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Anesthesia : the gift of oblivion and the mystery of consciousness / Kate Cole-Adams.

by Cole-Adams, Kate.

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Counterpoint Press, 2017.

Anesthesia -- Case studies.

Consciousness -- Physiological aspects.

Loss of consciousness.

9781619029507 (hc.)

408 pages ; 24 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 387-400) and index.

Into the blue -- Going under. Awake ; Denial ; Paralysis ; Two hearts -- The cold bosom of the ocean. Questions without answers ; Things you don't know you know ; Weird science ; Moonless nights ; Lost days ; The most famous anesthesiologist in the world -- ; Adrift. The island ; Dreams ; Altered states ; Ghost stories -- Small bright fish. General amnesia ; A working hypothesis ; The memory keepers ; The perfect anesthetic -- Merging currents. Coming apart ; The hypnotist ; Regression -- Surfacing. Pulsations and palpitations ; The shallows ; Blood and blushing ; Ballast ; That younger me ; Sky ; Letting go ; Wings.

"Anesthetize: to render insensible. First there's the injection, then the countdown - and next thing you know, you're awake. The story of the time in between, an exploration of that most crucial and baffling gift of modern medicine: the disappearing act that enables us to undergo procedures that would otherwise be impossibly, often fatally, painful. In the past 150 years, anesthesia has made surgical intervention routine, from open-heart surgery to the facelift. But how much do anesthesiologists really know about what happens when their patients go under? Can we hear and retain what's going on? Is pain still pain if we don't remember it? How does the unconscious mind deal with the body's experience of being sliced open and ransacked, and how can we help ourselves through it all? Kate Cole-Adams weaves her own personal experiences with surgery and its aftermath with the explorations and personal accounts of others, doctors and patients alike - accounts of people who wake under the knife, who experience traumatic reactions, dreams, hallucinations, and submerged memories - accounts that evoke and illuminate the provisional nature of the self. Kate Cole-Adams is a journalist and novelist. Her debut novel, Walking to the Moon, was published in 2008. She lives in Melbourne"--Provided by publisher.

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