10 ms·

What brain surgery taught me about the fragile gift of consciousness

240 points by NaOH 1y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
I had a craniotomy in 1996. Similar thing. The back of my head looked a bit like his, except the scar looked more like a Blue Oyster Cult symbol (backwards question mark). I know they left a piece of the skull out, so I do have a hole in the head. Took me a couple months to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, but I ended up making a full recovery. I remember being wheeled into the OR. It was odd, because there was a damn good chance I wouldn’t wake up. Or I’d spend my life in a wheelchair. The cerebellum is a bad place to have problems. I was actually pretty chill. Maybe they gave me Valium. The recovery sucked. I spent a week in ICU (basically no sleep).
- lagniappe 1y ago
  Im glad you're still around
  - tomcam 1y ago
    Total agreement here. His posts indicate a life well lived.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
      Thanks so much, folks! I also am very grateful things worked out.
- jaggederest 1y ago
  > Maybe they gave me Valium. Versed/midazolam, almost certainly, was a part of the preoperative regimen. I had jaw surgery and basically didn't sleep the night before, for obvious reasons, and they gave me a bit of versed in prep and had to wake me up on the table to put me under for anesthesia proper. Hey, not my fault the blankets were warm and the pillow was perfect. It's a very useful medication both for anxiety, but also to reduce your seizure risk, which I imagine for cerebellar surgery was a definite factor.
6stringmerc 1y ago
Glad for him and without a doubt the support network and relationships he had in place significantly contributed to his positive outcome. I recently went through a similar trial and tribulation but as an inmate and by receiving sub-standard care. That's how I was able to turn inward and finally crack into real enlightenment and it's the solid kind because comparatively speaking, I had fuck-all to live for. No family. No future. No nothing but more suffering. And yet I found the release into accepting the beauty of futility. I commit to the program, I give. Let Go and Hang On. IYKYK.
- linuxhansl 1y ago
  Without meaning this in any way condescending: I am really proud of you as fellow human being! Finding peace in such a situation takes courage, strength, and reflection, and you apparently have/found all of these.
kranner 1y ago
I'd shared this article last week with the meditation group I'm part of, describing the author's state of mind on the eve of surgery as a state of samadhi. It's a great description of the state I end up in during almost every meditation session (practicing in the 'open awareness' style) and sometimes also in the middle of the day, unprompted. I'd shared it with the group because it was interesting that the author had spontaneously landed in the state due to catastrophic circumstances, but now reading it a second time I recall this had also happened to me years ago, on the sudden death of a close family member. I consider myself lucky to be able to access it outside circumstances of personal tragedy or medical emergency. It's a great reason to learn to meditate; unfortunately you can't give people a quick preview of it or a lot more people would take meditation more seriously.
pico303 1y ago
What a great piece. I’m so glad not only that his daughter will get to know her dad, but that her dad is going to appreciate every moment he has with her.
cocire 1y ago
https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 I had some occipital lobe taken out in 2010 when I was 20 years old, to try to treat epilepsy!
- sitkack 1y ago
  Wow, that looks drastic? How much did it help? Did you notice a change in your personality? How long did it take to recover? Did you lose vision in one eye?
  - cocire 1y ago
    They really only took a tiny piece of brain out, I guess. They didn't show me, sadly. :( It was all occipital lobe so vision would have been the only thing affected. I had terrible vision in the lower-left quadrant of both of my eyes anyways, based on a medical field-of-vision test, along with my own tendency to bump into people and things on my left side (still the case). Based on many electroencephalographs (EEGs), they decided my epileptic seizures stemmed from the lower right occipital lobe of my brain. It is kind of neat proof to me that the opposite side of your brain has effects on the other side of your body; right occipital lobe affecting left visual field. So, they removed some brain, which actually did not affect my epilepsy at all, positively or negatively. I went into the hospital, got surgery, and was out maybe a week later - when that photo was taken. I had to go back a week or two later to have the staples taken out. My lower left peripheral vision is worse than it used to be. I have about eight visual seizures that each last maybe a minute or two per day, but I can carry on a conversation and nobody even knows. I take seven pills every morning, and another four each night. I do not have a drivers license, car, or really ever plan to drive again, but that is kind of why I moved to live in a city where I can walk, take public transit, and get deliveries quickly/reliably. On the nerd side, I track my seizures with my own homemade Python Django (w/ REST Framework) application, PostgreSQL, and an Apple Shortcut, usually from my iPhone or watch. Datasette and Highcharts make visualizing all my seizures tracked since December 2021 pretty cool.
    - interloxia 1y ago
narrator 1y ago
This is a great article. I've been in for surgery a few times, and I always cry before it because I never know what could happen. I could wind up dead, paralyzed, in chronic pain, a vegetable. Then I think to myself how unspecial I am. Millions of people die every day and yet we deny death, and lose sight of the stuff that actually matters that much. The billionaire and the homeless person still just fertilize worms after they die. That reality keeps me humble and in daily gratitude to the miracle of life, though my confidence does waver during the periods of ill health I've had.
geoffbp 1y ago
Good read! Enjoyed that. I meditate but have never reached that state fwiw.
ggm 1y ago
I learned a new term: Survivor's Euphoria. Only having had relatively minor procedures, I have only had relatively minor instances. But I have had a feeling of "I came back" which I have solely after waking up from anasthaesia. As if the interrupted mental processes carry some flow state forward, which I re-attach to. There's a longer baseline term which might go with this: Survivor's Depression. I have found after successful surgery, diagnostics, any kind of procedure after the initial elation, I have a very strong down-mood. It's not unlike coming back from holiday and feeling exhausted.
- modeless 1y ago
  These sound like anaesthetic side effects.
  - AdieuToLogic 1y ago
    >> But I have had a feeling of "I came back" which I have solely after waking up from anasthaesia. > These sound like anaesthetic side effects. General anesthesia[0] used in surgeries are effectively artificially induced comas. The pre-op discussion with the anesthesiologist includes them describing this and that there is a very real risk that you will die from its usage. Regaining consciousness after having it applied most certainly invokes a feeling of "I came back" and has nothing to do with side effects. Source: I have had two general anesthesia[0] and one epidural[1] surgeries. 0 - https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/anesthesia/about/pac-20384568 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/anesthesia/about... 1 - https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21896-epidural https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21896-epidu...
    - zozbot234 1y ago
      The feeling of blinking out and suddenly being "back" is far from exclusive to comas or general anesthesia; it has been replicated via deep meditation. Specifically, it seems to be the core feature of what's technically known as nirodha samapatti (lit. "attainment of ceasing"). An easy way of intuiting what it might feel like (if imperfectly, of course) is just keeping a high state of lucidity and mental focus whilst you're naturally drifting in and out of light sleep; this might seem challenging at first but it's actually quite doable.
rixed 1y ago
"There is a kind of consciousness that lives not in thought but in presence." Yes, and I believe the strong association we often make between the most advanced cognitive functions and consciousness are misleading us into believing that consciousness is somehow the result of those functions, while I suspect we (conscious selves) are just witnessing those functions like we are witnessing anything, "from the outside". It's of course the most amazing part of the show, but should not be confused for it. Consciousness is not made of thinking but of observing, we just spend a lot of time observing how we think.
- zozbot234 1y ago
  There's no such thing as an individual conscious self that persists over time - it is always a misconception and an illusion. Consciousness is just something that living beings do, not something that they "are". It's an impersonal phenomenon (as far as it goes - there's of course plenty of things, mental states, thoughts etc. that are genuinely personal about our individual lives!) not a state of being.
  - peterashford 1y ago
    ' Consciousness is just something that living beings do, not something that they "are"' I'm not sure what distinction you're making
  - rixed 1y ago
    I share the feeling about it being impersonal (I've started to doubt its individuality as well). I like to think of consciousness as "the universe observing itself", but that sounds a bit too new-agey.
    - dalmo3 1y ago
      > "the universe observing itself", but that sounds a bit too new-agey. That's hilarious. New Age has such a bad rep that the universe itself is repelled by it.
      - 1y ago
electric_muse 1y ago
The piece was deeply thought-provoking, but I struggled to get through it sensing how much AI was used to write it. I’ve been drafting a manuscript for a novel lately, trying to see how well llms can help. I recognize this prose immediately as OpenAI gpt 5. It loves to describe things “hum” that don’t usually hum, like the author wrote in the beginning. Plenty more descriptions match the cadence and rhythm and word choices I’ve seen writing my manuscript. I feel like there’s a meta discussion the author was prompting here about consciousness. Reading the writing of a real human feels more intimate. Reading the auto-tune version of writing makes me feel noticeably less connected to the reader. I know the author still input something to get this output. But there’s something blocking a deeper connection when I just “know” I’m not reading the author’s words. Edit: llamas > llms
- chis 1y ago
  I felt the exact same, I can't believe nobody else has commented on it. It feels so disrespectful to such a powerful story to tell it in this way. I mean there's a really interesting core but I just wish I could read the first draft before LLMs overwrote it to death. "Survivor’s euphoria.” A clinical term, woefully inadequate. It wasn’t just euphoria. It was revelation."
- zozbot234 1y ago
  Is it really OpenAI/ChatGPT, or just the kind of writing ChatGPT was trained to replicate?
  - moffkalast 1y ago
    Impossible to say, a few people really do write like that and their writing gets flagged by those detection systems all the time, but I think we all know which option is far more likely.
    - crowsettastoner 1y ago
      [dead]
  - 1y ago
AIorNot 1y ago
this moral of this zen story https://www.graceguts.com/quotations/zen-story-tigers-and-a-strawberry https://www.graceguts.com/quotations/zen-story-tigers-and-a-...
- sitkack 1y ago
  We do spend a large fraction of the age of the universe not thinking.
judge123 1y ago
Powerful story. But let's be real: after the "survivor's euphoria" fades, how do you actually keep that level of consciousness? I feel like the daily grind would inevitably pull me back to my old self. Has anyone here had a life-changing moment and actually managed to stay changed?
- siavosh 1y ago
  Different traditions have been systematically iterating on techniques to do exactly this for thousands of years.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Its a constant practice, like anything. Part of you is changed forever when you go through something like this, the awareness part mostley, you can never go back to normality even when something like that wears off. I know from experience because I survived a brain hemorrhage. I had a state where I experienced the world differently for many years. I still do. Something cracked open in me and it has stayed that way, other aspects of my physiology are returning to a baseline state, like my nervous system changes which damped my fear responses.
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  > Has anyone here had a life-changing moment and actually managed to stay changed? A life-changing moment changes one's life by definition. Each time a person experiences one, they are changed in a way where who they were before they can remember, perhaps even look fondly upon, but know they are not that person anymore. > Powerful story. But let's be real: after the "survivor's euphoria" fades, how do you actually keep that level of consciousness? By living in the moment and remembering how you got there.
- madaxe_again 1y ago
  You typically don’t go back to the daily grind, as this kind of event often substantially changes your priorities. I speak for myself, although I know I am not alone in my trajectory. About a decade ago I was ill enough for long enough with an uncertain enough prognosis that I was getting my affairs in order. At the same time a close friend died of an agressivo cancer, aged 32. I decided to choose quality over quantity. Fuck my business, fuck my career, fuck stupid status games and absolutely fuck climbing the infinite pile of skulls. Sold up. Put everything on 00 and gave the wheel a spin. It’s been almost a decade. I still live in the woods, start my days with a coffee and birdsong and “ein heiliges ‘ja!’”, still have zero temptation to return to my life before.
vmurthy 1y ago
What a beautiful, thought provoking article! When I saw the title , I thought it was a book summary of “My stroke of insight” [0]. This book is by a neuro-anatomist who had a rare stroke resulting in the left hemisphere of her brain being incapacitated. That led her to experiences similar to that of the article’s author. Do check out the book and pair it with the article [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142292.My_Stroke_of_Insight https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142292.My_Stroke_of_Insi...
Rzor 1y ago
You gotta appreciate how this lovely story, (which to me has too many Is to have "enlightenment" close to it), is sitting on /business/, even though Bigthink has Neuropsych, Thinking, The Present, The Future, Life, Health and Special Issues. I guess it wasn't a conscious decision to have it there, or so I hope. ;)
p2detar 1y ago
My experience with several surgeries and going under full anesthesia every time hasn't been anything that dramatic. Sure, I could write a lot about the feelings I had and the thoughts about whether I'd actually wake up afterward and see my loved ones, but honestly, I find that unnecessary. In my view, consciousness is completely an emergent phenomenon. What always amazes me is how there’s absolutely no sense of time having passed once I wake up. For me, general anesthesia is probably the closest thing to experiencing death, except with the difference that you get the chance to resume your existence again. I don't like this article because, like so many others, it tries to tell us how life should be lived, instead of facing the blunt truth: any assumed meaning of our existence only matters while we're alive. All those hypothetical stories we build in our heads about what might happen after we die are just wasted time, sad attempts to justify our existence. The world can and will go on without us, and that includes the people closest to us at our final hour. Let me finish with this: I've never felt as much peace as I do right before going under anesthesia. It’s probably just the drugs, but honestly it felt like coming home, even though no such home exists, and no one is there to return to it. edit: paragraphs
- 47282847 1y ago
  > All those hypothetical stories we build in our heads about what might happen after we die are just wasted time My observation is that whatever story people believe will happen after their death will deeply influence their current life in this reality, so I disagree that it is “just wasted time“. For most, it’s not simply a mind exercise but defines their values and existence. It’s arrogance and ignorance of the “West“ to assume everyone wants to “live a long life“. You very distinctively have other priorities if you believe in reincarnation and karma. Belief in rebirth strengthens dynasties and collectivism in very real ways, the belief in no afterlife or one that is not influenced by your current behavior strengthens individualism.
  - ang_cire 1y ago
    > the belief in no afterlife or one that is not influenced by your current behavior strengthens individualism. This is just another way of saying that you don't think people (meaning you) would be moral without the threat of a bad outcome (hell, bad karma, reincarnation into suffering, etc). Most avowed atheists would tell you that the finality of death is precisely why we have a responsibility to each other, because there's no one up above coming to fix our problems or right our wrongs. That humanity has to *be* better to become better. Being religious doesn't intrinsically make one more or less collectivist or individualist, it all depends on the philosophy of the religion (or non-religion).
mediumsmart 1y ago
Consciousness is all there is
grantcas 1y ago
[dead]
suchoudh 1y ago
when we go to sleep and wake up next day there is a moment when we loose consiousness and then get it back.
- firesteelrain 1y ago
  That’s more like altered consciousness because deep sleep provides dreaming.
kittikitti 1y ago
This isn't really relevant to this site nor is it noteworthy. There was nothing revelatory about consciousness. I'm happy that the author survived their brain surgery though.

240 points by NaOH 1y ago

I had a craniotomy in 1996. Similar thing. The back of my head looked a bit like his, except the scar looked more like a Blue Oyster Cult symbol (backwards question mark). I know they left a piece of the skull out, so I do have a hole in the head. Took me a couple months to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, but I ended up making a full recovery. I remember being wheeled into the OR. It was odd, because there was a damn good chance I wouldn’t wake up. Or I’d spend my life in a wheelchair. The cerebellum is a bad place to have problems. I was actually pretty chill. Maybe they gave me Valium. The recovery sucked. I spent a week in ICU (basically no sleep).

lagniappe 1y ago
Im glad you're still around
- tomcam 1y ago
  Total agreement here. His posts indicate a life well lived.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
    Thanks so much, folks! I also am very grateful things worked out.
jaggederest 1y ago
> Maybe they gave me Valium. Versed/midazolam, almost certainly, was a part of the preoperative regimen. I had jaw surgery and basically didn't sleep the night before, for obvious reasons, and they gave me a bit of versed in prep and had to wake me up on the table to put me under for anesthesia proper. Hey, not my fault the blankets were warm and the pillow was perfect. It's a very useful medication both for anxiety, but also to reduce your seizure risk, which I imagine for cerebellar surgery was a definite factor.

6stringmerc 1y ago

Glad for him and without a doubt the support network and relationships he had in place significantly contributed to his positive outcome. I recently went through a similar trial and tribulation but as an inmate and by receiving sub-standard care. That's how I was able to turn inward and finally crack into real enlightenment and it's the solid kind because comparatively speaking, I had fuck-all to live for. No family. No future. No nothing but more suffering. And yet I found the release into accepting the beauty of futility. I commit to the program, I give. Let Go and Hang On. IYKYK.

linuxhansl 1y ago
Without meaning this in any way condescending: I am really proud of you as fellow human being! Finding peace in such a situation takes courage, strength, and reflection, and you apparently have/found all of these.

kranner 1y ago

I'd shared this article last week with the meditation group I'm part of, describing the author's state of mind on the eve of surgery as a state of samadhi. It's a great description of the state I end up in during almost every meditation session (practicing in the 'open awareness' style) and sometimes also in the middle of the day, unprompted. I'd shared it with the group because it was interesting that the author had spontaneously landed in the state due to catastrophic circumstances, but now reading it a second time I recall this had also happened to me years ago, on the sudden death of a close family member. I consider myself lucky to be able to access it outside circumstances of personal tragedy or medical emergency. It's a great reason to learn to meditate; unfortunately you can't give people a quick preview of it or a lot more people would take meditation more seriously.

pico303 1y ago

What a great piece. I’m so glad not only that his daughter will get to know her dad, but that her dad is going to appreciate every moment he has with her.

cocire 1y ago

https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 https://imgur.com/a/vsRq0a9 I had some occipital lobe taken out in 2010 when I was 20 years old, to try to treat epilepsy!

sitkack 1y ago
Wow, that looks drastic? How much did it help? Did you notice a change in your personality? How long did it take to recover? Did you lose vision in one eye?
- cocire 1y ago
  They really only took a tiny piece of brain out, I guess. They didn't show me, sadly. :( It was all occipital lobe so vision would have been the only thing affected. I had terrible vision in the lower-left quadrant of both of my eyes anyways, based on a medical field-of-vision test, along with my own tendency to bump into people and things on my left side (still the case). Based on many electroencephalographs (EEGs), they decided my epileptic seizures stemmed from the lower right occipital lobe of my brain. It is kind of neat proof to me that the opposite side of your brain has effects on the other side of your body; right occipital lobe affecting left visual field. So, they removed some brain, which actually did not affect my epilepsy at all, positively or negatively. I went into the hospital, got surgery, and was out maybe a week later - when that photo was taken. I had to go back a week or two later to have the staples taken out. My lower left peripheral vision is worse than it used to be. I have about eight visual seizures that each last maybe a minute or two per day, but I can carry on a conversation and nobody even knows. I take seven pills every morning, and another four each night. I do not have a drivers license, car, or really ever plan to drive again, but that is kind of why I moved to live in a city where I can walk, take public transit, and get deliveries quickly/reliably. On the nerd side, I track my seizures with my own homemade Python Django (w/ REST Framework) application, PostgreSQL, and an Apple Shortcut, usually from my iPhone or watch. Datasette and Highcharts make visualizing all my seizures tracked since December 2021 pretty cool.
  - interloxia 1y ago

narrator 1y ago

This is a great article. I've been in for surgery a few times, and I always cry before it because I never know what could happen. I could wind up dead, paralyzed, in chronic pain, a vegetable. Then I think to myself how unspecial I am. Millions of people die every day and yet we deny death, and lose sight of the stuff that actually matters that much. The billionaire and the homeless person still just fertilize worms after they die. That reality keeps me humble and in daily gratitude to the miracle of life, though my confidence does waver during the periods of ill health I've had.

geoffbp 1y ago

Good read! Enjoyed that. I meditate but have never reached that state fwiw.

ggm 1y ago

I learned a new term: Survivor's Euphoria. Only having had relatively minor procedures, I have only had relatively minor instances. But I have had a feeling of "I came back" which I have solely after waking up from anasthaesia. As if the interrupted mental processes carry some flow state forward, which I re-attach to. There's a longer baseline term which might go with this: Survivor's Depression. I have found after successful surgery, diagnostics, any kind of procedure after the initial elation, I have a very strong down-mood. It's not unlike coming back from holiday and feeling exhausted.

modeless 1y ago
These sound like anaesthetic side effects.
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  >> But I have had a feeling of "I came back" which I have solely after waking up from anasthaesia. > These sound like anaesthetic side effects. General anesthesia[0] used in surgeries are effectively artificially induced comas. The pre-op discussion with the anesthesiologist includes them describing this and that there is a very real risk that you will die from its usage. Regaining consciousness after having it applied most certainly invokes a feeling of "I came back" and has nothing to do with side effects. Source: I have had two general anesthesia[0] and one epidural[1] surgeries. 0 - https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/anesthesia/about/pac-20384568 https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/anesthesia/about... 1 - https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21896-epidural https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21896-epidu...
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    The feeling of blinking out and suddenly being "back" is far from exclusive to comas or general anesthesia; it has been replicated via deep meditation. Specifically, it seems to be the core feature of what's technically known as nirodha samapatti (lit. "attainment of ceasing"). An easy way of intuiting what it might feel like (if imperfectly, of course) is just keeping a high state of lucidity and mental focus whilst you're naturally drifting in and out of light sleep; this might seem challenging at first but it's actually quite doable.

rixed 1y ago

"There is a kind of consciousness that lives not in thought but in presence." Yes, and I believe the strong association we often make between the most advanced cognitive functions and consciousness are misleading us into believing that consciousness is somehow the result of those functions, while I suspect we (conscious selves) are just witnessing those functions like we are witnessing anything, "from the outside". It's of course the most amazing part of the show, but should not be confused for it. Consciousness is not made of thinking but of observing, we just spend a lot of time observing how we think.

zozbot234 1y ago
There's no such thing as an individual conscious self that persists over time - it is always a misconception and an illusion. Consciousness is just something that living beings do, not something that they "are". It's an impersonal phenomenon (as far as it goes - there's of course plenty of things, mental states, thoughts etc. that are genuinely personal about our individual lives!) not a state of being.
- peterashford 1y ago
  ' Consciousness is just something that living beings do, not something that they "are"' I'm not sure what distinction you're making
- rixed 1y ago
  I share the feeling about it being impersonal (I've started to doubt its individuality as well). I like to think of consciousness as "the universe observing itself", but that sounds a bit too new-agey.
  - dalmo3 1y ago
    > "the universe observing itself", but that sounds a bit too new-agey. That's hilarious. New Age has such a bad rep that the universe itself is repelled by it.
    - 1y ago

electric_muse 1y ago

The piece was deeply thought-provoking, but I struggled to get through it sensing how much AI was used to write it. I’ve been drafting a manuscript for a novel lately, trying to see how well llms can help. I recognize this prose immediately as OpenAI gpt 5. It loves to describe things “hum” that don’t usually hum, like the author wrote in the beginning. Plenty more descriptions match the cadence and rhythm and word choices I’ve seen writing my manuscript. I feel like there’s a meta discussion the author was prompting here about consciousness. Reading the writing of a real human feels more intimate. Reading the auto-tune version of writing makes me feel noticeably less connected to the reader. I know the author still input something to get this output. But there’s something blocking a deeper connection when I just “know” I’m not reading the author’s words. Edit: llamas > llms

chis 1y ago
I felt the exact same, I can't believe nobody else has commented on it. It feels so disrespectful to such a powerful story to tell it in this way. I mean there's a really interesting core but I just wish I could read the first draft before LLMs overwrote it to death. "Survivor’s euphoria.” A clinical term, woefully inadequate. It wasn’t just euphoria. It was revelation."
zozbot234 1y ago
Is it really OpenAI/ChatGPT, or just the kind of writing ChatGPT was trained to replicate?
- moffkalast 1y ago
  Impossible to say, a few people really do write like that and their writing gets flagged by those detection systems all the time, but I think we all know which option is far more likely.
  - crowsettastoner 1y ago
    [dead]
- 1y ago

AIorNot 1y ago

this moral of this zen story https://www.graceguts.com/quotations/zen-story-tigers-and-a-strawberry https://www.graceguts.com/quotations/zen-story-tigers-and-a-...

sitkack 1y ago
We do spend a large fraction of the age of the universe not thinking.

judge123 1y ago

Powerful story. But let's be real: after the "survivor's euphoria" fades, how do you actually keep that level of consciousness? I feel like the daily grind would inevitably pull me back to my old self. Has anyone here had a life-changing moment and actually managed to stay changed?

siavosh 1y ago
Different traditions have been systematically iterating on techniques to do exactly this for thousands of years.
trinsic2 1y ago
Its a constant practice, like anything. Part of you is changed forever when you go through something like this, the awareness part mostley, you can never go back to normality even when something like that wears off. I know from experience because I survived a brain hemorrhage. I had a state where I experienced the world differently for many years. I still do. Something cracked open in me and it has stayed that way, other aspects of my physiology are returning to a baseline state, like my nervous system changes which damped my fear responses.
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
> Has anyone here had a life-changing moment and actually managed to stay changed? A life-changing moment changes one's life by definition. Each time a person experiences one, they are changed in a way where who they were before they can remember, perhaps even look fondly upon, but know they are not that person anymore. > Powerful story. But let's be real: after the "survivor's euphoria" fades, how do you actually keep that level of consciousness? By living in the moment and remembering how you got there.
madaxe_again 1y ago
You typically don’t go back to the daily grind, as this kind of event often substantially changes your priorities. I speak for myself, although I know I am not alone in my trajectory. About a decade ago I was ill enough for long enough with an uncertain enough prognosis that I was getting my affairs in order. At the same time a close friend died of an agressivo cancer, aged 32. I decided to choose quality over quantity. Fuck my business, fuck my career, fuck stupid status games and absolutely fuck climbing the infinite pile of skulls. Sold up. Put everything on 00 and gave the wheel a spin. It’s been almost a decade. I still live in the woods, start my days with a coffee and birdsong and “ein heiliges ‘ja!’”, still have zero temptation to return to my life before.

vmurthy 1y ago

What a beautiful, thought provoking article! When I saw the title , I thought it was a book summary of “My stroke of insight” [0]. This book is by a neuro-anatomist who had a rare stroke resulting in the left hemisphere of her brain being incapacitated. That led her to experiences similar to that of the article’s author. Do check out the book and pair it with the article [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142292.My_Stroke_of_Insight https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142292.My_Stroke_of_Insi...

Rzor 1y ago

You gotta appreciate how this lovely story, (which to me has too many Is to have "enlightenment" close to it), is sitting on /business/, even though Bigthink has Neuropsych, Thinking, The Present, The Future, Life, Health and Special Issues. I guess it wasn't a conscious decision to have it there, or so I hope. ;)

p2detar 1y ago

My experience with several surgeries and going under full anesthesia every time hasn't been anything that dramatic. Sure, I could write a lot about the feelings I had and the thoughts about whether I'd actually wake up afterward and see my loved ones, but honestly, I find that unnecessary. In my view, consciousness is completely an emergent phenomenon. What always amazes me is how there’s absolutely no sense of time having passed once I wake up. For me, general anesthesia is probably the closest thing to experiencing death, except with the difference that you get the chance to resume your existence again. I don't like this article because, like so many others, it tries to tell us how life should be lived, instead of facing the blunt truth: any assumed meaning of our existence only matters while we're alive. All those hypothetical stories we build in our heads about what might happen after we die are just wasted time, sad attempts to justify our existence. The world can and will go on without us, and that includes the people closest to us at our final hour. Let me finish with this: I've never felt as much peace as I do right before going under anesthesia. It’s probably just the drugs, but honestly it felt like coming home, even though no such home exists, and no one is there to return to it. edit: paragraphs

47282847 1y ago
> All those hypothetical stories we build in our heads about what might happen after we die are just wasted time My observation is that whatever story people believe will happen after their death will deeply influence their current life in this reality, so I disagree that it is “just wasted time“. For most, it’s not simply a mind exercise but defines their values and existence. It’s arrogance and ignorance of the “West“ to assume everyone wants to “live a long life“. You very distinctively have other priorities if you believe in reincarnation and karma. Belief in rebirth strengthens dynasties and collectivism in very real ways, the belief in no afterlife or one that is not influenced by your current behavior strengthens individualism.
- ang_cire 1y ago
  > the belief in no afterlife or one that is not influenced by your current behavior strengthens individualism. This is just another way of saying that you don't think people (meaning you) would be moral without the threat of a bad outcome (hell, bad karma, reincarnation into suffering, etc). Most avowed atheists would tell you that the finality of death is precisely why we have a responsibility to each other, because there's no one up above coming to fix our problems or right our wrongs. That humanity has to *be* better to become better. Being religious doesn't intrinsically make one more or less collectivist or individualist, it all depends on the philosophy of the religion (or non-religion).

mediumsmart 1y ago

Consciousness is all there is

grantcas 1y ago

[dead]

suchoudh 1y ago

when we go to sleep and wake up next day there is a moment when we loose consiousness and then get it back.

firesteelrain 1y ago
That’s more like altered consciousness because deep sleep provides dreaming.

kittikitti 1y ago

This isn't really relevant to this site nor is it noteworthy. There was nothing revelatory about consciousness. I'm happy that the author survived their brain surgery though.