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By Rachael O'Connor
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A woman who assumed she'd be speaking nonsense after waking up from an anesthetic has gone viral for her very unexpected reaction.
Lilla Lavanakul, a lawyer and actor, underwent surgery to reconstruct her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and repair her meniscus after suffering a tear.
The 25-year-old has, like many of us, seen plenty of videos of people talking complete gibberish under anesthetic, and before being put under, she asked her family to record her if she said anything while coming around.
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She told Newsweek: "My family was laughing about what I was saying when we got home but I told them I did not want to see the videos until the next day because I knew I must have sounded crazy. When I did eventually watch them, I could not stop laughing but was also slightly horrified at what is clearly still lurking in the depths of my brain."
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The clip, shared to her TikTok account @costcowarehousetothemoon, has been viewed 5 million times, and shows Lavanakul waving in a hospital bed before surgery, alongside the words: "About to go into surgery thinking I'll wake up loopy probably reciting TikTok brainrot."
But when she woke up, rather than gibberish, she began "taking the bar exam again in my head and reciting the preamble to the Constitution."
In the video, Lavanakul stares into space, saying: "State court has general jurisdiction, federal court you need diversity of parties or federal question," correcting herself and questioning her words when she makes a slight mistake.
She speaks nonstop in legal jargon throughout the video, even while lying down with an oxygen mask over her face, and joked in the caption: "The Bar exam still traumatizing me one whole year later."
The bar exam, which students must pass to become a licensed attorney in the U.S., is notoriously difficult and is usually held over two days.
According to data from the National Conference of Bar Examiners, in 2021 only around 60 percent of students who took the bar exam received a passing grade. This is higher than a 58 percent pass rate in 2019, but far down from the 2009 pass rate of 68 percent.
Speaking to Newsweek, Lavanakul described herself as a "very serious student" who "never really felt ready for a test until I went to sleep dreaming about the test subject."
Admitting it might not be the "healthiest study habit," she said she went "super overboard" for the California Bar Exam, where she was drilling flashcards in her sleep, but it was "definitely the hardest thing I have had to prepare for in my entire life."
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And this was relatable to plenty of young lawyers in the comment section of her video, which has received close to a million likes and 4,000 comments.
One wrote: "This girl must have absolutely smashed the bar if she's ripping out these answers on anesthesia...and they're all correct too."
"I've been a lawyer for almost a decade and I still have legitimate nightmares about the bar exam," another admitted.
A different person said: "The thousand yard stare like I can see you visualizing the textbook paragraph lmaooo."
And as another put it: "This is what they mean when u have to know it in ur sleep."
Lavanakul loves the fact that her video went so viral, admitting it was her "saving grace" for the first few days of her recovery.
"I got to distract myself by reading hundreds of new comments every time I opened the app," she said. "I was thoroughly entertained while I was stuck in my bed for a while."
One commenter recognized Lavanakul from a previous project she worked on as an actor, and accused her of faking the video—but Lavanakul hit back: "I was definitely not acting."
She told Newsweek: "If any of you are currently studying for the July bar exam, you got this—I am rooting for you! Also, to everyone who has left a comment, thank you for helping me laugh through my recovery."
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