Would you? It would probably be by far the worst agony you'd ever experienced, and given the circumstances you might also not be able to be certain you had actually experienced it. Beyond that, you'd likely face strong dissuasion if you did try to talk to anyone about it, even a doctor or nurse involved in your care, assuming the article is accurate in saying most don't really believe it can happen. It might be hard to argue with someone in a position of professional authority saying it was all just a bad dream, a pre-waking hallucination, or similar - nothing more than the anesthesia messing with your head a little, nothing you'd need to worry about. And you might well want very much to believe that was true, too.
I don't know, and I don't feel competent even to really guess. I have a degree of physical ability to tolerate pain that has drawn surprised comment from doctors and dentists in the past; between that and the mental and emotional toolkit I've had to develop in consequence of various painful illnesses for which I wasn't immediately able to obtain care, I might, very possibly, if the procedure was short and God was kind, be able to withstand something like this without being entirely crippled by trauma, maybe. Even then I don't know that I'd tell the surgeon; it would be a difficult and uncomfortable conversation to have at a time when I'd no doubt already be feeling unusually fragile. And that's me - for someone totally naïve to severe pain, and lacking any of the advantages I have in dealing with it? It's horrifying just to think about.
It's not uncommon to wake people up during brain surgery, or do the surgery without fully anesthetizing the patient at all. They would anesthetize the skull area they cut through. And the brain tissue itself doesn't register pain when cut. They do it so the surgeons can interact with the patient to guide them in what areas they have to stay away from when removing a tumor or doing other work. Here's more:
Sure, I'm aware, and I don't know of any reports of emotional harm as a result of that. I think it'd probably be the combination of pain, helplessness, surprise, and recollection that'd be what causes the trauma in cases where people regain consciousness unintentionally. In the kind of surgery you describe, at most two of those seem likely ever to be present, and because the awareness is intentional I expect there'd be more and/or different pharmacological support to help insulate the patient from the full reality of the situation. So I don't think awake brain surgery is likely all that usefully comparable to the accidental awareness we're discussing here.
I thought you were referring to Tapland's report "I remember the doctors asking me after partial removal of a brain tumour if I remembered them waking me up during the surgery" when you said it "would probably be by far the worst agony you'd ever experienced."
Accidental awareness during surgery has always sounded massively traumatic to me. Even thinking about it makes me intensely uncomfortable.
I don't know. I have some fairly complex thoughts here, but I'm coming at it as someone for whom there is evidently something deeply weird going on with their whole perception of this category of sensation - I don't find opioids at all pleasurable, either, and it was only a few months ago that I found out how unusual that is. Not that I'd try to change any of this even if I thought I could, but I suppose it doesn't really equip me to talk on the subject in a way that'd likely be of use to anyone normal.
As said: speculation. A study would have found a meaningful number expressing hesitation to discuss but doing so anyway, plus those who won’t but clearly experienced trauma - pointing to a percentage actually quiet about the incident.
Of course it's speculation; as far as I know nobody's done much research of any kind into this phenomenon. Making it more widely known seems like a good way to improve the odds of someone doing such research, so in that sense the article is worthwhile, whether speculative or otherwise. And, again, how could it not be? The subject matter practically compels such consideration.
I don't know, and I don't feel competent even to really guess. I have a degree of physical ability to tolerate pain that has drawn surprised comment from doctors and dentists in the past; between that and the mental and emotional toolkit I've had to develop in consequence of various painful illnesses for which I wasn't immediately able to obtain care, I might, very possibly, if the procedure was short and God was kind, be able to withstand something like this without being entirely crippled by trauma, maybe. Even then I don't know that I'd tell the surgeon; it would be a difficult and uncomfortable conversation to have at a time when I'd no doubt already be feeling unusually fragile. And that's me - for someone totally naïve to severe pain, and lacking any of the advantages I have in dealing with it? It's horrifying just to think about.