
Could a Dose of Ether Contain the Secret to Consciousness? - rfreytag
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/apr/16-could-dose-ether-contain-secret-consciousness
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RiderOfGiraffes
Single page:

[http://discovermagazine.com/2009/apr/16-could-dose-ether-
con...](http://discovermagazine.com/2009/apr/16-could-dose-ether-contain-
secret-consciousness/article_print)

A friend of a friend is an extremely senior anaesthetist. Extremely senior.
When asked what she does for a living she looks very serious and says "I
poison people until they're nearly dead, and keep them that way for hours.
Then I bring them back to life."

Cool trick.

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swombat
Fascinating.

As someone who's been under full anesthesia twice, I can definitely relate to
the knotted-stomach feeling... It always seems fine from a distance, but when
you're actually sitting in the waiting room or lying on your bed in the
corridor, waiting to be put to sleep, it's truly a terrifying experience.
"Someone will put me to sleep now and there's a small chance I may not wake
up" is what usually goes through my head. It gives me the shivers to think
about it even now.

And then you wake up and feel immensely drowsy and this pain thing keeps
nagging at the edge of your consciousness (but that's ok, you can get an extra
morphine shot and make it go away).

On the whole, I think the conclusion has to be: don't get yourself in
situations which will require you to be operated (both of my surgeries were
caused by things I had done).

~~~
mynameishere
Hmm. They're supposed to dose you with diazepam first.

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swombat
They did dose me with some stuff to calm me down... but I was still quite
worried (not beyond control or anything).

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davi
article focuses on differential activity of thalumus under anesthetic; this
immediately brings to mind Francis Crick's searchlight hypothesis:

<http://www.pnas.org/content/81/14/4586.abstract>

