Experts believe there may very well be a third state of consciousness.
According to research, there is a possibility of a state of consciousness with patients under anesthetics is neither fully conscious nor fully unconscious.
Dr. Jaideep Pandit elaborates saying there may be a state in which patients can respond to a command, but are not disturbed by pain or the surgery, when the idea was discussed at The Annual Congress of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland on September 19th.
The state dubbed as dysanaesthesia is back by evidence from 34 patients who were anesthetized, with the entire body paralyzed except for their forearm, which allowed them to signal with their fingers to respond to commands and signify whether they were awake or in pain while in surgery.
Check out the entire article here at Live Science.