Surgical anaesthesia refers to the state of unconsciousness achieved through medication during surgery. Synonyms for surgical anaesthesia include general anaesthesia, total anaesthesia, deep sedation, and heavy sedation. A less common synonym is procedural sedation, which refers to a level of sedation that is deeper than conscious sedation but lighter than general anaesthesia. Other synonyms include coma-like state, during which the patient is temporarily unable to respond to stimuli, and twilight state, during which the patient is partially conscious and unaware of the surgery. In recent years, there has been an increasing trend towards using regional anaesthesia techniques, which numb only the area undergoing surgery, rather than inducing a state of total unconsciousness.