My only experience with non-sleep unconciousness was anethesia when I had my wisdom teeth taken out. That seemed more like a jump-cut in a film than anything else.

Anyway, I first 'woke up' about a week after the accident, tied down into a hospital bed and with no clue who I was or what had happened to me. After several hours a nurse came by and seeing that I was awake, asked me my name. I was unable to tell her who I was, where I lived, or anything about my past. That went on for several more days, and then I started to remember more. After several months I remembered enough of my former life to have a kind of patchwork quilt memory that tied seemingly unrelated events together. However, my short term memory (say, up to about 12 hours or so) was severely impaired for about 8 months more. I had recovered enough to get a job and I would often, at the end of the day, go to leave for home and panic when I realized I didn't remember where home was. I didn't dare admit that to my coworkers, for fear of their derision and for fear of losing my job (I was only 18), so I would just leave and wander around for a while, hoping to see something familiar. After I got desperate enough, I would sit myself down and have a hard think about the situation. Eventually I would ask myself if I wouldn't have considered that when I got up in the morning, and start to search my clothes and belongings for clues. After a bit I would find my trusty notes that I had written down about how to find my way home, and generally upon reading the notes I would remember, and finally go gome. That lasted about a year.

I still suffer from a bit of short-term memory loss. Mostly people think I'm just absent-minded. But I function.

Hope that provides some grist for your mill.

After I woke up, my memory of the present was scrambled for the rest of that day, too. I kept asking if I could go to my friend Erik's house because I didn't remember that I had been hurt. I kept asking my Mom over and over all day because I had no recollection of having already asked her. I remember asking her over and over, but at the time I didn't remember having already asked.

I was hit by a drunk driver about 20 years ago, before they stiffened the laws on the offense. I still have the picture of my wrecked car, and it’s humbling to think how I almost ended up as a statistic.

He ran a stoplight and broadsided my Volkswagon Carman Ghia with a van as I was waiting to take a left hand turn. I lost my memory of two or three hours before the accident permanently, and don't remember a thing about the accident or the ambulance ride. The first clear memory was in the emergency room. I came to on a table with the doctors and a bright light over me. They were giving me stitches on my temple, where I took the brunt of the impact. I tried to ask what was going on and touch my head, but the doctor was impatient with me and had a nurse hold my arms. Apparently that was no the first time I had questioned them, only the first time I remembered the questions. I wasn't functioning for a day or two later, and it was closer to a week before I began to feel normal again. The next memory after the hospital was in bed at home, with TV at my disposal. I remember my head feeling heavy, and my thoughts were thick and cloudy. I felt weak and slightly dizzy when I lifted my head. I remember this much so clearly these many years later, because so many people were interested in the effects of the concussion, I told the story many times. My memory didn’t become consistent until at least the third day home.

The best story was told by my then future husband, who was riding in the passenger seat, and escaped unharmed. After experiencing the trauma of the headlights coming straight on, and the sound of crunching metal on impact, he looked over to see if I was alright. Apparently I was slumped over, still strapped in by the seatbelt, but I didn’t breathe right away. He feared the worst, and yelled to wake me. He said it seemed forever before I finally took a deep breath. Once the emergency crew used the jaws-of-life to get me out, he said I seemed alert, even able to stand, even though they kept me seated or reclined. I kept on asking the same question over and over: “what happened?” He said he’d explain it to me, and I would seem to understand, even react, and then a few minutes later ask again. My family still laughs at one of my more common response, “Oh my God, don’t tell my mother.” Apparently the pattern of forgotten questions survived all the way to the emergency room, to the point that the doctor considered me a “difficult” patient.

Once boxing--I hadn't trained enough, and when the fight got into the late rounds I didn't have the energy to keep my hands up high. I remember watching that big red boxing glove come hurtling at my face once, twice, then the next thing I knew I was yanking myself away from some nasty smelling salts.

According to friends, my opponent landed four clean crosses to my face before the ref stopped the fight (quality officiating, there). But I only remember the first two.
Afterwards, the thing I remember most was the nausea when I woke up. It was persistent, debilitating. I wanted to stop and throw up every three steps or so. Coupled with the dizziness, it was very like the worst hangover I've ever had, which is a story for another thread.

The other time I got knocked out I lost a street fight and got my head bounced off the curb. The symptoms were the same; blackout, memory loss for the last few seconds before getting knocked out, persistent nausea and dizziness after.

Oh; and after the boxing knockout, I was giddy; almost high. But that might have been the endorphins from all the physical exertion that preceded me getting my bell rung.

But then, I was a classic headbanger as a kid, I'd throw tantrums and whack my head on things for effect. One time my cousin went a bit too far teasing me and I chased him into my aunt's bedroom. When he locked the door I rammed it with my head until there was a hole big enough for me to crawl through, but by then he'd retreated to the master bath. I'd only just gotten started on that door when the adults came back.

Up until I was at least ten my head was my secret weapon when it came to fighting (or ramming through walls and stuff). So to me, the idea of being knocked out by a blow to the head is actually kind of counterintuitive. I know that this is a good way to beat a human opponent, but the idea it could work on me just seems silly.

My sister was hit by a car around a decade ago, when that happened, she lost most things, how to speak, write, walk, and even now suffers from severe nightfrights (worse than nightmares,) and has an extremely bad memory for anything. She has got better and relearned everything although if asked to do something quickly like maths doesnt have a clue as to what it means let alone be able to do it.

So, ask any questions you feel like asking, ask away; it won't bother ME!

Survivor, mine was a motorcycle accident also. My helmet was cracked clean in two, and the forks on my bike were tucked back under the frame! Wish I knew what happened to do that, but I don't remember and they found me lying in the road a day or so after the accident, so apparently no one was there to see what happened, or else they didn't care to report it.

Once when I was 14, I ran my motorcycle into a tree and went head first into another tree (thank you helmet) I came too shortly and noticed no significant impairment, aside from the momentary confusion of why I was laying on my back looking at clouds.

The second was at 30, when my tire blew out on a back road at 60mph sending my Expedition careening into the treeline (if I had been in a regular vehicle and not this oversized tank of an SUV, I would have been killed). I awoke in the dark and crawled from the vehicle, through my shattered window, to the roadside where I flagged down a car. I believe I was out for around 30 minutes, but suffered not major head trauma. I did get 72 stitches in my left arm though and severely bruised my hips and chest. I can remember being very disoriented which was exacerbated by it being pitch black and my having lost my glassed in the accident.

I'm also wanting to rethink the chapter in question and make the concussion a larger part of the story. It deals, at least in part, with the intransience of memory and this thread is providing me with a lot more than I bargained for. I was mostly wanting accuracy in my writing, but now I'm having a thematic aha! moment.

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with the intransience of memory

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transient nature of memory? 'cause intransient would mean it didn't change, no?

intransigent memory??

If there's a jump cut, it's in the recolection, not in events. I had to depend on others to fill in the blanks.

I think I might post the first thirteen lines of the chapter in question after I tweak it a little.

The two main characters in the story are an AI, who gets hacked (I am waaaay over-simplifying this) and a detective. The detective gets hit on the head at one point in the story and I'm starting to think that I should give him a worse concussion than I had planned. There are some parallels that would be interesting to explore.

however, i did have an accident in phys ed once back in elementary school that resulted in some similar experiences.

we were running laps around the gymn and i kind of slipped and tripped up at the same time, immediately followed by a sliding, my knee struck against something (i still think it was a loose floor board with a nail attached, although they never did find it.)

anyways, one of the most interesting things about it all is that i never did lose a sense of time flow, it went wonky, but it never blacked out. the wierdest thing of all is that i had a definite sense of something bad about to happen just before the event. i still do not understand that.

i dragged myself bleeding over to the teacher who was busy with something else, i can't remember. i kept trying to get his attention, and when i finally had it, things started going VERY quickly. i was asked who i'd like to accompany me and i asked for my sister just about 2 years older than myself (she jokes around thanking me for the time off school to this day)

events became jumbled at this point, until i was in the ambulance, and then i remember people asking me how i was doing, and i remember that i was laying on my sister. they put some fluids or something into me and then i slipped into the netherworld again (for some reason drugs never have put me under, they just make me feel weird)

when we got to the ER i stopped fighting and just let things go. i didn't "wake up" until the next day, and then i had a leg with over a dozen stitches in the knee and wrapped with enough medical gauze that it seemed endless. i couldn't walk unaided for a month... and people just would NOT leave me alone. being a loner by nature, that was the absolute worst part of the experience, being babied.

it turns out that i cut my knee in an arch clean to the bone. i'm told that it was miraculous that i had enough in me to make my way to the teacher and kept myself to for as long as i did. *shrugs*

Step 1: Injury occurs (rarely do I have any recollection of the event)

Step 2: Momentary 'pulses' of clarity, with accompanying memories.

Step 2 repeats with increasing regularity.

Step 3: Usually after sleeping, perception returns to normal.

During the Step 2 phase, short term memory is always impaired. I have one amusing family story of asking my father 15 times in 20 minutes what time it was. I simply didn't remember that I'd already asked. (To this day my parents believe I was faking.)

Another illuminating aspect of that particular incident is something that happened during Step 2.

The injury originally occured while I was killing time with friends before playing hockey. An hour later, the game started.
Step 2 starts about half way through the game. I have flashes of memories up until the last minute of the game. I remember scoring a goal in the last minute. But I did so from my stomach while sliding way to fast towards the post. Last clear memory is a large post approaching my face. Return to Step 1.

A good way to think about all of this (memory vs. real-time perception) is that there is no such thing as real time perception. You are sitting there reading this. Your only awareness is of HAVING read it. It's always after the fact. (Many theorists believe that conscious awareness is a half second behind real time. And the ways in which our brain fudges that time difference is really a cool topic.)

There is a theory in cognitive sciences that suggest that what we think of as conscious, realtime awareness is simply a matter of reviewing our most recent experiences and assigning meaning to them. Our consciousness is like an interpreter making up stories about our experiences based on the continuing flood of information as it gets written to memory. "Hmm. I see here that I have a new memory of going through the motions of shooting a puck. I see another new memory of the puck entering the net." My interpreter therefore constructs a self-story of having scored a goal.

Why tell you all this? Because, from the subjective experience, if you can't form short term memories, then there is nothing for your interpreter to do. You experience. You participate. You react. But you form no stories of your actions for yourself, from which your consciousness creates meaning from experience perceptions. So your conscious story teller experiences "dead air".

Hence, during Step 2, you have these 'hazy patches'. The flashes of memory are identical to the periods in which short-term memories were once again being formed in your brain and your interpreter could resume telling you stories about your experience.

Does that help?

Another time I was knocked out was when I was in either kindergarten or first grade; I can't remember exactly. I was walking along the playground and I walked in front of the swings, and this girl - her name was Jennifer, odd thing to remember, but I remember seeing a blur of shoes, and then I was lying upright against one of those 'Y' arms of the swings - you all know what I mean - and the teacher who was watching the playground and a whole bunch of students were gathered around me.
Now, here's where my personality starts to show. I came back to consciousness, not hurt in the slightest that I can remember, but I kept my eyes closed when I came to, after seeing everything through slits.
And then, goofy boy that I was, I started making these little 'oohh' noises, like I was in pain, but not quite awake. It took about five minutes for the teacher to realize I was full of it.
But really, all I remember about that was the shoes, and then lying there with my eyes closed.
Now, in the third grade, I stepped off a curb in the winter, looked left, saw a big green car coming at me, and woke up in some lady's lap. I was so bundled up that I wasn't even hurt. I think my mind just blanked it out because of fear.
Funny thing is, it was a sheriff's deputy, off-duty, that knocked me ten feet into a snow drift.
Okay, flash-forward to when I was boxing in the Navy. Third and final round, I swung hard for this guy's head, right hook, all my body weight behind me like a dump truck coming downhill without brakes.
This guy, don't remember his name, but he had a gap-tooth, just drops out of sight, and the next thing I see is the top of his glove coming up at me, and then I remember flinching.
They said I was out for only five minutes, but all I can remember is drinking water through a straw the next day.
Needless to say, I lost the fight.
And that's only a few of the times I've been knocked out. But I've never been sick, or felt anything other than dizzy.
Except for passing out drunk, but that doesn't count...

When you do a direct head-butt (forehead to forehead), you lock your own neck so that you're using the head, neck and torso as an integrated mass unit to ram just the head of an opponent. That gives you probably a five to one advantage in mass, which means that the other guy's head will change direction about five times as much as your head.

If the other guy is also a head-butting type and reacts quickly, that advantage can be negated pretty completely, but a direct head-butt is a very fast attack at very close quarters. Most people will not react in time, particularly if you do something limb-grabby-twisty when setting up the head-butt.

My only experience that's even remotely close was general anesthesia when I had my wisdom teeth out. It was like a jump cut, except I was groggy afterwords. It was like this.
I was staring at the ceiling light. The dentist said "I'm going to count backwards. 10--" Then everything was dark; someone said, "Mary?" and I opened my eyes.

I did have some memory dropouts when I was in college from sleep deprivation, which was pretty freaky.

They had a face mask sitting there attached to a cannister when I was getting my wisdom teeth taken out. I was looking that over when somebody asked me to stretch out my left arm, and then he injected something rather than drawing blood.

I had just enough time to turn to him and ask what that was, and hear the word "anesthetic" before I woke up upside-down in an empty room with the setting sun shining in my eyes. I turned over and promptly spit my sodden, limp tongue out onto the floor with a sickening "plop".

Probably because the Administrator doesn't have a problem with the tangent the thread goes off to. As in the present instance.

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It was pretty cool

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As a note, wisdom-tooth pulling can be done under only local.

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I was under anesthesia (sp?) when three of my wisdom teeth were pulled out. I had one pulled out with a local -- it was awful, jaw bones cracked, pain shooting up through my skull that nearly caused me to black out -- and the only two things that stopped me from punching the dentist was 1. The dentist was a woman. 2. She outranked me (I was in the military) and hitting a commisioned officer is guaranteed to end your military career.

My other three wisdom teeth, two of which were impacted, were done while I was cozily unconscious. The oral surgeons offered me a choice, local or the injection to put me under. I chose the latter. Dreamt nice dreams of the really cute surgeon's assistant, was wakened halfway through, told the assistant that I loved her, and was summarily unconscious again.

Please tell your doctor what you've found out from others with your symptoms so you can get the help you need.

So, keep it up, on both fronts!

She would be doing something and then find herself doing something completely different. The periods of missing time usually only lasted an average of five minutes. I know she had an MRI done, and I don't believe she has these "episodes" anymore. I don't know if the doctors ever figured it out.

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Another story...