have been talking to minyn about the aspect of amnesia in sedation and in general anaesthesia. she was describing a patient who came into her emergency room today to have an abscess removed. he was given a local anaesthetic and and also sedated to make the procedure more bearable. (essentially the surgeon made a direct cut at the site and let the blood, pus and fatty tissue flow out.) the patient was thrashing about and cursing throughout the procedure, but minyin tells me that sedation induces amnesia and he would not remember his experience. does that mean he'll experience it in terms of "time loss?" i wanted to know. (i'm also thinking about julian and his sleeping beauty thought experiment. though all sleep is time loss i suppose? like death (bill door!) in reaper man. but then i'm sure that when she and i talk about consciousness and states of consciousness we aren't thinking abou the same thing. i think i remember the experience of being under general anaesthesia - i had an operation when i was 8 - at least when i say i remember i mean i remember going under, and seeing people in masks and pyjamas hovering above me, and then waking up in my hospital room afterwards. that is to say that i remember not remembering. but i don't think i've ever had a procedure under conscious sedation. minyin says that in anaesthesia the four main components are "analgesia, amnesia, awareness and paralysis." since sedation has different aims and effects from anaesthesia - because clearly her patient had some awareness of the procedure and if he could thrash about i guess you couldn't call that paralysis except to say that his response to stimulation is lessened,i suppose the aspect of analgesia isn't as important here since he had a local anaesthetic already, though clearly he still felt some pain. so i guess other than the amnesia (which seems like a certainty from what she tells me) i don't really understand how conscious sedation works. that is it is meant to be a kindness, but what i haven't quite understood (she is always running off mid-conversation just when i start questioning her!!!) whether the kindness is only in the form of forgetting. but then that is a different question too - that of the role of memory in consciousness. this too is more in julian's line, i think, altered states of consciousness?