ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

Anesthesia: Another Side of Consciousness 151
Figure 7.2: EEG from awake patient prior to anesthesia. Top: 4 seconds of
“conventional” EEG which shows low voltage, high frequency waves. Bottom:
same 4 seconds plotted as phase space trajectory with digitization of 300 Hz and
phase lag of 5/300 sec. Phase portrait of awake state is densely centered. From
Watt and Hameroff (1987).
7.2 Memory
Occasionally patients have reported awareness or recall during anesthesia, an
abhorrent event to both patient and anesthetist. Research into this area has
illuminated the mechanisms of memory consolidation and led to specific amnesia
producing anesthetic drugs. Accordingly, awareness and recall during anesthesia
is currently exceedingly rare. In an excellent review of anesthesia and memory
processes, Cherkin and Harroun (1971) described a two-stage theory of memory
which postulated that information is first perceived and stored in an unstable
dynamic form (short-term memory), which may then be consolidated into a stable
physical memory trace (long-term memory).