Phenomenological Anesthesia

The tool at hand will anesthetize the experiences and perceptions of the recipient. Simply put, they will no longer be capable of finding any experience unpleasant or negative.

Think of all experiences as positive or negative on a scale of -10 to 10. Eating ice cream may be a 2, good sex a 6; religious ecstasy could be a 10. Conversely, a splinter or paper cut would be a -3, and the **** of a loved one would be a -9 or -10. For the purposes of our story, this scale applies to all experiences - emotional, physical, spiritual, etc.

The anesthesia effectively flattens the user's experience so that nothing can dip below zero. Think of it as an experiential limitation; just as a colorblind person cannot see certain colors or a eunuch cannot experience arousal, a person under the influence of this substance cannot experience any negativity.

For example, imagine the following scenarios occurring to Sally, who's been dosed:

Mark accuses her of enabling her mother's opiate addiction, which she has caused her enormous guilt for many years following her mother's **** by overdose.

In response, Sally may openly acknowledge her culpability or defend herself depending on whether she actually thinks she bears any responsibility, but it will have no more impact on her mood than a discussion of the weather or chess strategies.

Jake puts a cigarette out on Sally's arm.

Sally will wince and withdraw her arm reflexively. She will be aware that she has been hurt and she will even feel pain; she won't be able to experience that pain negatively. Her body will react the way it typically would but her subjective experience will be no more unpleasant than it would be with a light breeze. Likewise, she will be aware that Jake has attempted to harm her but will be incapable of anger, fear, or outrage.

Sally's brother Ian is hit by a bus in front of her.

Sally will immediately call emergency services and do what she can to help Ian. Her behavior will be functionally identical to if she hadn't been dosed, but she will feel no panic or fear. She is motivated by her positive emotions (empathy, love for her brother, desire to continue spending time with him) but cannot fear his ****. If he dies, she will wish that she could still spend time with him in the same abstract way that she wishes for world peace or good sex, but she will not be able to feel pain or grief.

After Ian's **** someone points out that she is unable to mourn him.

She will recognize this point and will realize something is different with her if she hasn't already. She will even recognize that she "should" be disturbed by this; she simply won't be able to feel negatively about even that. For this reason, she will never be able to regret getting the anesthesia, but at worst feel indifferent to it.

Note that at high doses, the anesthetic is able to bring the baseline of positivity above zero, so that on our previous scale of -10 to 10, the minimum the recipient can perceive is, say, a 2. Thus they will enjoy everything at least a little bit.