Comment by tirant

I had a procedure recently and the description in the preparation instructions said "you won't be asleep, but you might not remember everything"

I talked to the nurse about this as I was prepping for the procedure, and he said that a recent patient talked throughout the procedure, but when he got back to his room afterwards, he asked "so when will the procedure start?"

So, I think the drugs you get might let experience everything. But the "nothing in between" might actually be memory loss, not loss of consciousness.

all this stuff is spooky and philosophically tricky.

Anesthetics are very weird though. There's still a lot we don't know about how they work. They seem to act like you experienced, complete shutdown, for most people, which seems different from the states that people go into when unconscious or are near death usually.

And some people have a very different experience while under them - they are fully aware.

> Nothing in between, nothing like that thing you feel when before you fall asleep at night or wake up in the morning.

Same. I was put under twice and both times it was like someone flipping a switch from conscious to unconscious. When I woke up it was like nothing happened save for a slight groggy feeling. It was not like sleep where you feel rested, as if you lost time.

edit: to add when going under the first time I was laying down on the operating table as the anesthesiologist made small talk with a nurse I suddenly felt super high while the room started to spin - POOF out.

My first time I remember the anesthesiologist asking me to count backwards from 100. I assumed the process would take 30 to 60 seconds. I don't think I even hit 97..

I've only been put under once and it was when I was very, very young (3 for hernia surgery, I'm in my mid-40s now) and I had a similar experience, except I came to ~half way through and picked up my head, wondering what the fuck was happening to me, before promptly being put under again. It's my earliest memory but it's also one of the only strong memories I have before 6-7 years old.

Had the same experience, what scared the crap out of me is that feeling of not even knowing you're out is how some people spend their last moment.

Not just in surgery for example but in extreme other situations (nukes, titan sub, piano to the head, etc)... You're just there then you aren't and you don't even know. Shook me (lightly) for a while

I got put under as a teen for an appendectomy. Shocking. I was absolutely 100% certain I'd stay awake while counting until I hit at least 2-3. I think I made it to 8, then yeah - just like a scene change in a show. I was simply suddenly somewhere else - the recovery room. Apparently I tried to fight the nurses because I wanted to lay on my side (that had JUST been cut open)? I literally have no memory and apologized profusely. I don't even know how that happened - I'm not a violent man. I've been in one (very minor) fight (middle school), and I'm super easy-going in general. It takes a LOT to get under my skin.

Yes, I experienced the same, it was like what they call in cinema a "jump cut". I remember the doors to the OR opening, then bang i was in a bed in the recovery room. Like the universe glitched.

Pretty much the same experience when I had surgery. Just a complete jump over the time I was out. I remember the mask going on, counting backwards, and then I was waking up. No sense whatsoever that any time had passed.

> I thought I would gently fall asleep , but it was actually extremely fast.

Sometimes people fall asleep that way too, especially when very tired. The expression ‘out like a light’ seems apt.

There was nothing that you remember. That means there probably was nothing, but it's still a distinction that should be noted.

Last time I had a medical intervention with propofol I returned so relaxed that I thought I had died and was in the afterlife.

They usually ask me to "count backwards from 10". I don't think I get down to 0. It's _very_ fast.

Something like that happened to me in first grade. I was trying to go down a slide and a friend decided to climb the slide itself. He ended up launching me off the side of the slide. It was maybe a five or six foot slide, and I remember going over the side in slow motion, grabbing for the rim of the slide but being at least 6" away from reaching it, and then suddenly.. sharp pain and pitch black as I landed on my back.

I was conscious again about 10-15 seconds later. It's the kind of thing that sticks with you your whole life. It probably wasn't close to life threatening, but the combination of adrenaline, sharp pain, and brief unconsciousness definitely leaves an imprint in your memory.

"With effortless focus, Munenori Sensei smoothly pulls the arrow to bend his bow. Released like a ripe fruit, the arrow glides. It races toward your heart.

In the eternity of the arrow’s flight, you wonder: What is this present moment? Confronting its end, your mind becomes razor sharp, cleav- ing time into uncountable, quickly passing moments.

At one such perfect instant you see the arrow as it floats, suspended between the finest ticks of the most precise clock. In this instant of no time, the arrow has no motion, and nothing pushes or pulls it toward your heart. How, then, does it move?

While your beginner’s mind embraces the mystery, the arrow flies."

Long time ago, while running cat5 in a large open ceiling, I stepped off of a large metal beam onto what I thought was the concrete ceiling of an outdoor awning, but was in fact droptile. Fell right through, of course, and landed more-or-less on my back. The floor was that hard institutional carpet.

I don't remember anything about the fall itself. After hitting the floor I immediately got to my feet, realized the breath had been knocked out of me, tried to call my partner's name, then sat back down. I think the pain came shortly after that.

Had a similar incident in my teens.

I was at scouts and we’d set up a monkey swing on a branch next to a river.

While I was on it, I somehow realised the knot on the branch was coming undone and was able to witness its unravelling in slow motion.

The fall was also slow, as I hit the ground I cried out, but more from shock than any pain.

Very luckily I had landed on the soft sandy riverbank rather than the rocks in the river I had been above just moments before.

It’s not surprising that in life threatening situations the brain would focus all of its attention on the immediate situation, rather than worrying about the usual crap the brain worries about (like paying your bills).

agree with this; fits with how the brain values recording of memories when adrenaline is present

Same here, I flew head first down a ramp because I slammed the breakes too hard and the next thing I remember is people asking if anybody had a handkerchief or something, since my head was bleeding. A solid five minute blackout.

10 times? Wow.. That seems like a lot.. AFAIK, even once is indication of potentially serious trauma.

Part of it has to do with the memories, which gradually gets overtaken by the voices of my wife, doctor or whomever was trying to wake me up.

As an example, I think I was around 16 years old and I was very much into sport cycling and Tour de France. When I lost consciousness a slide show of Tour de France competition accompanied by the TV commentators rush into my thoughts. All of it at very high speed and extremely overwhelming.

I think of it as an analogy of a memory dump of a process that is no longer running (consciousness), and everything gets just read and dump at high speed and without any sense nor capacity to make sense of it, only leaving a small impression in my short memory area which afterwards I was able to remember for longer time.

I’ve had similar experiences.

In my case it wasn’t like dreaming exactly, more like that in between state where you’re falling into a nap but still awake. Sound was kinda like being underwater, in fact recovering consciousness very much felt like surfacing into reality for lack of a better term.

It was kinda cozy, definitely not an experience to be scared of.