I had a procedure recently and the description in the preparation instructions said "you won't be asleep, but you might not remember everything"

I talked to the nurse about this as I was prepping for the procedure, and he said that a recent patient talked throughout the procedure, but when he got back to his room afterwards, he asked "so when will the procedure start?"

So, I think the drugs you get might let experience everything. But the "nothing in between" might actually be memory loss, not loss of consciousness.

all this stuff is spooky and philosophically tricky.

Benzodiazepines = memory loss Propofol = we turned your brain off

Nothing stops us from using both, where strategically appropriate.

That sounds more like fentanyl (which is widely used as anesthesia for minor surgeries). With fentanyl you'll be awake but loopy and not fully there. Propofol feels like time had an entire section removed with before and after spliced directly together.