Jun
I recently had a very enlightening and direct experience with (bodily) consciousness. Some rather small surgery on my hand called for local anesthesia, and I had the privilege of having some knowledge of philosophy of the mind, which allowed me to separate and recognize some states of consciousness in a part of my body. I must say, it was a rather amazing experience. To people who have medical knowledge this may be rather boring, but for me it was a unique experience and taught me a thing or two.
The initial observation came with the insertion of the needle into my body. As I watched the anesthesiologist insert the needle, whilst monitoring the insertion with an echo apparatus, I realized the confinement of sensuality to the skin. The pain I felt was minimal, only the puncture and the movement of the needle at the surface gave some reaction. Yet, as the needle moved in and out through my flesh, I did not feel a thing inside my body. My touch only informs me about the outer perimeter of my physical body. As the fluid was injected near my nerves, I had a vague sense of swelling, but that was about it. To be aware of how limited the touch and pain sense is to the skin, made me imagine myself as an empty shell. My inside cannot feel touch to the same extent as my skin can.
Then, slowly, I started losing control over my arm. It became heavier, a prickling sensation in my hand became obvious, and slowly my touch and pain sense became a general numbness. Ironically, the part that had to be operated became the last part to lose a sense of touch and/or pain. It was like an island of sensitivity was separated from me, with a sea of numbness between my shoulder and my little finger. As the time schedule was pressing, I unfortunately had to be completely sedated, so I didn’t witness the final stages, and went to sleep for an hour or so. One of the last things I consciously remember is thinking briefly “hey, who is touching my stomach”, as one of the surgeons placed my hand on my belly.
This reminded me of the writings of Oliver Sacks, for example the book “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”. In his writings, he described a number of people who have suffered some kind of brain injury, often as the result of a stroke, and the strange effects this had on their self-perception. Some of his patients felt like there was a stranger next to them, because they had no awareness of part of their body, and the confabulated all kinds of obviously erroneous stories to explain their own limbs as something external to themselves. I experienced similar things, but without the brain damage, so it was an interesting exercise to look at this ‘alien arm’ of mine with a clear mind.
As I woke up from the narcosis, I was euphoric. Stoned out of my little mind, I couldn’t wait to get up and go outside to experience the world through this pleasantly distorted perspective. My arm was held up by a sling, a completely dead entity, not present in my body at a noticeable level other than being dead weight. Part of my consciousness was gone. Some friends picked me up from the hospital as soon as I was good to go, and we had some lovely loopy conversations on the way home. Everything looked just a bit differently, more clear, super-real. You just gotta love it, I was being stoned legally, courtesy of my health insurance.
Then, as we approached my house about half an hour later, I started to get a sensation of where my arm was. The same kind of prickly feeling that I got when I lost may arm-consciousness came back, and informed me about the position of my arm in the sling. I had zero motor control, so I tried lifting it but nothing happened. However, when I lifted it with my left arm, I burst out in laughter (I was still a little spaced out). I could move my arm, but according to my ‘arm sensation’, it remained in the same spot. Anyway, soon thereafter I ate a dinner that could be consumed using only one hand, went home, and fell into a comatose sleep.
Upon waking up, the local anesthesia was still working. Next to me, in my bed, was somebody’s dead arm. Was it mine? Yes, it was attached to my body, but the whole ‘arm sensation’ I had felt the day before was gone. The next hours I amused myself with this strange arm in my bed. There’s something very unusual, and very sensual, about touching your own body when it cannot feel. It is like caressing an other, without this other being present. After an hour or so of being all happy with touching my insensitive fingers, slowly some semblance of touch became apparent.
I tried to lift my arm, and it was super interesting. At first, it didn’t do anything, but after a while it slowly reacted to what felt like an enormous effort to lift it up. Normally, I of course never think about lifting up my arm, but now I focused strongly, and it almost hurt to push so hard and see it move in clownesque fashion. Motor control slowly came back, but not in all muscles. Where normally an agonist (e.g. biceps) and and antagonist (e.g. triceps) work together to have controlled motion, the biceps worked and the triceps didn’t work yet. I’m pretty sure the neighbors must have thought I was stark raving mad, as I was constantly laughing aloud at the ridiculous movements my uncontrollable arm was making.
As I slowly learned to make circles in the air with my hand, without losing control right away, I felt ready to get dressed and walk outside. My partially limp arm in a sling, I walked around in the city center. I thought I had discovered most of the effects the anesthesia had on my body, until it stopped working altogether, and the pain slowly became apparent. Luckily, I bought a new box of painkillers, so I was ready to face the world without walking around with a grimace on my face constantly.
Then, the last thing became clear to me. A sling, and a bandaged hand, is a sure way to make people avoid bumping into you. If they did, they apologize immediately and ask if you’re okay. As I had to go to the market, I selfishly used that advantage to its fullest, and could easily walk through the crowds, parting like the Red Sea had in that lovely little fairy tale in the Old Testament. The happy ending of the story was had arrived, and after that it would only be boring stuff like slow recovery and bandage removal. Why boring? Because the unexpected had gone. My senses were in line again, and I would not see a surprise when the bandage was removed.
What did this teach me? Well, beside the stepwise recovery, which showed me how strange it can be to have touch, pain, and control removed from part of your body, only to return in a stepwise and orderly fashion, it showed me something about how strongly consciousness is linked to the senses, and how it cannot be seen as separate from my body. There was a part of my consciousness missing, and it was notably absent from my mind. Whereas all the concepts were in place, without the connection to my arm they were kinda… meaningless.
I don’t know what this will teach me in the long run. I have always believed that consciousness and the body are closely linked, and that the neural pathways govern the information that is needed to build up consciousness. What struck me in particular was the sense of an arm, presumably ‘filled in’ by my consciousness, but not at all linked to the actual position of the arm. There was no neural connection, but there was a correct yet static ‘arm consciousness’ present. Now, I am wondering whether my consciousness is bodiless, yet constantly informed about the body through the senses. However, there was a conscious self-reflective thought that constantly verified the position of my arm through the mode of ‘where it should be’.
I guess I’m left with more questions than answers. Perhaps I should go talk with my anesthesiologist and see if he’s interested in doing some research about this stuff. It’s absolutely fascinating. Whatever happens to be the best description is something that will have to wait. My pain consciousness is kicking in, and telling my sensible side to stop typing, so I’ll wrap it up.
