Some modern anesthetics are like that. It appears they don't reduce the actual pain, they just disrupt your memory so you don't know about it afterward.
So even if you felt it very strongly at the time, you are not a person who had that happen to you. It's like it happened to somebody else.
(I looked for references for that and didn't immediately find them. I think I read it in a book by an MD writing about things that happened while he was an intern. So it might be just one of the urban legends that med students tell each other, passed down from the old days.)
]]>OTOH, there's very little other psi in SF series which began within the last 20 years.
]]>As for the amnesia, some of the GABAergic injection anesthetics have this effect; look up etomidate, propofol or midazolam, where benzodiazepines in general mess with memory quite badly.
]]>I had that some years back with Nitrous Oxide when I took a baseball to the kneecap. It was like I was literally standing over my own shoulder looking down at the screaming person as they straightened the leg and put me in a stretcher. In my mind I was saying "oooh, that looks nasty" but didn't actually feel anything myself.
I'm dubious it was anything to do with memory though, since it happened in real time. More likely it interferes with the conscious mind - so acts more like a hallucination or waking dream. My memories of the event are very distinct, in between the initial pain, and the subsequent purple pixies flying me away to hospital.
I can contrast that with Morphine/Ketamine which I had recently after I splintered my femur which simply removed my ability to feel any pain sensations when it wasn't putting me to sleep, and Zolpidem, a non-benzodiazepine sleeping pill to which I went reacted so badly that I went completely insane for three hours, then woke up with no memory of. To the extent of attempting to walk on my broken leg without understanding why it wouldn't work.
In conclusion Consciousness is a mighty peculiar thing, and brain chemistry is extremely idiosyncratic - what affects me in one way is highly likely to affect someone else very differently.
]]>Very true, which is why anaesthesiologists are specialists.
Anecdata: about 15 years ago, my wife managed to slip on ice and dislocate her elbow. She was taken to St Mary's Paddingtom, where they tried the Nitrous Oxide that you had.
It had no effect on the pain, and they ended up giving her diamorphine (aka heroin, a damned useful drug when used for its intended purpose), which did exactly what was required.
Speaking of drugs with bad reputations that do have useful purposes, they gave her Rohypnol to make the muscles unclench when they were about to relocate the joint. Just beforehand they said "We're about to give you this to make your muscles relax. You will probably not remember the next half hour". She remembers the first half of that, but not the second half.
]]>My grandfather once (working in what is now "Royal College Building, University of Strathclyde") got "nonsense results" from a lab, and pockled up "good data" using his textbooks. He was subsequently summonsed to see his course tutor who said "Mr C---, these results for $experiment are very interesting. To the best of my knowledge that equipment has never worked correctly since the railway was built!" (said line runs directly under the building.)
]]>Well, you have to admit that they're right. That skew is prima facie evidence that something's interfering with the data.
I loved the way they covered their arses on the matter of reproducibility. Classic psi research disclaimers: "It didn't work? You weren't trying right!"
(To be fair, and assuming they're for earnest, that's going to be a big problem whether they're right or not.)
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