If you’re having a major surgery, you most likely will receive general anesthesia and be unconscious during the procedure. This means you will have no awareness of the procedure once the anesthesia takes effect, and you won’t remember it afterward. Very rarely — in only one or two of every 1,000 medical procedures involving general anesthesia — a patient may become aware or conscious. The condition, called anesthesia awareness (waking up) during surgery, means the patient can recall their surroundings, or an event related to the surgery, while under general anesthesia. Although it can be upsetting, patients usually do not feel pain when experiencing anesthesia awareness.
