Circa 2008, I don’t think we had great methods for detecting such cases, so I’m curious how your surgeons realized that you were awake. And there’s a term for that state in the literature: Inverse-Zombies. That happens about 0.13% of the time with some anaesthetics. And surgeons paid less attention to this stuff until about 1.5-2 decades ago, and you’d get some cases where people were awake, paralyzed and in pain. Some proportion of those had PTSD.
Perhaps you misunderstood my story. With surgery, they usually give a ‘relaxant’ (which can also inhibit memory formation) before the anesthesia which actually puts you asleep. In my case the anesthesia worked normally. The ‘relaxant’ had the perverse effect of giving me a panic attack and temporary inability to intentionally move or speak. A few minutes later, they gave the anesthesia and I went unconscious as per normal.
A few minutes later, they gave the anesthesia and I went unconscious as per normal.
You mean, you remember nothing after a few minutes into the anesthesia and so you assume you went unconscious as normal, despite the previous abnormality.
After all, as you said, it’s not like you could talk or make any kind of voluntary movement which might indicate to observers unaffected by anesthetic memory loss that you were conscious...
True! I have no evidence either way beyond that point of the anesthesia being administered. I don’t have any traumatic memories beyond that point though, so I feel good about it.
Circa 2008, I don’t think we had great methods for detecting such cases, so I’m curious how your surgeons realized that you were awake. And there’s a term for that state in the literature: Inverse-Zombies. That happens about 0.13% of the time with some anaesthetics. And surgeons paid less attention to this stuff until about 1.5-2 decades ago, and you’d get some cases where people were awake, paralyzed and in pain. Some proportion of those had PTSD.
Perhaps you misunderstood my story. With surgery, they usually give a ‘relaxant’ (which can also inhibit memory formation) before the anesthesia which actually puts you asleep. In my case the anesthesia worked normally. The ‘relaxant’ had the perverse effect of giving me a panic attack and temporary inability to intentionally move or speak. A few minutes later, they gave the anesthesia and I went unconscious as per normal.
You mean, you remember nothing after a few minutes into the anesthesia and so you assume you went unconscious as normal, despite the previous abnormality.
After all, as you said, it’s not like you could talk or make any kind of voluntary movement which might indicate to observers unaffected by anesthetic memory loss that you were conscious...
True! I have no evidence either way beyond that point of the anesthesia being administered. I don’t have any traumatic memories beyond that point though, so I feel good about it.