re: A paralyzing experience
If you cannot understand the difference between a basically healthy person coming out from anesthesia and Terri Schiavo, on this topic there isn't much hope.
It's a bit like saying because a man with a broken leg eventually learned how to dance without a prosthesis, , another man with no legs would do the same.
In your case there was brain tissue functioning. In hers, nothing that made her 'Terri' was working any more. "Terri" was not in the building, so to speak, and there was no hope of every getting "Terri" back.
Chickens can act "alive", too, after death. Doesn't make them "alive".
And there are obvious and profound differences between a healthy person, with a functional cortex, awakening from drugs, and Terri Schiavo.
Arf