The only time I ever had general anaesthesia was when I had my wisdom teeth removed. My description of it was that it felt like time had passed, but that I wasn’t there for it. Which sounds about like what other folks are saying, too.
What was weirder was that, some time later, I thought to ask how I had gotten from the operating bench to the recovery room, and being told that I walked.
I had my tonsils out as a child, then nothing until about eleven years ago when I had my lumpectomy. I’ve had about five or six major surgeries since, plus a couple of endoscopies and colonoscopies (not at the same time) under propofol.
Since it had been so long I didn’t know how I’d react after my lumpectomy, but I got nauseous and threw up in recovery. I’ve mentioned that for the subsequent surgeries so they know to give me something to settle my tummy. No issues since.
I have woken up fine, I have woken up crying, and I have woken up trying to punch someone. Go figure.
The sleepy stuff the give you before they wheel you in is Versed. It’s to chill you out. It always amazes me how fast the anesthesia works. You’re wheeled into the OR, you shimmy over to the table, then boom. I think they must inject something into the IV because I haven’t had them put a mask over my face and tell me to breathe deeply to put me under.
When they used nitrous on me for my wisdom teeth extraction, they didn’t do the “count backwards” thing. I was lying in the chair and the nurses were talking like I was already under, so I tried to reach out and tap one on the arm so they’d know I was still awake, but when I moved my arm, it was like I was wiping a blackboard clean with my arm, and my arm just left a trail of blackness behind it. I tried to reach the nurse and when I touched her, she was gone. I kept flailing around trying to grab onto anything within reach until everything was black.
When I woke up in the recovery room, they kept trying to get me up so I could head home and I was all “nope nope nope… just gonna lie here for a while… not gonna move or try to touch anything.”
Inflamed tissue can be very difficult to numb. I had a root canal a few years ago (and an apicoectomy when that failed; DO NOT Google-image that if you don’t know what it is) and feared that, but it didn’t happen. The latter procedure not only preserved a front tooth; it also took about 10 minutes and was less traumatic than a filling. Doesn’t mean you want to know what it looks like, however.
I had pentothal for my wisdom teeth removal and another procedure when I was a teenager; all I really cared about was not knowing what was happening to me at the time. The worst part about it was my mother waking me up repeatedly to ask me if I needed anything. :smack:
More recently, I had two lumpectomies on my breast. I’d never had propofol, sevoflurane, etc. but whatever they gave me, they wheeled me into the OR starting to feel loopy from the pre-meds, and I woke up an hour later in the PACU with heavy bandages over my breast. The first time, the nurse asked me how I felt, and I pointed in the general direction of a man who was loudly vomiting and said, “Better than him, that’s for sure!” She gave me a cup of crushed ice, and ZOMG did that taste good.
The second time, recovering from the aftereffects of the anesthesia was harder on me than the surgery itself. I’d always heard that general anesthesia is best described as carefully controlled death, and now I understand it.
I was in a medically induced coma for around 3 weeks (so I’m told). I think I was getting propofol and fentanyl. My memory is blank for a period both before and after.
I don’t recall waking up and I can’t even pinpoint when I started forming memories again. I don’t remember being told what had gone wrong that had led to them keeping me under although they obviously told me at some point. It’s weird.
They used ether back in the dark ages when I had my tonsils out. Woke up and immediately barfed is all I can remember.
I had anesthesia when they removed a cyst from the back of my neck. They said “This will feel cold. . .” and then I woke up in recovery. The only problem is that my bladder didn’t wake up. Went home, felt pressure but couldn’t urinate. Called the doctor’s office and he says “Well, go to the ER if it continues and they’ll put in a catheter.” Yeah, fuck that, but the pressure was really getting bad. Looked online and found out that exercising can get things moving again, so I started walking vigorously around the house, and sure enough, things finally broke loose.
Propofol is rarely used for longer than 72 hours; it’s an emulsion and can cause liver failure if continued for too long. After that time, if it’s apparent that a patient is going to be in an induced coma for a while, they use a whole cocktail of other agents.
You can thank Versed for your loss of time. 
I get injections at the pain clinic for my neck and last thing I know is when they start an IV in the back of my hand.
Best sleep I’d ever get.
I had Versed and fentanyl for an upper GI, first thing in the morning. I asked them not to give me too much. I wasn’t entirely out during the procedure, but mostly. Then I went home and felt like shit all day. They told me not to do anything with heavy machinery or making important decisions, but I wasn’t up to shoveling snow. I ended up sleeping all day. I got up in the evening, but still felt like shit. I played “Rock Band” with my kid, and couldn’t hit any of the notes right.
Then I couldn’t sleep all night because I’d slept all day. The next day I wasn’t feeling drugged any more, but I felt like shit because I hadn’t slept all night. Basically, I lost two days.
So I’ve had my follow-up endoscopies with no sedation. An upper GI scope is nasty – I wretch through the whole procedure. The colonoscopy was fine, though. A little crampy, but I kind of enjoyed seeing my insides. But even the upper GI scope is only miserable for less than 30 minutes, and then I don’t need to recover from anesthesia. So it’s worth it to me.
Having another endoscopy in a couple of weeks. They have a new option, using a smaller scope through the nose instead of a big one through the mouth. It’s supposed to be a lot less uncomfortable. (less gagging) Since I have to do these fairly often, I’m kind of excited.
Oh – and I’ve had local anesthesia (novocaine and lidocaine) for various things, including dentistry. Works great. The area goes numb, they do their thing, eventually it stops feeling numb.
Some local anesthesia stories. I’d missed a few years of the dentist so they wanted to do a deep cleaning with a local. The injection site was still sore two days later, but otherwise my gums were fine. A few years later I had a small cavity, my only one, and they wanted to give me a local. I told them I really didn’t like it the last time, and if it was as small as they said, could I just go without. The dentist was up for it. I managed, but a few more seconds of drilling and I definitely would have told them if it was safe.
I had to get a mean looking mole on the top of my thigh removed. They ended up needing two syringes worth of whatever they used, because it kept spreading out and wasn’t numbing me enough to cut (or so the explained). Of course by the time they were finished I was numb from my knee to my nethers.
Removing something on my back was just the opposite. The doctor asked if I could feel her poking me to see if it was numb, and I told her I hadn’t even felt the injection.
Once again, a perfectly good response shit-canned by the fear of the PC Police coming down. 
Local anesthetic: I can relate to the thing of it not working sometimes. A couple of times when I have been to the dentist I’ve had a couple syringes worth and part of my mouth is numb but unfortunately not the actual tooth that they want to operate on. I guess the nerves that connect to the teeth are not very straight. And it must be a frustrating job to be a denstist…how often is a patient 100% pain-free?
General anesthetic: One time I was out for over 6 hours… Not only was I aware of the passage of time, but when I woke up I thought **days **had passed. But then, given how long I was under, it wasn’t Anaesthetized -> Awake, it was Anaesthetized -> Few hours crazy fever dreams -> Somewhat awake
I had the same kind of thing done a few months ago, but they didn’t have to inject me. They used a thing that looked like a needle, but had a blunt tip. to spread a lidocaine/prilocaine mixture on my gumline before doing the deep cleaning. It tasted nasty but they were able to get it done in one visit without me jumping all over the place. 
For my first colonoscopy I can remember a little. I think it’s an actual memory and not just a dream. I remember feeling pain and saying “Ow! Ow! Ow!” and the surgeon telling them to increase whatever the medication was. After that one I was really dizzy for a minute or two while I was waking up more fully.
For the second colonoscopy years later, I was out like a light. I have no memory of anything and not even a memory of any dreams. They told me I might have dreams but nope.
After a lumpectomy a few years ago, I remember my muscles feeling a little sore when I was waking up, as if I’d exercised hard a day or two before. I didn’t think anything of it. But over the next couple of days, my arms and legs were SO sore that I could barely walk! I could walk but was extremely, extremely slow. It’s my understanding that this was caused by having a whole-body muscle tightening episode caused by something in the anesthesia, maybe the paralytic they give so you won’t move unexpectedly.
I had two surgeries on my foot this year, both times with IV sedation and I was awake one moment, the next I was waking up in the recovery room. They offered me a nerve block for the second surgery but I said no thanks.
When I had surgery on my elbow, I was also given a nerve block for my arm, besides the IV anesthesia. My arm was numb for the rest of the day. It kept sliding down the sling and I would try to put it back with my other arm. It was like trying to pick up a concrete block! I couldn’t believe it felt so heavy. Definitely one of the strangest things I’ve experienced.
My experience, about two weeks ago, was I had an IV line and an oxygen mask. They told me to breathe the oxygen in and back out. “Breathe in…and out. And in..and out. And in…and out,” while they introduced the anesthetic into the IV. I didn’t count backwards from 100. I didn’t even wake up in recovery. I remember waking back up in my hospital room
For me, it’s always “the room tilts, then you wake up”.
For my wisdom teeth surgery, I remember saying “I’m not out yet” and the doctor said “it hasn’t been xxx seconds yet”. Then I started coming to, yelling, and a voice said “that doesn’t hurt” so I stopped yelliing.
Tears were running down my face, though.
For nose surgery, they had me transfer myself to the table in the OR. Quite possibly they did so for gallbladder and wrist surgery (in 2010 and 2018 respectively) but the room-tilting happened in the pre-op area and the amnestic effects must have kicked in, so I have no idea how I did the transfer. In both cases, I have no idea how I got to the post-op bed as I’m sure I would have been unable to transfer myself - probably the “6 people pulling on a sheet underneath you” approach. For the wrist surgery, I don’t have any memory of them doing the regional block, even- which is a relief as I watched videos of it being done and YEEEOUCH!!!-looking. The arm was weird as hell afterward - I had no control or sensation from the shoulder down; it was like having a huge boneless hunk of meat dangling from the shoulder. Unfortunately, that wore off.
For my numerous colonoscopies, I was faintly aware once, midway through, of “something happening”. I mentioned that, next time, and it never happened again. The slow wakeup afterward is sort of pleasant afterward; was kinda pissed this last time when my mellow got harshed by the “fire in the hole” sensation that had made the prep especially unpleasant this time around.
Under general a couple of times, once for a colonoscopy, once to have several teeth removed.
Much like others, they stuck a needle in the back of my hand, and the next thing I knew, I was in recovery.
As I recall, it was pretty much bleem I’m awake, but there may have been some period of semi-consciousness I don’t recall. Within minutes of waking, I was feeling ready to walk out from both.