This is quite the fascinating video to watch in the study of human behavior. Here we have a husband waking up from hernia surgery (his 5th one!) and he doesn’t seem to recognize his wife.

When I first watched it, I didn’t buy it.  I see him hold back a smile and not very good–shortly into the video. I then watched the couple talk about this video on a morning talk show and they seemed genuine.

It took me some time to process everything I saw, but I think I can finally articulate what happened.

I suspect when Jason woke up from surgery, he was totally out of it. That’s normal.  If you’ve had surgery, you know the fog you wake up into. According to his doctor it is possible not to recognize people, but that is very, very rare.

What does happen in surgery, at least for me, and he seems to experience it, too, is a whole new perspective, albeit very short-lived.  I don’t know whether it is from the drugs or being knocked out, but what happens is your “perception of what’s before you” is cleaned, and you see things from an unattached (unemotional) perspective, if that makes sense.

I attributed it to the fact I was in pain, and my emotions about things around me were muted to cope with the pain (my body was in survival mode), and hence when I looked around, I didn’t see things through my normal emotional (biased) lens.  I simply saw them for what they were.  Hence, Jason doesn’t see his wife “as his wife” — he simply sees her as “a beautiful woman”–what she is at her basic core.

Does that make sense?

This is very short-lived, if you’ve experienced it. It goes away a day after surgery.

Jason may have looked at her in a groggy state and not recognized her for an instant, but decided to have fun with it once he put two and two together which was pretty quickly. Then I suspect he had fun with it and flattered his wife, because he was seeing her beauty through a  totally different lens.

Jason, if you want my opinion, is a natural born comedian type who loves to play jokes on people, and he clearly enjoys making his wife feel good. I think he was aware of who she was, but he played up on it and had fun with it. It’s completely consistent with his personality.

And when he tells us now that he doesn’t remember it–it totally fits with after surgery experiences. He may not remember it, but he likely was aware of who she was and had fun making her feel like super important in the moment.  And his wife captured that moment.  What’s the harm in that?