• robolemmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    One of the first drugs they give you before surgery interferes with the formation of long term memories. There’s a good chance you were awake and aware for quite awhile after the first injection… you just couldn’t make long term memories about it.

      • ManOMorphos@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Causing memory loss is an important part of anesthesia. Usually it’s done with very strong sedatives that are in a similar family to benzodiazepines.

      • BlueOysterCultist@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        I’d assume they meant short term, cus losing long term memory formation for any amount of time would be trrrifying

        I’m unsure of it being the intended effect or a side effect

        • robolemmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          Nope, I definitely mean long term. That’s the whole point… you don’t remember what happens for a little while, and it’s definitely on purpose. They also give you a soporific (makes you unconscious) and a paralytic (so you don’t move voluntarily or otherwise).

          • BlueOysterCultist@lemmy.zip
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            3 days ago

            That sounds like short term though

            Like roofies affect short term memory, you can’t form memories during a short period of time (e.g hours). Short term memories feed long term memory.

            Short term memory is what I ate for breakfast, long term memory are my ABCs and knowing how to drive.

            • robolemmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 days ago

              What we have here is a terminology problem.

              When you experience anything it immediately forms a short term memory. To retain it for more than a brief period that short term memory has to be converted or moved to long term memory. These anaesthia drugs interfere with the process that moves short to long term memory.

            • LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
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              3 days ago

              Hm. I am not super firm on the definitions, but I remember having a hard time forming new memories when I took quite a bunch of cannabis. Scary shit. I basically “existed” in intervals of around a (subjective) minute or so, with nothing to do except to wait it out.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
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      2 days ago

      How long term are we talking about? Because I remember being immediately surprised by it once I got awake, way before the effects fully subsided. It’s not that I just don’t remember it now, specifically.

      • robolemmy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 days ago

        Yeah, you won’t remember anything from the time it kicks in to the time it wears off, give or take a couple of minutes.

        The first time I went in for a surgery, my memory ends shortly after they pushed the first drug into my IV but my mom was there and she said we talked for another 15 minutes before they took me to the OR. I remember none of it but she says I was completely lucid as far as she could tell.