h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is anyone else scared by this?

Scared? By which part? (only kidding!)

While it may seem like a rather strange pursuit (given the high risks of personal injury and, even, death) there are plenty of people who don't think twice about throwing themselves out of planes at 20,000 feet or free climbing very steep mountains without so much as a rope or crampon.

You mean that the amatuers perform their 'trepanation' not with a surgical drilling machine, but with a overdose of a brick wall, applied by a Ferrari and half a bottle of tequila?

I saw a chap on TV once that had been trepanned. Absolutely swore by it. He really did seem well chuffed with the result. It was only a tiny hole. It had brought his blood pressure down, amongst myriad other benefits. Think I'll pass though. Good point earlier about mountain climbing and taking risks generally. I suppose it's because mountain climbing doesn't actually involve sticking a drill in your head that people aren't so fazed by it.

For many of those who do experiment with the procedure, however, it is the final option in a list of failures. People who suffer from inexplicable migraines that basically wreck their lives and plague their existence may consider a hole in the head a small price to pay if it actually solves the problem. Those who do it for pleasure - and there are many - do so with the same approach to their lives, and possible deaths, as the free-climbers and sky-divers.

Yes, this was pretty much the arguement used by the bloke on telly. He had various problems (mostly depression related) and had been through all the usual therapy beforehand. As I remember, the medical world has long acknowledged that a slight reduction of pressure on the brain can work wonders for some conditions in some people, and this is precisely what careful trepanning can achieve.

Still. Is there any way to add a footnote to this entry to the tune of, 'Don't try this at home!' ??

I would assume that even the 'amateurs' mentioned here researched what tools to use for the purpose, and took basic precautions to reduce the risk of infection. I can't help worrying that some git will read this entry and decide to poke a rusty knife into their skull. We don't want to give the wrong impression...

The comment - "Death is also a high risk." - was an editorial addition that was not part of the original entry.

Speaking from a personal perspective - like any information about medicine, surgery, etc., it is an individual responsibility to not do anything silly. You could casually point out that you can see a lot of veins in your wrist, but it takes the irresponsible or mentally unstable to actually go digging around with a broken beer bottle or a carving knife.

I guess it's just related to my living in the litigious US. Here, Halloween costumes warn that they do not imbue their wearers with the ability to fly. Coffee cups warn that their contents may be hot enough to burn. And ladders warn that standing under them or using them improperly may be dangerous. And all this for serious legal reasons...

I remember reading trepanation enjoyed a resurgence of popularity back in the 60's and 70's as a minor part of the counter-culture's experiments with reality. John Lennon himself admitted in an interview that he thought about being trepanned. I wonder what the result would have been of that?

I need that like, er, well, er....

Just to let you know there's a good video about trepanning called 'A Hole In The Head' available from [URL removed by moderator]if anyone's interested. Most of those featured with regard to self-trepanation are actually very intelligent bods. It's good stuff.

Damn, no trepanation smileys to insert...

~LW~

while i have jumped out of a perfectly good airplane before and hope to again someday i cant see the compara...sum to drilling a hole in my head.to me one is sport the other surgery. both may be considered extreme perhaps.i allways felt safer landing myself then letting someone esle do it for me. while one might be considered testing oneself with the unknown the other would be subjecting oneself to the unknown,.blue skys

There's a trepanation society out there somewhere... I'm looking for their website right now.... Aha. [URL removed by moderator] Find out anything you want... if I remember correctly, they have T-shirts available for sale! Woohoo!

Heh hheh.

To many of those who pursue either skydiving or trepanation, the core result is a thrill and an almost otherworldly sense of being separated from the common world. Man, probably, was not - in all honesty - meant to do either (i.e. we neither have wings or thin skulls with iron hard cranial membranes) - but many do and they do it for pleasure, as a hobby. While I don't condone the act, the taking of drugs is effectively an amateur procedure of a medical nature - and people pump all kinds of crud straight into their veins, "for the pleasure" or "the rush" or whatever. I'm sure there's a good reason why people seek to do things for the adrenhelin (sp?) hit, even though the acts themselves are potentiall life threatening.

Umm.. what I'd be worried about isn't the hole in the head, but rather doing it yourself and the risk of slippage.

Oh, and since there aren't any nerves in the brain, you wouldn't feel pain when you reach the soft stuff...

is there any evidence that trepaning might help my spelling?a core result would be produced by a hole saw.remember an x-files episode where mulder subjected him self to trepaning in hopes of unblocking a memory block of what happened the night his sister dissapeered.