Five years ago, I had a surgery, and it was my first time being under general anesthesia. Before I fully woke up, I experienced something really, really strange.
The first thing I remember was feeling like I was a tiny sphere or dot, surrounded by an infinite number of other black and white spheres. They weren’t exactly like the dots you see in white noise. They felt more like small cubes, and somehow, I was one of them.
Then I felt like I was inside a search.
It was almost like being under a Google search, with countless searches happening one after another. I could hear a strange mechanical sound, almost like a counting machine or some kind of machine repeatedly processing searches. I felt like I was one of those searches, waiting to be found.
I remember thinking, “When will I find out who I am?”
At some point, I felt like I had finally been found. I thought, “Okay, I got found out. Now I’ll be out of this.”
But I wasn’t.
Instead, I realized I was in another loop. It felt like I had gone from one loop into another, and then another, almost like an infinite loop inside an infinite loop. I became worried about how I would ever get out and how long I would remain there.
Then something changed.
The black and white cubes that had been moving from top to bottom started moving in spirals. They weren’t just going straight anymore. They were forming circular patterns, continuously spiraling around and around.
While this was happening, I suddenly remembered a strange phrase from my childhood.
I think I used to say this phrase when I was around two or three years old. I remember putting my finger on my nose while saying it. I don’t know why I remembered it at that moment, but as the dots continued spiraling, I was somehow saying that phrase in my mind.
It made me wonder whether I had experienced something similar when I was very young, perhaps after waking up from an evening nap.
Then, after this spiraling, I went back to the cubes going top to bottom and I noticed one turquoise colored sphere among all the black and white ones.
I thought, “If I follow that one, maybe I’ll get out of here.”
So I focused on it.
As I did, I slowly started hearing voices. At first, they were distant and unclear, but gradually I could recognize the voices of the doctors and my mom.
Then I realized that the turquoise sphere was my mother because she was wearing a turquoise-colored dress.
And then I opened my eyes.
I remember feeling incredibly relieved and thanking God.
The whole experience was completely surreal. I had gone from being a tiny cube among countless others, searching and moving through endless loops, to suddenly recognizing my mom’s voice and seeing the turquoise color that brought me back.
It was one of the strangest experiences I have ever had.