Got a firsthand experience with this. I was dropping off my girlfriend and we stopped to talk in the car, with all the windows up. Over the course of the conversation we got more and more agitated at each other until I had a thought and pulled my Aranet out from my backpack. It was >3000ppm CO2. We opened windows and within 2 minutes all the agitation went away.
I was amazed how quickly it rises in the car with windows up and recirculate mode for the fan. There's a reason it has a fresh air mode.
Or, you became aware of the agitation and interrupted it. The CO2 was a placebo. You have invested already in the idea, it all clicked in your mind.
To be fair, that might not just have been the CO2 dropping, but also the pattern interrupt + giving you both an easy and face-saving way out of that situation.