Why do we not feel pain under general anesthesia? Is it the same for regular sleep?

Question

I’m curious what mechanism is at work here.

Edit: Thanks for the responses. I get it now. Obviously I am still enjoying the discussion RE: the finer points like memory, etc.

In: Biology

Answer 1

Since anasthesia is so dangerous they use less of it these days. Enough to disable motor activity so they can work on you but not enough to really shut down your nervous system.

Then they add another, safer drug that stops you from remembering anything that happens until they wake you up.