How Long Does A Severed Head Remain Conscious? | Random Thursday

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did you know the human head weighs 8 pounds thanks to the movie Jerry Maguire I do and there's no reason to fact-check that because this guy looks like he knows what he's talking about so let's think this through if an eight pound head dropped two feet down to the ground it would be traveling downwards at 9.8 meters per second meaning it would hit the ground with the force of 20 1.34 joules or about the same as a baseball traveling at 13.3 miles an hour this would be the last thing you would feel if your head was cut off by a guillotine or would it just in case you couldn't tell by the title this one's gonna be a little dark the guillotine was basically a device that makes it super easy to chop a dude's head off the headings back in the old days believe it or not we're considered to be the most humane form of execution unlike getting burned at the stake or drawn and quartered or crucified there was no torture element to beheadings didn't have any of that good stuff it was just quick and merciful chop lights out so it's very important that the process had to be a swift and clean as possible a doe blade or a bad swing could quickly lead to a game of just make it stop moving bad the headings were basically someone just getting chopped to bits in fact it was customary for the more wealthy condemned people to actually tip their executioner's to make sure that the blade was sharpened it was all done in one cut now there are machines in Europe to help with this going way back before the guillotine there was one called the Halifax gibbet it was basically a sharpened axe blade at the bottom of a wait but the genius of the guillotine was to put the blade at an angle so that it would rely more on slicing power instead of brute force by the way the guillotine was named after Joseph Ghia Tom but he was not actually the one who invented it it was actually a German engineer named Tobias Schmidt who was working with Anton Lewis who was the physician to the king at the time who had the idea of using the slanted blade they named dr. Joseph Kia Tom because he was the biggest advocate of finding a new better more humane method of execution the guillotine was first used to execute somebody in 1792 in Paris and it was quickly thereafter proclaimed to be the official form of capital punishment in France and this thing caught on people really liked this not only did everybody at the time agree that it was the most humane way to go it was also considered to be a symbol of equality before the guillotine a person from the rich class might a quick dignified death whereas a person from the poorer class would wind up getting hanged in the street with a guillotine all things were equal everyone from royalty to the lowliest bum all got their heads cut off in the exact same way kumbaya then came the reign of terror in the year between 1783 and 1784 literally thousands of people had their heads cut off in public squares by the guillotine during the French Revolution including the king louis xvi in the Queen Marie Antoinette so famously her last words were to apologise to the executioner because she stepped on his foot while getting on the platform after the Revolution the guillotine remained a popular form of execution and entertainment in public executions eventually that was taken behind closed doors but it remained an option for a very long time the last person to be executed in France by the guillotine was in 1977 that don't listen to disco the Nazis always innovators in human suffering improved on the design of world war 2 making it basically a giant cigar cutter with a very short span for it to fall so that they can just pump people through for the most maximum human carnage possible so as long as there's been big headings there's been the question of whether or not you actually remain conscious after that happened something called lucid decapitation participants in the crowds during the French Revolution reported seeing the heads blinking and making expressions and physicians at the time were beginning to get a better idea of the physiology of the body in the circulatory system and they began to understand that consciousness would not just go away immediately it would take a little bit of time for the blood to drain out of the brain the question is how long there were stories of prisoners being asked to blink for as long as possible after the decapitation just to see how long that would last and there were reports of that going on for up to 30 seconds but they also didn't know for sure if that was a conscious thing that the person was doing or just some kind of death spasm one of the most well documented cases was from a doctor named dr. bureau who experimented with a condemned man named on relink wheel on his execution this was on june 28th of 1905 and the doctor recorded what happened in his journal i'm just going to read this for you here then is what i was able to note immediately after capitation the eyelids and lips of the guillotine man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds this phenomenon has been remarked by all those funding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck I waited for several seconds the spasmodic movements ceased it was then that I called in a strong sharp voice link wheel I saw the eyelids slowly lift up without any spasmodic contractions I insist advisably on this peculiarity but with an even movement quite distinct and normal such as happens in everyday life with people awakened or torn from their thoughts next link wheels eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the people's focus themselves I was not then dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression that can be observed any day and dying people to whom one speaks I was dealing with an undeniably living eyes which were looking at me after several seconds the eyelids closed again it was at that point that I called out again and once more without any spasm slowly the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time then there was further closing of the eyelids but now less complete I attempted the effect of a third call there was no further movement and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead yeah so it looks like by all accounts you remain conscious for about 30 seconds so after that guillotine followed when you feel that cold metal against your neck the ground will rush towards you you'll hit the floor with the force of a slowly thrown baseball either on your forehead or your nose of your chin depending on the cut blood will fill your nasal cavities but you can't blow it out you'll be in some state of shock as you have world spins around and finally comes to arrest but you won't feel the blood pumping through your ears and then you'll just sit there waiting for a long period of time as the tunnel vision sets in and the noise the brain shuts down throughout the outside of the cortex first shutting down the sensory and motor cortex is giving you a feeling that you're not in your body anymore the last cortex that gets shut down is your memory cortex which is why people who have had near-death experiences get the feeling of going through and seeing their lives flashed before them so death is less like falling asleep and more like a quick journey through your entire life before you get to your very last memory and then everything shuts down fun so the moral of the story here is don't get your head cut off because your head will hit the ground and that's kind of hurt congratulations you made it through this video yes that was super dark but it's an interesting topic and gives you at least some kind of idea of how our brain works you might have noticed this is a different shirt I've never shown this one before and this is not available in the store it answers with joke on slash shirts which you are welcome to go to and check out all the other designs this one is specifically for patreon supporters so if you are a patreon supporter and you don't have one of these shirts reach out to me on the patreon page and we'll make it happen if you're not a patreon supporter you can join the 350 something people that have joined on patreon and you can get access to this shirt and all kinds of other cool perks just go to patreon.com/scishow answers with joe alright please like and share this if you liked it and if this is your first time here I usually talk about much less grisly things you can check those out in my other videos and if you like those please do subscribe I'll come back with videos every Monday and Thursday you guys go out and have an eye-opening week don't get your heads cut off and I will see you next Monday love you guys take care

Info

Channel: Joe Scott

Views: 3,652,776

Rating: 4.7743955 out of 5

Keywords: answers with joe, random thursday, guillotine, capital punishment, beheading, decapitated, severed head, consciousness, french revolution, King Louie XVI, Marie Antionette, joseph guillotin, decapitation, halifax gibbet

Id: 2Hm9jjAJnsE

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 15 2018

Reddit Comments

The ‘Whitest Kids You Know’ have a great skit on this exact topic (slightly gross). Worth the watch.

WKYK - headless skit

👍︎︎ 9 👤︎︎ u/Clunt_Meastwood 📅︎︎ Feb 07 2019 🗫︎ replies

He sounds exactly like Charlie Day.

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/MrK9 📅︎︎ Feb 07 2019 🗫︎ replies

FUN!

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/LadyGuillotine 📅︎︎ Feb 07 2019 🗫︎ replies

Comemadre

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/wooddrew 📅︎︎ Feb 07 2019 🗫︎ replies

If people can lose consciousness if blood rushes to their legs during large g-forces, how does one remain conscious at all with their head cut off and 0 blood pressure?

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Planetariophage 📅︎︎ Feb 07 2019 🗫︎ replies

tl;dw?

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/napsterpepper 📅︎︎ Feb 07 2019 🗫︎ replies