4 ms·

My secret fear is that anaesthesia doesn't make you lose consciousness, it just makes you forget.

archibaldJ 4y ago
It does induce real-time physiological changes the way a meditative monk can walk on needles while balancing themselves. So I don't think anaesthesia has anything to do with the memory-aspect of forgetting.
postalrat 4y ago
Suffering before death obviously can't be remember. If anesthesia only makes you just forget or not able to form memories then wouldn't it be just as bad?
phdelightful 4y ago
You don’t have to worry. There are physiological responses to pain and trauma that the anesthesiologist can observe, even if you are unconscious. Things as simple as heart rate and respiration all the way up to brain wave monitoring. This is part of the anesthesiologists job.
Consultant32452 4y ago
That's what propofol is for. That's what they give you when they have to do fucked up shit to you but want you awake. Like skin debriding after you've had severe burns. In the medical industry it's known as "milk of amnesia" because it's white and you don't remember.
- 93po 4y ago
  I've heard of something like this too for popping dislocated joints back into sockets. It sounds super creepy because you apparently still scream out in pain but don't remember it.
LocalH 4y ago
Have you ever received anaesthesia? For me, it was one of the most surreal things I've ever experienced, including psychedelic experiences. The reason it was so surreal is because I have no internal chronology of the surgery (minor surgery to insert two pins into my left ring finger after it was broken). I was actively paying attention to the experience, and there was nothing in between going under and waking up in the recovery room. Not a blank void or an emptiness, not an internal hallucination, but nothing. The experience for me was very much like fading out on the table and almost immediately waking up in the recovery room. By comparison, a potent DMT experience gave me the experience of being pushed and pulled through a local time loop, with a disconnect between my internal chronology and my perception of time, and that was less surreal to me than just outright losing an hour. The combination of these two events gives me the perception that time is not at all what the vast majority of people think it is, and that everyone most likely experiences the passage of time at a different rate. We all externally synchronize via clocks and measured time, so no matter how fast or slow you experience time, you're tethered to the unit of "seconds" in a fashion. That's honestly probably one of the things that contributes to the mistaken belief that we perceive objective reality, but that's honestly a hell of a tangent.

It does induce real-time physiological changes the way a meditative monk can walk on needles while balancing themselves. So I don't think anaesthesia has anything to do with the memory-aspect of forgetting.

postalrat 4y ago

Suffering before death obviously can't be remember. If anesthesia only makes you just forget or not able to form memories then wouldn't it be just as bad?

phdelightful 4y ago

You don’t have to worry. There are physiological responses to pain and trauma that the anesthesiologist can observe, even if you are unconscious. Things as simple as heart rate and respiration all the way up to brain wave monitoring. This is part of the anesthesiologists job.

Consultant32452 4y ago

That's what propofol is for. That's what they give you when they have to do fucked up shit to you but want you awake. Like skin debriding after you've had severe burns. In the medical industry it's known as "milk of amnesia" because it's white and you don't remember.

93po 4y ago
I've heard of something like this too for popping dislocated joints back into sockets. It sounds super creepy because you apparently still scream out in pain but don't remember it.

LocalH 4y ago

Have you ever received anaesthesia? For me, it was one of the most surreal things I've ever experienced, including psychedelic experiences. The reason it was so surreal is because I have no internal chronology of the surgery (minor surgery to insert two pins into my left ring finger after it was broken). I was actively paying attention to the experience, and there was nothing in between going under and waking up in the recovery room. Not a blank void or an emptiness, not an internal hallucination, but nothing. The experience for me was very much like fading out on the table and almost immediately waking up in the recovery room. By comparison, a potent DMT experience gave me the experience of being pushed and pulled through a local time loop, with a disconnect between my internal chronology and my perception of time, and that was less surreal to me than just outright losing an hour. The combination of these two events gives me the perception that time is not at all what the vast majority of people think it is, and that everyone most likely experiences the passage of time at a different rate. We all externally synchronize via clocks and measured time, so no matter how fast or slow you experience time, you're tethered to the unit of "seconds" in a fashion. That's honestly probably one of the things that contributes to the mistaken belief that we perceive objective reality, but that's honestly a hell of a tangent.