of Behaviorial Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston.

Peters studies adolescent behavior. He said parents need to wake up.

"They will see the euphoric effects and tell other people and it becomes a major problem," a teenager said.

It's nothing more than a game to the kids playing. But it's not a game to three teens KPRC Local 2 interviewed. The station kept their identities anonymous so they could speak freely.

"We call it, 'Do you want to go pass out?' We call it the 'knock-out game,'" a teen said.

"So, you can pretty much say that in front of a parent and they won't know what's going on," KPRC's Carl Willis asked.

"Right," the teen said.

"Why do it?" Willis asked.

"It's like a rush -- like a little high," the teen said.

"How often would you do it -- every day?" Willis asked.

"Four, five, six times a day," a teen said.

The teenagers playing the game said if a child has heard about it, they are going to try it.

"It's like when you pass out and wake up," a teen said.

"I guess on the inside you are feeling the way you do on the out," another teen said.

"Your friends are around you laughing," a teen said.

"Tell me the youngest person you have ever seen play this game," Willis said.

"Eleven, 13 and 12," the teens said.

The teenagers are in treatment for other drug issues at Riverside General Hospital. They don't think the choking game is only played by troubled teens.

"Some kids -- they don't do drugs. Maybe they think, 'Well, maybe if I give myself a little rush,'" a teen said.

"They don't think they would be the type to do it, either. I never thought I would do that," a teen said.

"That is almost normal adolescent behavior. We are daredevils. We are Superman. Nothing is going to hurt me. So, that is the mind frame adolescent males are coming from," said Troy Jefferson, with Riverside General Hospital.

He counsels teenagers at the hospital. He said before parents dismiss it, they should think about what they did as a child.

"Kids play the game 'truth or dare.' I dare you to do this. Ninety percent of the time they are going to go and try it, no matter how stupid it sounds," Jefferson said.

"They think it is cool. They don't know the effects of it. They keep on doing it and keep on doing it," a teen said.

"We did it to this one kid and later on, like 20 or 30 minutes after bedtime, he ended up throwing seizures and they had to call the ambulance," another teen said. "The biggest regret is if you do it and that person dies, you can go to jail for murder right there. I don't want to do that."

"Listen to what we are saying and don't think that it is just because we haven't felt it before. We have tried it and we know the effects of it," a teen said.

"Hopefully, y'all won't try it. Take our word for it that it will kill you," another teen said.

"What made me stop playing this game -- I don't want to be another number to my family members, you know. I want to live. I don't want to die," a teen said.

The real danger seems to come when kids try the game by themselves, often not realizing what they have done until it is too late.

The choking game is also sometimes referred to as "space monkey."

There are signs to look for.

Parents should check their children for bloodshot eyes, or for T-shirts and belts that might be knotted.

Children who play the choking game experience frequent headaches and have red marks or bruises on their necks or chests.

"The bottom line is kids do not know that the one time they do this they could have brain death. They could basically lose everything in that one time and die. They can have cardiac arrest. They can have seizures -- all of these things can happen the first time they do it," Peters said.

Some of the deaths associated with the choking game are ruled suicide by hanging, according to officials.

On The Net:

www.stop-the-choking-game.com