Purely anecdotal, but I had surgery a few years ago (relatively minor). But I could feel for months after a sort of 'unconscious PSTD' I don't know how else to describe it. Even after it was healed and the pain was gone, there was just a deep sense of 'something bad happened in there' feeling. I'd have dreams of someone digging around in my body. Anyway, it's all gone now, but a weird experience for sure.

I had the same thoughts "but won't i feel it THEN?" when I was getting an upper endoscopy. The anesthesiologist said you're in such a trance, dreamlike state plus with the inability to form memories its like you're not your real "consciousness" but something different. Sort of like your brain is in "limp mode" and its not really _you._ This was both comforting and slightly terrifying in a different way.

I had a dentist explain to me the same for getting my wisdom teeth out, as if it was a selling feature. At least for me, having my memory wiped is far more scary than just being put unconscious (or having some pain and a local anaesthetic).

> so I was unconscious for the whole thing

Or so they claim - the patient would have no memory of that anyway.

> the doctor explained to me that I would be awake for part of the procedure, but the anesthesia meant that I would have no memory of it

The short story "Transition Dreams" by Greg Egan touches on this concept

I've thought a lot about this. If you experience immense pain for half a second, then immediately forget, it doesn't seem so bad. And anything bad that has happened to you that you completely forgot doesn't really affect you. Sometimes when I'm feeling ill, I'll think to myself, "If I remember having this thought, then this sickness is terrible, but if I forget the whole experience, it isn't. If I eventually forget this happened, then this current pain is not real." Then when I remember that, I know that moment in time contributed to my total self. But surely I have also thought this without remembering it.

Does a full day of torture, completely forgotten, really matter? How long before it does matter? We forget vast amounts of our lives constantly. And after death, forgetting everything, how much mattered then? It's a mindfuck.

Oh yeah, I've had two cath lab visits. In both of them, I woke up in the middle of the process, conscious enough to recognize that the black-and-white image on the screen was me with a wire in my heart and little puffs of dye.

The first time it happened, I was fascinated watching the process. I thought I asked them a question about what I was seeing. I probably was just mumbling. The second time, I had a bright white ball of nuclear fire in my chest, and in my mind's eye, my ribs were slumping under the heat. I tried to tell them about the burning sensation, and I apologized for complaining (one should always be polite to the doctor running a wire through one's arteries and into one's heart).

In both cases, after I tried to speak, the room went black again.

As I relate the story, I can see how, for some people, it would be nightmare fuel. But for me it was this abstract "hey, that's cool."

Colonoscopies used to be like this in the US more often (“you’ll be awake but won’t remember it”). I feel bad for the me that existed in that time window of discomfort. 20 years later they did general anesthesia (family history of colon cancer).

I had a low stakes cyst removal from my butt crack once. Sparing the other details, the anesthesiologist explained the different drugs, one to numb, one to prevent my memory from forming. I asked if they could leave out the memory drug and I could remain cognizant. She didn't mind and I had a nice chat with her about anesthetics while on my stomach having doctors cut out part of my butt.

...or that's what they told you afterward 0_0