I think the amnesiac effect of many anaesthestics also tricks us into thinking we go totally unconscious under their effects. I've been operated on several times and sustained near life threatening injuries in the past. I can't remember any of the most painful bits, despite occasionally making conversation / looking around with my eyes open. I'm thankful I can't remember.
I had to be operated while conscious but lightly sedated and I remember bits of it. I remember being told that I had to receive an injection around the orbit of my eye with anesthesia and that it would be painful. I remember being calm about it. I also remember that it was very painful but I felt ok with that. I was like: "it's true, it's really painful".
So maybe it's like that always, even if you don't remember. You sometimes feel pain, but since you are sedated, you don't feel stressed about the pain.
A more worrying possibility is that we suffer terribly under anesthesia, but we can't move or scream because our muscles are temporarily paralyzed, and we can't remember the ordeal because our memory gets wiped.
> The condition, called anesthesia awareness (waking up) during surgery, means the patient can recall their surroundings, or an event related to the surgery, while under general anesthesia.
That's something else though. You could be very aware but forget it.
The website talks about remembering being conscious. But you could be conscious without remembering it later, which was what I originally talked about.
No, that wouldn't usually happen. I've had surgery a few times. What they do is monitor your brain activity and pulse rate to see if your are coming out of anesthesia for some reason. If you were suffering, at the very least your pulse would go up, and they will notice.
Indeed there is several monitors that can be used to measure “awareness” including entropy, bi-spectral index, and SEDline to name a few.
SEDline is my personal favourite as you can see when a patient has complete “burst suppressions” - this is a total absence of brain activity at all and has been associated with post anesthetic delirium particularly in elderly patients.
The premise is that you create a separate person with a separate "memory bank" that lives in your body. That person can suffer a lot but "vanish" after work hours (or in this case surgery with anesthesia) and "you" you may or may not care about their suffering. Should you? That's the question.
There was some interesting studies and such I read around anesthetics + memory blockers that still lead to some subconscious exhibition of PTSD. I don't have them on hand but there was some interesting stuff on how potentially we may still remember traumatic surgeries even if we can't explicitly recall them.
That's why there's been a push towards refining sedation techniques further both to reduce the odds of a patient being conscious during surgery and also to reduce the amount of stress it can put on the body.
Yes
I got a hint of this the first time I went under, my first memory of being awake was back at home, on my sofa, upstairs.
As my mom tells it, i walked myself to the car, behaved like a weirdo with my feet on the dashboard (never done this once in my life).. sprinted out the car, up the stairs, fell, got up.. went to the sofa, and fell asleep for a few hours.
So clearly I was not out for the entire period I had amnesia for.
It makes me wonder what parts I was unaware of vs what parts I was aware but memory wiped.
I think a fundamental aspect to consciousness is memory recall to be honest.
This line of thought gets kind of philosophical though because I often can’t recall my drive home from work - does that mean I wasn’t conscious? No! - highway hypnosis is yet another interesting consciousness (or lack of) phenomenon.
Consciousness is a continuum not, a binary state. There are also subconscious processes at work.
After a bit of practice you don't have to think about all the intricate actions you have to take to drive a car or ride a bike. Consciously you can focus on something else while other parts of you are aware of your surroundings and what you need to do to drive/ride.
Same with simply walking. Unless you're in unfamiliar/dangerous terrain, you normally don't have to think about where you're going to put your feet or your balance. Your subconscious awareness and competence takes care of all that.
It doesn't mean you're not aware or conscious on some level and to some degree, though.
Counterpoint: Yes! Why not? You didn't need to be conscious for it... I think that's how deep habits work. How would you define conscious in a way that you could count that?
This shows that memory isn't required for consciousness. We can be fully conscious while forgetting everything after a few minutes or less. Actually, when we look at a highly detailed photo or video this is pretty standard: We forget most finer details within seconds.
I think there is a difference between an already conscious being losing their ability to recall memories vs never having the ability in the first place. Maybe you can technically maintain the state of consciousness without forming new memories once you've already achieved it (for example people with Alzheimer's/other forms of dementia, but that is up for debate how "conscious" they are during it's most advanced stages), but getting to the point of consciousness in the first place doesn't really seem possible without some kind of ability to refer back to previous experiences.
Is there something special about memory, or is it just another tool for consciousness?
It seems like consciousness is the conductor and puts to use whatever it has access to (motor function, sensory inputs, memory). Any of those can be significantly impaired (limbs/senses lost, imperfect memory) and the conductor simply adapts and focuses on what remains.
Are people with superior memories able to attain higher consciousness than others? If not and it is a binary, conscious or not conscious, then what is the minimal ability in memory required to attain it?
In my view, memory is not a requirement for consciousness. It is required for learning a language to communicate about your consciousness but not for the process itself. You can be fully aware of yourself and your surroundings without referring to previous experience.
