“Are you awake during back surgery?”

no

You have to be a bit more specific. But in general, “back surgery” is done under general anesthesia which means you will not be awake.

If you are implying surgery that involves the bones, no. All patients are under general anesthesia.

Since we don’t know what type of back surgery you’re scheduled to have, it would be difficult to definitively answer your question. Some of the minimally invasive back surgeries can be done with local anesthesia with or without sedation. The major back surgeries are done with the patient under general anesthesia.

The answer could be yes and no. It depends how invasive the procedure is and what kind of neurological monitoring is being done. These day, with more sophisticated intra-op. sensory and motor nerve monitoring, in most situations, there is no need to do wake up test. In older days and sometimes even now, surgeons do an intra-operative wake up test, where your anesthesia is lightened to an extent that you can follow a command and mostly depending on the surgical site, pt. is asked to wiggle their toes or fingers to make sure pt. is neurologically intact before they close the surgical wound. As soon as the pt. does that, he or she is fully anesthetized instantly to finish the procedure. FYI, some pts. do not even remember this incident.
I hope it helps you.

Neelam Malhotra