have you ever wondered if anesthesia effectively kills your consciousness, and by association, you? and you then wake up a completely different person and although it may feel like there was continuity, this is just because the new person retains all the memories of the old person?
i think about this all the time and it freaks me out. i might be on my 3rd or 4th life by now, so might have unwittingly committed suicide 2 or 3 times.
i really REALLY need a colonoscopy done but don't know if i will go through with it because of this.
Aw, get over it. You sleep every day, it's very similar and you should not regard it as any different.
When I woke up from my shoulder surgery I was interviewed and informed about what happened during the procedure by the surgeon's assistant. She proclaimed that I was remarkably astute, much more so than what she was used to. It was because I was very involved in the whole thing already.
Anesthesia doesn't scare me in the least. It's one of the most wonderful aspects of modern medicine. Imagine the excruciating pain that surgery used to entail before anesthesia was developed.
My father was an anesthesiologist, which is an M.D. whose job is to both prevent the patient from feeling pain and keep the patient in stable condition during the procedure, which obivously also entails keeping the patient alive. He established relationships with many thousands of people (the patients) over his long career. He'd make rounds every day and talk to patients before their procedures to get a rapport and to determine their condition and assess/analyze/prepare and make appropriate decisions about the upcoming operation.
I have never hesitated or worried about anesthesia in regards to myself. I am so grateful that it's available.
You know, waking up from anesthesia can be very pleasing. Some of those drugs make you feel euphoric.
Get your colonoscopy. The procedure is nothing. I've had several. The preparation to clean out your colon is the only difficulty.
Now who you are! That's another question and a philosophical one and I think you should pursue that. But try to get over any neurosis you might have. In reality you are more than you think, way more... and more than that!