“Take a deep breath, think of something nice, are you already sleeping?
I notice a strange feeling rising in my arm and then peace. I’m not here, I’m in an induced coma. ?
- According to Professor Pandit.
- An anaesthetist at Oxford University hospitals.
- There is a third state of consciousness in which some patients take refuge when undergoing general anesthesia.
The possibility of a third dimension of consciousness, according to Pandit, is mainly derived from the variability of the medical specialty. No one can ever be considered entirely sure that the drugs used have had the desired effect.
It is very difficult to individualize the ideal medication and the precise amount for each patient, even after years and years of training and experience in operating rooms.
Suddenly something happens, do I hear voices, is it a dream?No, they’re real, I hear people in the O. R. talk about the operation. Am I dead? I don’t think so, although hell can be a bit like that.
Yes, it is possible to wake up during surgery, but not quite, we are in this third state described by Professor Pandit in his studies, clearly we are not awake, we cannot move or communicate, but we are not completely insensitive to external impulses. .
It is a condition in which the patient is not conscious and is not completely unconscious, affects a small proportion of patients undergoing surgery and general anesthesia.
However, it is a fact that worries professionals. The patient performs the operation and everything that happens around him, but there is nothing he can do about it.
“I can feel your hands in my body, surgical instruments make their way inside me. I’m scared. I want to scream!But I can’t articulate a word, I notice a tube running down my throat. I can’t move! I’m paralyzed. I can only hope that the operation will end, so motionless, suffering every second, wishing that this intermittent beep I hear will not stop ringing.
But don’t be alarmed, according to statistics, only one in 15,000 patients claims to remember an episode related to the operation after waking up, it is these patients who, after receiving anesthesia, have never reached total unconsciousness.
Dr. Pandit is considered one of the best anesthesiologists in his country and has focused his research on the study of this phenomenon, a discovery that clearly highlights current follow-up methods during the intervention.
Anaesthetists monitor heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, blood medication levels, etc. , but none of this seems to be enough to ensure the patient’s total unconsciousness during surgery.
Some symptoms of awakening, such as increased heart rate or blood pressure, should alert doctors, but often these physiological signs can be disabled with medications given during the operation.
The prestigious anaesthetist used an ancient technique that allows paralysis of the entire body, with the exception of one of the patient’s forearms, to show that this is possible, a third of patients who were apparently unconscious during the procedure moved their fingers into the free arm in response to direct orders.
“For all useful purposes, are these patients in a state of unconsciousness, but can they respond to certain external stimuli, such as verbal orders?Did Dr. Pandit say? The extraordinary thing is that the fingers only move on demand. No patient responded to the surgery, you probably don’t feel any pain?
“It’s been three weeks since the operation, but I can’t sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, heartbroken. I will never forget the feeling of suffocation and death I felt during those endless minutes.
Although this is actually a very rare possibility, an experience of this caliber can become extremely traumatic; in fact, patients who experience such a situation generally suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and panic attacks.
We are still unable to accurately establish what human consciousness is and, therefore, monitoring its absence is still very complicated.