Tag Archives: consciousness

On Mortality

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Two weeks ago I had to undergo a surgery to remove what my doctor believed to be a benign tumor. The night before I had to go the hospital I told my husband I didn’t want to go through with it. I was afraid of what would happen if the surgery didn’t go well, like ending up with facial paralysis, etc. But my husband wouldn’t have any of it and assured me it would be OK.

On the day of the surgery I was not really scared, and my husband and I were even joking as he helped wheel me through the operating room. My attitude was kind of the same as when I had the C-section — just get it over and done with.

It wasn’t my first time to be put under general anesthesia, but this was the longest I was unconscious — two hours and a half. And when I woke up, I felt like days had passed instead of just 2 and a half hours. I was disoriented for days after the surgery.

It didn’t help that I couldn’t sleep for about a week. Even now I still feel weak and don’t feel like my normal self.

It feels so strange how you’re up and so active one day and the next you’re too weak to even walk half a kilometer.

Two days before the surgery I helped organize a webinar which was more successful than our professor and the department ever expected. I played a big role in organizing it as I had invited the speaker and some participants from other countries.

After the surgery, the excitement over the successful webinar was just like a dream.

Two weeks after the surgery I still wonder about the time I was put under for two hours. I was unconscious. It was not like sleeping at all. When you wake up from a sleep, you know you had been sleeping. But when I woke up from anesthesia, I felt like for a few hours, I ceased to be. My world stopped. I was gone. And it made me wonder if death is just the same. When we die, is it like our consciousness has been switched off? If death is just like that, what’s there to fear?

I think I’ve said it here before. I’m not really afraid of dying, but living in pain, or leaving behind people who need me, like my son.

But I know some people who are afraid of the uncertainty surrounding death.

My interest in the subject of anesthesia led me to this article about anesthesia for dying patients. Quite an interesting article.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a good week!

On Reality

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reality

When I was still a child, I often heard my mother tell people about how I liked to look up at the sky —  wondering, (over)thinking, imagining, which was why she didn’t let me wash the dishes. It took me forever to finish.

These days I find myself doing the same thing — taking some time to finish washing the dishes because I keep looking up at the sky from my kitchen window and wondering, “Is there somebody up there watching us live our lives here below?”

I shared this thought with my husband, who simply laughed and said, “Oh, yes! And they are looking down and saying, ‘Oh look at this cute little girl bravely asking such questions!” (Let me be clear on this one: No one else thinks I’m cute except my husband. That’s why he’s my husband.) 

Ever since I read Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” Marquez’s “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” and Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” over twenty years ago, I’ve always wondered about the nature of “reality.” I remembered asking the question, what if there was another world where their idea of reality is different from ours?

It was a few years later that I read Bradbury’s stories, and watched “The Matrix” and my idea of “reality” was further changed. Two years ago I watched “Interstellar” and the scene where Cooper was finally able to communicate with Murph (they once thought there was a “ghost”) made me think of what we think is “real” or “imagined.”(Some of my friends who are into science fiction weren’t very impressed with “Interstellar,”  but I’m not a big sci-fi fan, so it was very impressive for me.) 

These days there are more and more people talking  about the simulation hypothesis and consciousness and how human beings can suddenly change because of some damage to the brain. Reading about the brain and consciousness and theories on reality and our existence makes me even more eager to know the truth about our existence, our reality.

Just yesterday I started watching the HBO TV series, Westworld, and perhaps this is the reason at 11:31 in the evening I am still up writing this. Hopefully with the popularity of this TV series, more people will be asking questions about our existence and actively seek answers to these questions.

Who are we?

I really want to know.