# Can you feel your brain?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 12, 2006, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147 "2006-07-12T06:19:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CuriousDude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CuriousDude)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/1 "2006-07-12T06:19:09Z")
Simple question. Can a person acutally feel his or her brain?
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### Author:  [@Mellifluous\_Appoggiatura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellifluous_Appoggiatura)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/2 "2006-07-12T06:38:49Z")
Well since the brain doesn’t have any topical sense receptors, I believe the quick answer would be ‘no’.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/3 "2006-07-12T06:45:50Z")
Doctors occasionally need to perform brain surgery on patients who are awake. For instance, they may be removing a brain tumor, and need the patient to be able to move or speak on command so they can tell when they need to stop cutting. They put the patients out while they pop the skull off, but then they can dig around in the brain without them feeling pain.
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### Author:  [@Lama\_Pacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lama_Pacos)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/4 "2006-07-12T07:02:35Z")
How would the patient know when to stop cutting if he or she can’t feel the brain anyway?
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### Author:  [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/5 "2006-07-12T07:10:08Z")
> [@Lama Pacos](#):
>
> How would the patient know when to stop cutting if he or she can’t feel the brain anyway?
I don’t think it’s “tell me to stop when it hurts” so much as “as long as he can still talk AT ALL, he’s ok.”
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### Author:  [@Mellifluous\_Appoggiatura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellifluous_Appoggiatura)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/6 "2006-07-12T07:45:34Z")
Oftentimes they’ll use simple computations as well, asking you to do arithmetic, talk about the colors of various things in the room, name animals, things that activate certain regions of the brain.
I actually knew a woman who had a brain tumor that they needed to cut out. The surgery went perfectly, but it turns out that they had to remove almost all of her math center… this wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that she was a professor of analytical geometry.
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/7 "2006-07-12T08:45:21Z")
Yeah. If they’re getting close to motor areas, they’ll ask the patient to move the relevant part of the body. They’ll also do a bunch of cognitive tests - have them recognize colors, repeat phrases, that sort of thing.
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### Author:  [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/8 "2006-07-12T09:14:15Z")
There was a guy in Columbus, OH who walked into a police station who demanded to be shown an X-Ray of his brain. You see, he’d been unable to find it _after drilling a hole in his head and poking around with a coathanger!_ :eek: So, I’d say that the answer is nope.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/9 "2006-07-12T10:03:22Z")
At least in his case anyway.
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### Author:  [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/10 "2006-07-12T12:31:01Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#):
>
> There was a guy in Columbus, OH who walked into a police station who demanded to be shown an X-Ray of his brain. You see, he’d been unable to find it _after drilling a hole in his head and poking around with a coathanger!_ :eek:
Turned out the poor sap didn’t have one! 😃 **HAW HAW HAW**
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### Author:  [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/11 "2006-07-12T14:28:30Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#):
>
> There was a guy in Columbus, OH who walked into a police station who demanded to be shown an X-Ray of his brain. You see, he’d been unable to find it _after drilling a hole in his head and poking around with a coathanger!_ :eek: So, I’d say that the answer is nope.
A lady named Linda went to Arkansas last week to visit her in-laws, and while there, went to a store. She parked next to a car with a woman sitting in it, her eyes closed and hands behind her head, apparently sleeping. When Linda came out a while later, she again saw the woman, her hands still behind her head but with her eyes open. The woman looked very strange, so Linda tapped on the window and said “Are you okay?”
The woman answered “I’ve been shot in the head, and I am holding my brains in.”
Linda didn’t know what to do, so she ran into the store, where store officials called the paramedics. They had to break into the car because the door was locked. When they got in, they found that the woman had bread dough on the back of her head and in her hands.
A Pillsbury biscuit canister had exploded, apparently from the heat in the car, making a loud explosion like that of a gunshot, and hit her in the head. When she reached back to find what it was, she felt the dough and thought it was her brains. She passed out from fright at first, then attempted to hold her brains in.
PS The woman was a blonde and could feel her “brains” but couldn’t use them.
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### Author:  [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)
#### Post date: [July 12, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-feel-your-brain/364147/12 "2006-07-12T14:55:48Z")
You are, of course, referring to [this urban legend.](http://www.snopes.com/crime/safety/biscuit.htm)
However, while I can’t find a news source which details the story, [this page](http://f2.org/humour/notw.html) has the excerpt from _News of the Weird_ that mentions the guy drilling into his skull.
> [@](#):
>
> Dale Eller, 22, of Columbus, Ohio, walked into police headquarters and re-quested an X-ray in order to locate his brain. He showed the police a hole in his skull through which he had inserted 3" of wire trying to find his brain but had failed. He told them he had made the hole with a power drill. Police took Eller to the hopsital, where doctors removed a coat hanger wire from his head. A hospital official said Eller was in good condition, although doctors said he might have personality changes.