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'Very far off to left field' side note: The human brain is still active during unconsciousness.

EEG traces of the brain show this. When you are awake, drowsy, asleep, or under anesthesia, the patterns of your brain waves are very different [0,1]. But, the brain is not 'paused', it's just firing differently than when you are awake or drowsy.

So, the 'pattern' is not just 3-D, it's 4-D. You need time as well. You'd need to transport the 'trace' over vast distances, scales, and times.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_oscillation

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3288763/ Figure 1, in particular



Sometimes I wonder if I ever actually stop thinking at night; maybe I just don't remember it in the morning? Maybe every night is just laying concious for 8 hours, thinking weird dreamlike thoughts, but being unable to form memories.

I know brain measurements show that our brains operates differently during sleep, but we may still be concious, at least internally.

Have you ever had the same "sleep stage 1" experience I have?

If I start to fall asleep in the living room around people, their voices seem to become louder, I am aware of what they are saying, their sentences make sense. Yet, if I am suddenly awaken to full alertness, I will have no memory of what they were specifically talking about, although I do remember that I heard them talking. It's as though the ability to form memories went away before full conciousness went away. I believe this is a common experience, and I was fascinated when this pattern was first pointed out to me.



Brain activity isn't paused, just consciousness itself.


> under anesthesia

This one is actually a little different. There is much much less activity under anesthetic vs sleeping. There are even theories that going under general anesthetic actually causes some small degree of brain damage due to the shutdown.




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