Propofol
Tuesday morning, when I customarily compose the day’s post, I will be under the influence of anesthesia, Propofol most likely. I can attest that the drug produces a dreamless sleep. When the drug is administered, consciousness winks out. There is no sliver of fading, just light and then nothing. Waking is not unpleasant, as if the switch of consciousness is pushed to “on.” The Propofol is the best part of the outpatient procedure that is scheduled for Tuesday morning. Who does not enjoy a dreamless sleep?
I have been assured that dreams are about the dreamer, the content of the subconscious, the demons and angels that influence outside the small circle of our knowing. Who is not curious to know what the future holds? Such forecasting is not the product of reason, of calculation. Its a matter of intuiting what “the spirits are whispering” about the course of human nature. I offer this from Carl Sagan.
I have a foreboding
of an America
in my children’s
or grandchildren’s time—
when the United States is
a service and information economy;
when nearly all the manufacturing
industries have slipped away to other countries;
when awesome technological powers
are in the hands of a very few,
and no one representing the public interest
can even grasp the issues;
when the people have lost the ability
to set their own agendas
or knowledgeably question those in authority;
when, clutching our crystals
and nervously consulting our horoscopes,
our critical faculties in decline,
unable to distinguish between what feels good
and what is true,
we slide, almost without noticing,
back into superstition and
darkness.
—Carl Sagan
Can you feel that chill? Change, our future approaches. The realization that “things have changed” will not be as gentle as waking from a dose of Propofol.
