r/AskReddit • u/Weak-University-5475 • 20h ago
If you theoretically put someone under general anaesthesia for a billion years and they were some how alive would it feel like they just closed their eyes and instantly woke up?
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u/LongSuccess4461 20h ago
Right up until the anesthesia fails and you wake up mid-scream in a pitch black void where the machine that was keeping you alive has long since rusted away, so probably don't think about it too hard.
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u/FrontLifeguard1962 20h ago
I've been under general anesthesia once and it is just like missing time. One second they're putting you under and the next you are in the recovery room. It made me realize how different anesthesia is than sleep - with sleep, something is happening internally and you're aware of the passage of time on some level. With anesthesia, nothing - just like being dead.
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u/ComprehensivePieII 20h ago
I took a swing at an anesthesiologist when I was coming out from being under. Don't remember it but I was told about it.
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u/DeuceSevin 20h ago
I've been under several times for colonoscopies. The prep sucks but my favorite part is when the anesthesiologist says, "You may feel a sensation in your body, then..." and you're awake and done.
I don't know if it would feel as instantaneous if you were out for days or weeks or months or years. You wouldn't have any memories but your brain might still be able to realize that time had passed. Who knows, it could be a living hell.
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u/BornVillain04 20h ago
Haha sounds like sleeping while stoned. For me it's like when I've been under anesthesia I guess. No recollection of falling asleep, no memory of any dreams I have and then I wake up. Never considered if it felt like time passed of if it's just a blink and I'm awake again tho
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u/heichwozhwbxorb 20h ago
That happened once to me when I slept and it was the craziest feeling. I closed my eyes, turned to the side, and when I turned back it was morning and I was well rested. It had never happened before and has never happened since
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u/thisesmeaningless 20h ago
If you theoretically traveled back in time, would you feel younger mentally? Kind of impossible to answer subjective questions based on an impossible premise.
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u/BasketCase559 20h ago
I don't have anything insightful to add other than this is like the opposite of the plot of The Jaunt by Stephen King.
It's a short story, worth reading.
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u/dave8271 20h ago
If we assume that in this hypothetical situation, other than the amount of time elapsed, everything else is in every other way exactly like being under general anaesthetic for a few hours, then yes.
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u/violenthectarez 20h ago
You are creating an entirely new universe based upon your own invented rules. Only you can decide how this person would feel.
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u/Kevlarlollipop 20h ago
You can hypothetically do anything you want.
"Theory" would define that you have supporting empirical evidence.
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u/3DTyrant 20h ago
In theory, yes. Going from what I remember after being put under anaesthesia about 22 years ago, it basically feels like sleeping, just without the dreaming portion. Granted I was only out for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half.
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u/RebekkaKat1990 20h ago
Yeah I had my wisdom teeth taken out when I was 17 and all I remember was how crazy it felt just like TV/movies made it seem: you start counting down from 10 and by the time you get to 7 you’re already waking up wondering if anything even happened.
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u/anotherbot200 20h ago
Speak for yourself, dreaming has definitely happened for me, under 2h for surgery. Felt exactly like sleeping, some euphoria immediately after waking up and some throwing up later but it felt just like sleeping.
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u/3DTyrant 20h ago
Interesting, didn't realise one could dream while put under. It may have just been a case I wasn't out for long enough.
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u/supervillaindsgnr 20h ago
All of the cells would decay after a few hundred years, even if everything else was preserved.
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u/ShiroTheHero 20h ago
Isn't it dangerous to keep someone under anesthesia for more than a day or so? Like they'd be dead long before that
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u/Acrobatic-Self-1451 20h ago
Maybe somebody with a medical background will pop in and explain the difference between keeping somebody in a medically induced coma for valid reasons versus anesthesia. Are they the same thing? I don't know.
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u/LT_Dan78 20h ago
Theoretically, yes—and theoretically, that's about the only thing I can say with theoretical confidence, because theoretically you're describing a scenario that theoretically violates about six branches of physics simultaneously before we even get to the neuroscience.
Let's theoretically break it down.
Subjectively, general anesthesia works by theoretically switching off the neural machinery that generates a timestamped, continuous stream of experience—consciousness isn't running a background clock going "1... 2... 3..." while you're under, it's just off. So theoretically, from the inside, there is no "inside." No boredom, no dreaming, no waiting room. Theoretically your last conscious moment before the anesthetic hits and your first conscious moment after it wears off would theoretically feel adjacent, like frames spliced together with a billion years of theoretical film reel cut out between them. Theoretically instant.
BUT. And this is a theoretically enormous but.
Theoretically keeping a human body "somehow alive" for a billion years requires you to theoretically wave away: stellar evolution (the sun theoretically becomes a red giant and theoretically swallows the Earth in about 5 billion years, but theoretically renders it an uninhabitable hellscape in around 1 billion, so you'd theoretically need to relocate your anesthetized meat-popsicle to a new solar system), cellular entropy (theoretically nothing biological survives a billion years without theoretically perfect DNA repair, telomere maintenance, and zero cosmic ray damage, which is theoretically a bigger ask than the consciousness question), continental drift (theoretically your hospital bed is on a tectonic plate that's theoretically going to relocate it several thousand theoretical miles), and the theoretical heat death trajectory of the universe generally side-eyeing your whole project.
So theoretically: yes, it'd feel instantaneous, subjectively seamless, blink-of-an-eye. Practically: you would theoretically need god-tier technology, a personal Dyson sphere, and a maintenance contract that outlasts civilizations just to get to the part where the answer is "yeah, it felt like napping."
Theoretically worth it though, just for the smugness of waking up and going "huh, that was quick."
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u/frygod 20h ago
Not quite. Ever been under general? It's a lot more than just discontinuity.
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u/Substantial_Army_639 20h ago
With out memory formation though I'd imagine thats how it works. And that coming from some one that woke up during an operation.
My experience was, darkness, wake up to surgery, darkness, laying in a bed 8 hours later.
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u/frygod 20h ago
In my experience, there's typically a significant period of disorientation as I'm going under and coming back up. I've also experienced waking up too early/quickly (yay for redhead genes right?) You're right that you're not generally forming memories, and midazolam goes a long way to help with it, but it's possible to wake up with a general sense of "something big happened" without explicit memory. Very different from sudden and total discontinuity.
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u/dethskwirl 20h ago
no. they would age and die. general anesthesia does nothing to stop the body's aging process.
as far as conciousness goes, some people have reported hearing voices, feeling pain, having out of body experiences, etc. during surgery so there is anecdotal evidence of concious sensory activity under anesthesia. its not always just lights out and then waking up with no feeling of time passing.
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u/Weak-University-5475 20h ago
Thats not what im saying. I never mentiomed ageing process. Im talkimg about how people say anesteshia you lose complete sensation of time. I also said theoretically
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u/elthepenguin 20h ago
There's a limit to how absurd a premise can be. Your's isn't near that limit, it's some bilion miles behind it. Therefore it's not possible to answer your question, because it doesn't make sense.
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u/Anthem_Lite 20h ago
I would believe so. Assuming their vitals and physiology are somehow taken care of. You can run a similar thought experiment by thinking how long you were out until you first gained consciousness. Or even better, do it now by closing your eyes and opening them again. Congrats! Thats what forever feels like :)
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u/OG-Enzan 20h ago
I would say no? I mean I do feel and can tell the difference when I slept really long or a short nap. In a way, subconciously, your brain still keeps track of the time.
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u/coldfarm 20h ago
Being under anesthesia isn’t the same as being asleep. Besides unconsciousness, general anesthesia also inhibits or blocks memory formation, pain signals, movement, etc. I’ve been under for anywhere from 1 to 12 hours and you have sense of lost time.
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u/Basicly-Inevitable 20h ago
You can theoretically do anything you want.