i've always wanted to go into surgery though...i want to experience ''going under''...i'm weird like that
Here's what it feels like: they give you a shot that makes you very, very woozy. Or if you hate shots they shoot it directly into your IV and you lose consciousness as soon as the drug takes full effect, very quickly. With the IV you're talking and fine one minute and the next you're totally unconscious. With the shot you may stay awake long enough for the OR folks to joke and make fun while they prepare you for surgery. You are aware of them rushing all over the room and doing things to you. One time they did the scene from Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is waking up from the knock on her head, "Remember me?" Also, I recall them rolling my bed through an elevator door, telling me to think thin so we could fit through. I remember being so high and actually taking them seriously, thinking the bed thinner so we could make it through.
Next is when you wake up. You are groggy, you pass out, you wake up and it all feels instantaneous. It's as if they broke your film and cut out the surgery and spliced it back together again. You have no sense of time passing.
If you've been under very deeply and for a long time, you wake up to feeling very groggy, high, everything is fuzzy, yellow and you will feel that way for a varying number of days. In my case, for two different surgeries, I woke up in intensive care that way and spent a few days there, basically helpless and fuzzily aware of reality when I wasn't sleeping.
If your surgery was more minor and you don't go under heavily, you may wake up while still in recovery and be alert enough to joke with the nurses.
I had a breast biopsy and was put to sleep rather than put under anesthetic. I began to feel them cutting into me with the scalpel. I couldn't move or open my eyes or talk. I finally managed to groan and groan again. I heard them say, "She's waking up, give her more XXXX." (something made from soybeans) They gave me more and I went back to sleep. I did sense time passing that time because it wasn't anesthesia.
If you wake up while you're under anesthesia, you will not be able to moan or communicate to the doctors that you are awake. They give you a drug similar to kurare, that paralyzes you so you can't move or fight them.
I don't recommend going under as a fun experience. The after effects can last a year or more and some you don't recover from. Also, with many surgeries, the anesthesiologist will bring you as close to death as possible without actually killing you, a very sobering thing to ponder then experience.