Where are you during anesthesia?

A subscriber to this newsletter recently posed a very thoughtful question.

Although he was almost convinced that there is something more to us than body and mind (by the mere fact that we can observe the body and the mind which must involve an "it" that does the observing), he asked why this "it" remains subject to external influences?

He cited general anesthesia which "knocks us out during an operation. It goes black and that's that. We wake up after, and for a few short moments we do not know who we are, where we are or why we are". He questioned; "If there is something else, why is it also affected by general anesthesia and not able to be separate to which is happening during an operation?"

To respond in a meaningful way, we must examine the origin of the word anesthesia. We find it is from the Greek - anaisth sia - which means "lack of sensation".

Even though our sensory abilities are suspended at this time, we clearly still exist, as evidenced by the passage of time and witnesses to the event. If one were to rely solely on the mind in this instance, one would genuinely state that one did not exist. We have no memory of the event but this does not preclude any type of awareness. There was awareness enough to continue respiration, blood flow, temperature regulation, and so on.

If I were to ask you to recall what you were specifically aware of at 7:03 pm on the 15th of last month, it is likely your memory would fail you. The mind and in turn the memory are not infallible. Perhaps you have even had the experience of driving a long distance and suddenly being aware that you have been so preoccupied that you do not recall the last 5 miles which you clearly had the awareness to navigate! Or the last 5 pages of a book you are finding terribly boring which you nonetheless used your eye movements to scan and recognize words. There was certainly an ongoing level of awareness during these examples, yet our memory betrays us.

Going further, a non-dualist would say that the past and future exist in the mind only and are bound by time and space. That in reality all is one and all is here and now. The law of cause and effect is still in the mind only, but you are not your mind. By this definition, anesthesia would be in the mind only.