Death by massive head injury is not a bad way to go. I remember a sunny morning, heading to the bank a mile from my house to deposit my paycheck, and riding towards work. I merged behind a Jeep Grand Cherokee to pass an idiot that was double parked in the bike lane. It was down hill and I easily topped 35 mph to match speed with the Jeep. That is the last thing I remember. Like it was all totally blank and even worse than anesthesia level blackout.
Three hours later, someone pulled a large piece of glass out of my face that severed major nerve in my lip. That woke me up.
That is how I want to go; a pretty day on a nice bike ride, feeling fantastic, then totally blank.
In reality, I was lucid the whole time apparently, or so I was told. I honestly do not have ANY memory of it whatsoever. If you know of anyone that dies tragically with a major head injury, I want you to think of me. Even if they appeared conscious or aware but disoriented, that wasn’t the last thing they felt or remembered, I promise, I’ve lived it; only barely survived it. I still don’t remember a thing.
Consciousness and memory both require communication between different regions of the brain. It’s entirely possible that you were "alert’ amd responsive while still suffering a brain injury that prevented you from remembering any part of it.
Anesthesia scares me for similar reasons. It halts the communication between different brain regions, and we know that people have no memories while under general Anesthesia, but are they lying there unable to move, suffering extreme agony throughout the surgery, and just unable to remember it afterwards?
