Have you ever been under general anesthesia? What was it like? Did anything strange happen?
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.
They dose me with propofol when I get scoped…you know, I try to see how long I can make my memories take before the anesthesia kicks in and I never made it very long after they wheeled me in. Then you come out of it and your brain’s full of spiderwebs for a little bit. (Don’t drive the day you’ve been sedated—it’ll only end badly.) There’s a lingering sense of drowsiness to some degree for the rest of the day.
The first time, I was barely sedated and had traumatizing hallucinations for what felt like ten minutes but what was probably less than a minute.
The second time, I was heavily sedated to the point of double vision and cannot remember anything after I put the mask on.
I found waking up unpleasant in both cases because of the paralytic agent.
Nothingness for general anaesthesia. Sedation for dental work was awesome: IV midazolam. Off to sleep just like GA but woke up at some point, super happy and relaxed. Waking up was like a long sleep. I loved it so much I asked if I could come in again for that without the operation. Turns out, no, that’s not a thing. Shame.
I didn’t dream or perceive passage of time while I was under. I just instantly went from being put under for the procedure and waking up after it was done.
I actually have a story. I was very young and was under for 10 hours. It was terrible, I felt every moment, I was trapped in a video game, Link’s Adventure. Just repeating over and over. This isn’t a joke, the experience was so traumatizing I won’t go through surgery again. This was over three decades ago. I don’t know what went wrong, why I experienced the passage of time. I thought I had literally gone to Hell, it was torture.
Would be pretty interesting to get the opinion of an anesthesiologist on this, I’m sure they could make a different cocktail to make sure any future surgery goes well :)
You know when you nod off/nap jerk? Imagine that except you’re groggier. You’ve probably also said some silly shit while you were under. My wife was a short stay nurse and people are essentially sloppy drunk before regaining consciousness
Worst case scenario story: my dad was put under for a detached retina. He “woke” up halfway through the procedure but couldn’t move or speak. The anesthesiologist realized something was up when his heart rate spiked. Needless to say my dad was pretty shook because they literally had needles in his eye at that moment
Quite often! Like everyone else has mentioned, one moment you’re in the OR, and then the next moment they’re waking you up and making sure you’re alright.
A lot of times they don’t even seem to ask me to count backwards anymore, I remember one time I asked if they wanted me to and they said “Nope, we’ve already started the meds so you should be asleep in a few seconds”, I remember getting very sleepy and saying something along the lines of “Oh, well that explains a lot” and then I was waking back up. There was a time where they did have me count backwards, and when I got to 80 they were quite confused - apparently my IV had an issue so I wasn’t actually getting the meds (they generally use propofol and a local anesthetic over here, the local one first since propofol can have a burning sensation). They fixed it quickly, had me restart the count, and I don’t even think I made it to 95 before being out.
I have never had any negative side effects from it thankfully, but I have noticed that the longer the procedure is, the more tired you feel after you come out of it. It’s common for me to fall back asleep after a 7 hour procedure, but for one that is an hour or less once they wake me up I’m generally awake for the rest of the day.
Broke my arm snowboarding. It was totally crooked, they had to put me under to set it. I fell asleep couldn’t move, but was awake the whole time. I just laid there and listened to the doctor and nurses conversations. The second time I had to get all 4 wisdom teeth pulled but they had to do a biopsy on a growth in my jaw. That one was just a count down then I woke up shivering in a medical bed next to other people that got put under. No dreams, just woke up and asked for a blanket.
You count down in the OR with someone pushing the meds through your IV and then you wake up. Some comments here say that they didn’t dream, but I did. I hardly remember but over a 5-6 hour surgery I remember having a dream that felt like months. The time under anesthesia felt much longer than the actual time that passed for everyone else. I’ve had it happen twice with more coming up and it’s always been the same.
It’s pretty uneventful. I had surgery earlier this year and was put under. I recall them hooking up the IV, waiting 5-10 minutes, then coming back to wheel me into the OR. They had me transfer into the operating table, and I remember looking up at the bright lights and the surprising amount of people in the room for my basic surgery, and then the next thing I know, I’m waking up in my bed a couple hours later. I didn’t feel groggy, it just felt like waking up from a deep sleep where you don’t dream at all. Time passes in an instant.
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