system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Eli5: Anesthesia but awake and telling jokes?

I had knee surgery earlier this week and in recovery I was "awake" and telling jokes but not conscious at that point? Apparently there was about a 20 minute gap of me being able to sit up and hold a conversation before I "blacked back in" if you know what I mean. How does it work that you're not "concious" of being awake but you're able to access the joke part of your brain?
gpt
You were conscious.  Your brain just wasn't making memories.  Basically, you've got short term memory, which gets wiped after about 30 minutes or so, and you've got long term memory.  Stuff you think is important, or that you rehearse gets copied from short term to long term memory.  Sedation can shut off the mechanism that copies memories.  So you're awake, your memories just all get thrown out.

Sleep also does this, which is why you don't remember falling asleep.