The feeling of blinking out and suddenly being "back" is far from exclusive to comas or general anesthesia; it has been replicated via deep meditation. Specifically, it seems to be the core feature of what's technically known as nirodha samapatti (lit. "attainment of ceasing").

An easy way of intuiting what it might feel like (if imperfectly, of course) is just keeping a high state of lucidity and mental focus whilst you're naturally drifting in and out of light sleep; this might seem challenging at first but it's actually quite doable.

OK but you haven't provided any trustworthy evidence, just a personal anecdote. This is not convincing, especially since some anaesthetics have known long term psychological effects. There's no reason to believe that a person experiencing them would correctly identify the cause intuitively. In fact that would be extremely surprising.

Does general anesthesia affect memory? I swear my ability to form memories fell off a cliff after a procedure years ago. Going in is the last thing I vividly remember and everything since is hazy or ephemeral.

I have a theory that some people don’t fully wake up after the anesthesia wears off. A part of them is still sleeping. Like memory bank takes a slow break and stops working. I suspect it happened to me and now I am looking for answers.