Not really, but I did have an experience that has probably had a significant effect on how I think about the nature of human experience. I would call it an exp

Not really, but I did have an experience that has probably had a significant effect on how I think about the nature of human experience. I would call it an experience of prolonged yet subjectively instantaneous non-being. I was about 15 years old and was having my first surgery. I remember them putting a mask on my face then counting. The next instant I vomited. But it turned out that happened 5 hours later in the recovery room. The transition from one moment to the next was like flipping a light switch. I've had a number of other surgeries since and I've never had quite the same experience. There seems to have been something special about the circumstances that bypassed the usual period of slow groggy waking up that one typically gets with anesthesia or when waking from sleep. How has this affected my thinking ? Well for one thing it showed me that non-existence was nothing to be afraid of. I also realized that the experience would have been the same whether it had lasted for 5 hours or for 5 billion years. That is one of several factors that has made me skeptical of the idea that death is followed by an eternity of non-existence, even under the hypothesis that materialism is true. If that is the case then the instant of one's death would be subjectively identical with the end of the universe, and I'm not convinced the universe has an end.