Anesthesiologists Have Discovered The Third Dimension Of Consciousness

Professor Pandit, who works as an anesthetic doctor at Oxford University Hospital, talks about the  third level of consciousness that some patients move to when given a regular anesthetic injection.  

Is it possible to wake up during normal anesthesia?

According to Pandit, the possibility of the existence of the third dimension of human consciousness is linked to the  variability of the medical specialty. No one can ever be absolutely sure that certain medications have had the intended effect. It is very complicated to be able to individualize the right medicine in just the right proportions for each patient, even if the person in charge has long training and many decades of experience working in the operating room.

Yes, it is very possible to suddenly wake up in the middle of an operation, but not quite completely. We may find ourselves in the so-called third dimension of consciousness that Pandit described in his studies. It is quite clear that we are not awake as we are unable to move or communicate in any way. But we are also not completely unconscious and unaware of external factors. 

This is a state where the patient is neither conscious nor unconscious.  It affects a very small number of patients who are taken to the operating room and placed under normal anesthesia. Nevertheless, this is an issue that is understandably a cause for concern among professionals. The patient is able to be aware of the surgery going on and all that is happening around them at that moment, but they are still unable to do anything about it. 

However, we should not worry about this, as statistics show that only one in 15,000 patients says they remember something about surgery after they have woken up from anesthesia. These are the individuals who never reach complete state of unconsciousness when receiving anesthesia.

Pandit is very rightly considered one of the best anesthetists in his country, and he has focused much of his research on this very phenomenon.

Healthcare professionals specializing in anesthesia control heart rate, respiration, the amount of drugs in the blood, and many other things, but  this does not seem to be enough to fully guarantee that the patient is in a state of total unconsciousness during surgery. Of course, some signs of waking up, such as an increase in heart rate or an increase in blood pressure, warn doctors, but these physiological signs usually reverse or slow with medication given during surgery.

Indeed, a respected and experienced anesthesiologist has resorted to a very old technique that allows him to paralyze the entire body of a patient with the exception of one of his arms to show that this is possible. One-third of the patients who appeared to be unconscious during surgery moved the fingers of their working hand as instructed.

“In fact, these patients are in a state of unconsciousness in a certain way, but still they are able to respond surprisingly well to external stimuli and verbal commands, for example,” says Pandit. “What’s very particularly interesting and surprising is that they only move their fingers if they are told to do so. None of these patients responded to surgery. They probably didn’t feel any pain during that time. ”

We have still not been able to define exactly what human consciousness really is. As a result, investigating and monitoring its absence is an even more complex task.