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.
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.