Anesthesia

Every time that I have a medical procedure which involved anesthesia, it is hard for me to try to ignore the fact that I should be hurting when I am not. Even if I am not able to feel a thing, there is a sense of wrong due to the cutting, severing or otherwise surgical procedure underway. Feeling numb is one of the most interesting experiences ever, and if you can tolerate it, I would suggest that you look at what is being done to your body while under the magical effect of anesthesia. However, not every person is able to handle this. To some, just the sight of blood can be reason enough to faint. Others, like myself, can stomach the situation without even blinking.

Is it the same with emotions? I draw an interesting analogy between the medical anesthesia and emotional anesthesia. This can be produced by drugs or even by the cognitive thoughts of the individual. In a way, psychiatric drugs are an emotion anesthesia. In some cases, the patient will not understand how is it that something that used to bother him or her does not have an effect anymore. Yet, like in medical anesthesia, the patient will now that there is cutting involved and there should be pain, but there is none. Interesting, no?