Note, I've never actually been under anaesthesia in recent memory (the closest really was a hernia surgery I had when I was like, 3) so until now the experience has been outside of my context. When I was put under, I remember the following occurring:
1. I was fitted with nasal tubes, laid on my side, and I think then injected into my IV with the anaesthetic. I was conscious at this time.
2. After a while, I slipped into some kind of "dark space". That is, a sort of black void where I perceived some undefined light, in a way that I suppose would suggest a tunnel, or a camera aperture. I say undefined light here because it was like looking forward into the room I was in and yet, not, simultaneously. I have little in terms of words to really describe it.
3. In this space I also perceived time. Or at least some "sense" of time. I would say... About 5 minutes? And yet, I didn't really "think" throughout this. Nothing crossed my mind, and yet I saw that undefined randomness. It was a weird sort of tranquility, and I guess the closest scale of time I could relate this to would be to dreams. At random points, such as when I was being wheeled out to the recovery room, I could perceive almost clearly the events of the outside while still within this void.
4. When I awoke in the recovery room, I learned the entire procedure, from falling "unconscious" into waking up, lasted approximately 30 minutes. I was not active during this time, save for them thinking I was awake before I ... woke up, but just lying still.
I was curious what people with medical knowledge would say about this? It's definitely too easy to just say "the brain does, like, weird things, man", but at the same time all I've been able to read were vague hypotheses and that in general, the method anaesthesia works on is not really known. I'm just aware that it shuts down pretty much all of the central nervous system save for several autonomic functions. Most people I've read just experience a literal gap in time, like time leaping into some moment into the future instantaneously. Others have had apparently more surreal experiences like the out-of-body effect.
If anyone would like to share their experiences too, I'd welcome those.
I must say though, ontologically, it's definitely made me think.
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)