No, it isn't the latest single by Paris Hilton. This is what the state of consciousness (SOC) is called, that I experienced, during my recent dental visit (two crowns and a root canal). It begins with me taking two different sedative-hypnotics, an hour before the procedures, in the morning, on an empty stomach. My wife drove me down to the oral surgery office. I was immediately led to a chair, and reclined. The doctor came in, quickly gave me four shots of novocaine, into the left side of my mouth, then began sliding an IV into a vein on the top of my hand. I remembered wanting to tell him how it didn't hurt, and then I was ...consciously sedated.
The next thing I remember was staring at a large framed screen, like an Etch-A-Sketch, only it filled my vision, and the frame was a mix of art deco and futuristic. The entire thing looked like it had been spray-painted a matte gold. I stared at it a long time (10 minutes? 2 hours?), then hands began reaching into the screen, from the side. They were also colored gold. The perspective was like having eyes down my throat, looking up. I continued to come to, slowly, and could follow voice requests, to, "open wider". I was aware enough to determine linearity of my experience, but that was all. Afterwards, the doc said I fell asleep and was actually snoring. In addition, the hypnotics prevent the brain from forming memory pathways during the experience, so I literally have very, very little memory of an over three hour procedure. It happens again in a week, for the right side, sans root canal, thank God. PS It has been raining buckets all day long.
