There are pain receptors on the eye. They numb your eye with drops. I had a chance to watch the procedure before I had mine done, but I refused to watch the cutting part. They clamp your eye lids open then they suck on your eyeball to keep it from moving, that's when they cut it.
From there, they lift the flap, and everything goes blurry. They tell you to stare at a blinking light, then you hear the popping, cover the flap and put a lot of eye drops on your eye.
That's about it, it was so short that by the time you start thinking about the how nasty it looked it's already over.
I had mine done a little over a month ago, I have a slight problem with halos at night (I can still drive, so it's not that bad), and a little bit of a dryness problem, but that may have been before I had the surgery too.
I have better than 20/20 vision, not too sure what it is exactly though.