#23 Awake vs. Awake
Each year, over 210,000,000 people receive general anesthesia. The vast majority go to sleep peacefully. They remember nothing. 30,000 of these people are not so fortunate. They find themselves unable to sleep. Trapped in a phenomenon known as anesthesia awareness. These victims are completely paralyzed. They cannot scream for help. They are awake.
A very long time ago, I saw the movie Awake. The story was about a millionaire named Clay who met Sam, his mother’s secretary. They fell in love with each other and got married although his mother opposed their marriage very strongly. Clay had a heart disease and had to get a transplant. Before getting the surgery, they married at a church and then went to the hospital. His mother came to the hospital and opposed the surgery because the doctor who was in charge of Clay’s surgery had four medical accidents, so his mother didn’t want his son to get the surgery from a third-rate doctor. The doctor named Jack was Clay’s friend. When Clay had a heart attack, he saved his life, and they became close friends. So, Clay believed in Jack despite his problematic career. However, there was a conspiracy behind the surgery. Moreover, he experienced anesthesia awareness. It looked very scary, but thanks to the accident, he got to know the truth surrounding the conspiracy of the surgery.
I’ve never had surgery that I had to receive general anesthesia, but I’ve received short-term anesthesia when I got an endoscopy for a regular check-up. The feeling of anesthetic drugs called propofol flowing through my veins was a little weird. The weirdest thing was that I remembered nothing. I blacked out. I lost my memory for about thirty minutes, but it felt like my life was paused for a while and then continued to be played. When I had the endoscopy and colonoscopy together, I woke up for some seconds between two check-ups, but the nurse recognized that I was waking up and gave me more drugs. That was my only experience with anesthesia. If I were awake during the surgery, it would be terrifying. I could feel my skin being cut and my bone being sawed, and I could hear doctors talking and all kinds of noises during the surgery. Most of all I could feel unimaginable pain. I might faint or die from the pain. I haven’t been one of the unfortunate 30,000 people, but it was a very shocking fact that 30,000 people were awake while getting the surgery. Nevertheless, I liked the moment when I was in anesthesia because I could have a really good sleep.
The other version of Awake is different from the first movie, and it has nothing to do with anesthesia. It is about a dream. Michael, the protagonist of the movie, who is in the LAPD had a car accident. After that day, he lived two lives. One is real, and the other is a dream. But he cannot find which one is his real life. There is one more weird thing, his son survived in one life, and his wife survived in another life. He was very confused and went to a psychiatrist, but two psychiatrists in both of his lives insist that this moment is real, and they are real. However, there is a conspiracy behind the accident. He got to know it and tries to find out the truth.
Well, I’ve experienced pain, feeling warm, and someone touching me in my dream. And I’ve had déjà vu where I’ve seen the situation from my dream in reality. Or I’ve experienced that the dream I had was so sweet that I didn’t want to wake up. To me, dreams are always what I’m dreaming while I’m sleeping even though it is really vivid. What people are dreaming every night is an interesting function of the brain. Some people said that dreaming is the process of the brain organizing memories of what we perceived consciously or unconsciously during the whole day. Others like Freud argued that dreams are projections of our subconscious minds. Dreaming is one of the mysterious things that science hasn’t cracked yet. That is why a lot of interesting stories were created by a theme of a dream. Also, there is one more interesting fact about what makes us different from robots or androids. Anyways, I don’t remember my dream of last night, but I’m always whishing that I can have a sweet dream.
So, to all readers, have a good night’s sleep and have a sweet dream.
