Waking up is hard to do

The Atlantic has an article on the largest study ever performed of anesthesia awareness. Here are a few of the main conclusions:

Anesthesia awareness is rare - maybe rarer than previously thought. Other reports have said it happens in about 1 or 2 of every 1,000 operations, but the new study found an incidence of only 1 episode per 19,000 operations.

About half the people who report the experience say it was distressing, while the other half say it was neutral. Apparently nobody finds it a positive experience.

"41 percent of patients who woke under anesthesia had moderate to severe long-term psychological effects afterward." These effects often take the form of post-traumatic stress disorder, which can persist for years.

An inability to move is the most common feature mentioned by patients. One patient wrote: "Suddenly, I was aware something had gone very wrong. I could hear what was going on around me, and I realized with horror that I had woken up in the middle of the operation, but couldn’t move a muscle."

18% feel some pain.

Though it is probably unnecessary to do so, I can't help comparing these reports with typical NDEs. Remember that some skeptics have argued that NDEs - at least those that take place during surgery - are episodes of anesthesia awareness.

And yet the typical NDE includes none of these features. A typical NDE ...

• is a positive experience, sometimes qualifying as euphoric
• is marked by the sense of unfettered movement, either as a disembodied spirit in the operating room or as spirit speeding toward (and sometimes into) a bright light
• involves no pain whatsoever, at least until the person returns to his or her body
• does not result in PTSD, but instead often leads to a deeper appreciation and enjoyment of life.

Now, I know there are some nightmarish or hellish NDEs. But even these are not characterized by paralysis, pain, or PTSD. And they seem to be quite rare.

The only major overlap I can see between anesthesia awareness and the NDE is that, in both cases, the patient reports hearing what the doctors and nurses are saying. But unlike the NDEr, the patient with anesthesia awareness does not report seeing the operation - and certainly not viewing it from a height. Yet we are told that NDErs unconsciously construct this visual image to correspond to the sounds they hear. If this were so, why would NDErs have a visual experience while anesthesia awareness patients do not? If the brain is wired to automatically construct images that match sounds, wouldn't both groups be equally likely to translate their auditory impressions into faux visual terms?

When we look at the most common features of anesthesia awareness - paralysis (42%), hearing noises or voices (37%), feeling non-painful touches (21%), inability to breathe or a feeling of suffocation (11%), and “dreamlike experiences” (5%) - we're seeing things that, for the most part, NDErs never report. I've read hundreds of NDE accounts, and never have I read one in which the person feared he or she was "suffocating" or felt the "touches" of the medical crew. In fact, a sense of separation from the physical body and a lack of interest in what is being done to it are common. Normally, NDErs feel liberated, not confined; invigorated, not suffocating; safe and well, not panicky and threatened.

As for "dreamlike experiences," the term is too vague to be meaningful, but note that NDErs usually insist that their experience was not dreamlike at all, but instead more real than ordinary life.

Overall, this new four-year study, involving "every hospital in the U.K. and Ireland, as well as 300 anecdotal reports," seems to cast further doubt on the already dubious claim that NDEs can be explained as instances of anesthesia awareness.

Comments

[Matt Rouge]

Great post, succinct and cogent analysis!

[Duck soup]

Yes, excellent post, Michael.

I hope Gerry Woerlee reads this and has the decency to don a hair shirt.

[Boo boo]

I hope he does, too. Ha ha!

[Leewoof]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for a good analysis and synopsis. Always informative.

[Faisal]

It seems to me that there are 2 basic categories of interpretation of experiences such as NDEs.

One is that they are experiences that provide a glimpse of consciousness continuing in some form after bodily death.

Another is that there is some sort deception taking place.

I am wondering if there is any other possible category of interpretation; neither survival in some form nor some kind of deception?

[Bruce Siegel]

"I am wondering if there is any other possible category of interpretation; neither survival in some form nor some kind of deception?"

Seems to me it logically has to be one or the other. Since virtually all NDErs consider their experience to be proof of survival, they're either right or they're deceived.

Why do you ask the question, Faisal? Do you have some inkling yourself of another possibility?

[Faisal]

Thanks for your comment Bruce.

I also see this kind of options ; survival or deception.

If these are the only 2 kind of options then this implications for the position of people who try to deny that experiences such as NDEs lead us to the conclusion that consciousness survives bodily death.

The implications are ; that some sort of deception on a grand scale is taking place, and that a case needs to be made that such deception is taking place, or accept that we can doubt pretty much every thing (like whether we are actually commenting on this blog or are being deceived).

The reason I was asking the question if there is any other option other than survival or deception is that I was wondering if there is any way to avoid these implications.

[Roslyn Ross]

Waking up under anaesthesia.....

I have only ever had anaesthetics once and I returned to consciousness - it was not frightening or anything and as soon as they noticed they whacked me out again but what was fascinating was that I was awake long enough to see what they were doing on a monitor and what I saw was exactly what I had visualized through meditation as the problem, which was not much of a problem, but it seems, whoever was in charge of me, decided to 'wake me up' at that point so I could see and verify what my intuition had told me in the first place.

It happened quite some years ago, during a time when I was doing a lot of inner work on mind/body and working with the body and trusting the body etc., so to be made 'conscious' at just that point, to see something I needed to see, was, I believe, quite remarkable. Or perhaps quite ordinary.

It just confirmed my sense that there is a part of us which is always conscious and 'directing' and 'intervening' where necessary, which is the part, I believe, which is conscious during NDE's - the part which is conscious regardless of the state of the material body.

[Boo boo]

Great post, Roslyn Ross