This book offers a thorough exploration of anaesthesia, consciousness and unconsciousness through both scientific explanations and case studies. I found the personal accounts to be so vividly drawn that they were simultaneously fascinating and chilling. The questions that the book provokes around consciousness and memory will stay with me for a long time.

Really interesting, Anesthesia is absolutely critical to modern medicine, I know I need it.
The efforts of early doctors to find a way to provide relief of pain during surgery has gone in interesting ways. The stories are pretty hair raising and chilling.
The many and varied experiences that different people has with the different drugs verges on science fiction, so hard to imagine. Since for all the hubris of science and medicine, that really happens while we are under is still mysterious.
Not sure if reading this book makes me more comfortable about anaesthsia, and this really makes me consider what is actually taking place. It has given me a new appreciation of it.
Good information, well researched, well written.

The author goes on a personal quest to piece together the history of anaesthesia and what we know of it now to make sense of the experiences she and others have had. This is more of a story, a journey, than an entirely scientific accounting, despite the numerous references to studies and interviews with professionals in a few fields. I adjusted my expectations as soon as I realized what kind of book this was going to be. I learned quite a bit.