As a compliment to the thread about near death experiences I’d really like hearing people’s experiences of losing consciousness under general anesthesia and what’s it like coming back.
Also interested of things anesthetists may have noticed about this during their career.
Life just stops. It’s like there was a portion deleted from your living record. No thoughts. No dreams. No fuzzy memories at the edge of thought that you can’t quite recall. None of that stuff you get even when blackout drunk. One moment you’re alive, counting or talking to the nurse, then suddenly you’re back and someone’s removed a piece of your body and apparently a piece of your timeline.
This is the correct answer. It’s a complete lack of experiencing anything. Not black, not darkness, but simply nothing. Before the general anesthesia you’ll feel high, and when you’re coming out of the general anesthesia you’ll be groggier than you’ve ever been in your life, but the time during general anesthesia simply won’t exist for you.
Great description. It’s exactly like being dead. Absolutely nothing at all. It actually helped me get over my fear of death.
Except it’s fucking terrifying
This is where im at. I’ve been under twice and I dont want nothing I want something, I want existence and awareness of it.
You don’t even get the awareness of your life up until that point. It makes me think of René Descartes’ validation of it existence. “I think, therefore I am”. The problem is that, when you’re under, you cease to think, therefore you cease to be. Also, if the meaning or value of life is the collection of memories we gather along the way, and the moment you cease you not only lose further thought but also all memories and experiences you collected up until that point, then what the fuck are we doing here?
Spreading and sharing those thoughts and memories, fragments of our selves, so that they can live on in everyone we ever interact with. People who will, in turn, spread those fragments on even further.
A therapist recommended the book A Mans Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl when i mentioned something similar and it may help answer that question for you if you can snag a copy or pdf
Great book. Eh, maybe great isn’t the right word but it’s a good book to read. I was also recommended this book to deal with PTSD
Just trying to be
It’s not. If you don’t wake up from it you’ll never even know or care. So who cares?
So instead of being scared of dying, the terror comes from being dead.
I’m not scared of being dead, it’s like before you were born, you wouldn’t even know.
I’m scared of dying a slow death. Like buried alive, or with a broken body in a hospital bed. Instant death? I don’t care.
Exactly. I wanted to sing a song and finish it when waking up. I wasted my time for asking if that’s the gas putting me down. Brain fuzzing and boom. Darkness and singing the song. Can barely remember. A nurse one day later asked me what song I sang.
It’s really like a piece is missing, you are aware but the feeling is like nothing happened.