A man's rediagnosis reveals conscious activity during a 23-year "coma"

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by rtmike

6 days. My little brother, sister & Mom were there from Texas. He was carrying on about a nurse he was trying to hook up with. When I woke up he told me all about it again, I thought to myself why is he telling me all this again. I didn't figure it out until later.

They told my family members' to talk to me but I guess whenever my brother did, my heart rate would sky rocket.

It was kinda comical. When my wife showed up after I woke up I said, "Look, I can't move my feet anymore" She gave me that WTF look.
I swore to the Doctors' that I could walk before all this.

Strangest part was waking up & wondering why I had a piece of hard rubber plus a tube in my mouth & why I was in the hospital.

It took a while.

Interesting. So you could remember your brother talking to you, but you didn't know you were in a coma? So maybe your ears and long-term memory were still processing stuff, but you were, for lack of a better term, unconscious in the rest of your brain?

I find brain stuff to be fascinating. There are articles about people having strokes in particular parts of their brain that disable bizarre specific things, like people who can look at a fork and not be able to tell you what it is, but if you then tell them to pick the fork they can do it. But they then can't tell you what they picked up. It's captivating to me.