Quote Originally Posted by xXHoax View Post
Well... I mean... It's "need to breathe" in every language technically... Can you really not say "desire to breathe" even if it's for the sake of metaphor or anything?
The thing is breathing is something you do unconsciously. You don't need to control it or focus on it. You just do it or more precisely your body does it for you. Желание is a conscious desire to do something.

However, I suppose you can say желание дышать if you really want to. But you know that might mean something really different. Like, for example, you've been oppressed and you want to break free, here's when you can say желание дышать or хочу дышать etc. There is also a set-phrase дышать полной грудью, which means pretty much what I just described.