It's both. In smaller doses, anesthetics like propofol will leave you groggy but semi-awake and able to respond to commands. But you won't be able to form long term memories so you won't remember afterwards. This is "twilight sedation" and is what you usually get when you get a procedure like an endoscopy or colonscopy. You are somewhat awake so that you can help reposition yourself and stuff if they need you to.

In larger doses, propofol will completely eliminate consciousness. This is "general anesthesia" and what you get when you go in for a major surgical procedure. You are completely unresponsive to any stimuli.

There are levels in between these too. Consciousness is a spectrum.

As far as I know, propofol doesn't make you feel particularly good or block pain. It just kind of makes you go away. So in addition, at all levels of anesthesia, they also typically give you a narcotic like fentanyl so that you aren't suffering. They aren't just letting you scream in pain and then erasing the tape afterwards.

As someone who has had a couple of procedures where they pushed the fentanyl into the IV before the propofol, I can 100% assure that pain was the absolute last thing I was feeling. Hell, I was still high as a kite after the propofol wore off when I got home. I was sitting at the kitchen table with a bunch of metal recently unscrewed from my leg bones thinking about literally nothing in the world beyond, "holy fuck this eggnog is the best beverage I've ever had in my life I wish I could drink it forever".

My recent colonoscopy used fentanyl. I wasn't loopy afterwards but we did (as directed) arrange to have someone else drive me home.

All in all, I really appreciate the loss of memory formation, since the most annoying part of these procedures for me is the boredom. Just splice all that out, thanks.

>This is "twilight sedation" and is what you usually get when you get a procedure like an endoscopy

The only thing I got for my endoscopy a couple of years ago was some numbing spray for my nose and a decongestant.

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