ekZeppSep 4, 2023

Does Consciousness Disappear in Dreamless Sleep?

https://lemmy.world/post/4445384

Does Consciousness Disappear in Dreamless Sleep? - Lemmy.world

Art [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/die-on-it] by smbc-comics >Consciousness is often said to disappear in deep, dreamless sleep. We argue that this assumption is oversimplified. Unless dreamless sleep is defined as unconscious from the outset there are good empirical and theoretical reasons for saying that a range of different types of sleep experience, some of which are distinct from dreaming, can occur in all stages of sleep. Pubmed Articles [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27765517/] Does Consciousness Disappear in Dreamless Sleep? [https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(16)30152-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1364661316301528%3Fshowall%3Dtrue] Sciencealert Article We Were Wrong About Consciousness Disappearing in Dreamless Sleep, Say Scientists [https://www.sciencealert.com/your-consciousness-does-not-switch-off-during-a-dreamless-sleep-say-scientists]

Show threadLanternEverywhereSep 4, 2023

Sleep is NOTHING like death. You're still experiencing lots of stuff, you still very much have a sense of self, you're still thinking things, your brain is still processing lots of information.

General anesthesia - now THAT is a real close period to what being dead is.

Show threadLorindólSep 4, 2023

I’ve had general anesthesia, it was just like falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

If death is like that, then there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

Show threadDefederateLemmyMlSep 5, 2023

I’ve had general anesthesia, it was just like falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

What if anesthesia actually just blocks your memories and physical reactions, but you actually experience everything that happens to you in absolute terror?

Show threadkevinBLT
Thats exactly what some do, depends on the anesthetic, but it doesn’t matter because if a memory never forms it may as well not have happened.
Sep 5, 2023 at 8:50amWeb
Show threadDefederateLemmyMlSep 5, 2023

if a memory never forms it may as well not have happened

That is an interesting philosophical question.

If suffering is not remembered, was there even suffering? And if there was, does it matter? I can think of a few counterexamples of that, for example: a killer who tortures his victim before killing them.

Show threadEcho DotSep 5, 2023

Presumably in your scenario the victim remembers the torture though.

In the case of general anaesthetic the memory is effectively considered to be deleted in real time. On its way through the brain it ceases to exist so it never reaches the conscious mind.

Show threadpinkdrunkenelephantsSep 5, 2023
Uhh, yes and yes? What’s stopping a rapist from anesthesizing their victims before the act and using the fact that they did as an excuse to get off charges under your logic?
Show threadjarfilSep 6, 2023
Physical abuse tends to leave some physical consequences. You’d have to come up with an example where there would be neither physical not psychological consequences… but even getting anesthesized against one’s will is already a consequence.
Show threadpinkdrunkenelephantsSep 6, 2023

No it doesn’t, not always. Actually it’s routine for medical students to be brought in to give anesthesitized women pelvic exams without their knowledge and consent, and no one was the wiser until universities that did this announced it… nytimes.com/…/pelvic-medical-exam-unconscious.htm…

That is textbook rape right there, and it doesn’t often have physical consequences. Most women didn’t even know but doctors fucking did it anyway.

How you people have any faith in any aspect of this society is beyond me.

She Didn’t Want a Pelvic Exam. She Received One Anyway.

Medical schools and students are grappling with an unsettling practice: Performing pelvic exams on unconscious, non-consenting patients.

The New York Times
Show threadjarfilSep 7, 2023

That article is a mix of several cases.

One of those you might call going against the wishes of the patient… then again, that’s quite common in the ER, patients are yet to be established as “sound of mind” and capable of deciding for themselves, so an ER doctor can overrule them, including sedating to perform any procedures they consider necessary.

Others seem like letting students perform a non-vital part of a procedure, which is both expected from University/teaching hospitals, and in my personal experience was spelled out in the consent form (although they never told me personally, so if I hadn’t read it, I wouldn’t know).

That is textbook rape right there

None of those are. Communication could be improved, and I personally get pissed when medical personnel switches from “medical adult talk” to “patient baby talk” right in front of me… but I’ve also seen patients get upset because they didn’t understand what was being talked about, and had to be calmed down with “baby talk”… so it’s a difficult issue overall.

Show threadjarfilSep 6, 2023

There was a case of a guy, where they botched the anesthesia, and he was just paralyzed but conscious the whole time during some invasive surgery. They realized their mistake, and tried to fix it by giving him some amnesic so he wouldn’t retain the memories.

After getting discharged, he wouldn’t remember anything… but kept having nightmares, and a few weeks later took his own life.

So it seems like memories don’t need to be fully formed to mess one up.

Show threadkevinBLTSep 6, 2023
That sounds like the mechanism might be different though, but yeah some percentage of people wake up during surgery while the paralytic is still in effect, they closely monitor the heart rate for sudden spikes because of this I believe. It sounds horrifying to me, but then I remember that there was a time when anesthetics didn’t exist.