Decapitation: Does the head remain conscious after seperation?

Everyone’s probably familiar with French Revolution stories involving the decapitated heads of guillotined prisoners appearing to remain conscious for, in some stories, up to 30 seconds after death. Usually, in these stories, they attempt to speak or stare uncomprehendingly at the spectators. Marie Antioinette supposedly mouthed a prayer for a couple of seconds while her head was being held aloft. Whether humans remain conscious after decapitation would seem to be pretty hard to confirm for fairly obvious reasons. But one victim of The Terror, whose name escapes me, was apparently so interested in the subject that he arranged an experiment with several colleagues who would be present at his execution. After he was guillotined, so he told them, he would blink his eyes for as long as possible until death. Following his decapitation, witnesses reported seeing him blink 15 times.

Truth, urban legend, or somewhere in-between?

The Master Speaks

The Master speaks, and just for good measure after some feedback, he speaks again.

Uh…let’s try that second link again.

And Speaks Again

Looks like you guys split the simulpost double-header…

I think it’s time to remind some of the newbies that there is an archive section at www.straightdope.com. You can’t really be a true doper unless you actually read Cecil.

Actually, I did look before I posted and didn’t find anything.

Thanx for the link.

Adam After you search the archives on the main page to see what Cecil had to say about a subject, the you should rememember to search the message board for a thread about the topic.

If you had, you would have discovered the following:http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=242&highlight=decapitation

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=23462&highlight=decapitation

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=30014&highlight=decapitation