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I absolutely love the transition of propofol sedation. It's like the moment you dive into your pillow after a very, very long tiresome day. Where sleepiness feels more than justified, and you're allowed to follow.

Weird thing, I always start to talk English (German native speaker) while drifting away. Since I was a little ashamed of that, I once told the technician beforehand and he replied it's quite common and a known observation.



This happened to me when I had general anesthesia with propofol a few days ago. I am a Norwegian native speaker, but when I woke up on the operating table I spoke English to the nurses for 2-3 minutes. They pointed out to me several times that I was speaking in English, but at first I wasn't really able to switch to Norwegian. Don't know why. I was quite groggy and elated and told them a few quite private things which are now a bit embarrassing to think about, all in English.

When I finally switched to Norwegian they seemed pleased and left me alone.

There's a theory about this phenomenon in this paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2044....


I’m wondering what exactly is the commonly observed effect. Is it that English specifically dominates over any language? Or is it the 2nd language, whatever they may be, that surfaces?


He said forgeign language.

I hypothesize a foreign language might require some mental effort and isn't accessed the same as the native language. The fading consciousness might lose a native language sooner, maybe.


N=2, but I've apparently talked in my (very poor and broken) Japanese while going out before. It's just sort of gobbledegook of whatever thoughts are going across your brain apparently.




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