I've got to wonder if it's as big an issue if patients don't remember the pain. It seems to be like the tree-falling-in-the-woods problem: if a patient feels pain but never remembers, as far as he's concerned, did it really happen?
I have very hazy memories of wisdom tooth extraction. No pain, but very hazy. It doesn't bother me.
when I was a kid, I used to bike to school. I had a type of thought experiment. Biking uphill was difficult for me. I would have liked to teleport to the top of the hill and be over with it. What I would do was before starting the hill, I would say to myself that I'm going to teleport. Then I would try hard not to think. Then when I got to the top of the hill, I would snap back to it and pretend that I teleported to the top of the hill.
I would always wonder if I could use the same logic for surgery
I have very hazy memories of wisdom tooth extraction. No pain, but very hazy. It doesn't bother me.