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Anesthesia Awareness
5-MeO-DMT may offer a practical way to access and study consciousness in its most basic form.
A universal signature could make surgeries safer — and help reveal what holds consciousness together.
After the trauma of a high-risk medical procedure, Eric Markowitz discovered a kind of consciousness that lives not in thought — but in presence.
"The amount of interest is enormous," says anesthesiologist Boris Heifets. "People are dropping in and coming out of the woodwork, trying to understand how to do this."
"Upon emergence, these patients are sincerely unsure what was reality and what was a ‘dream.'"
Propofol, a drug commonly used for general anesthesia, derails the brain’s normal balance between stability and excitability.
What creates our private, inner universes is still a mystery.
Anesthesia causes animals and humans to lose consciousness. A study found it has a similar effect on Venus flytraps.
“At that time, it was just a wild idea, [...] that instead of just a loss of consciousness, anesthetics may do something to the brain that actually turns pain off.”