Do You Really Stay Conscious After Being Decapitated?

Cutting the head from the body has long been used as a means of execution, whether extrajudicial or state-sanctioned. For example, in the Biblical Apocrypha, a widow named Judith famously cuts off the head of an Assyrian general named Holofernes, who had been laying siege to her town [source: Vatican]. Civilizations throughout history have used beheadings as a means of punishment. The Romans considered it a more honorable means of execution and decidedly less painful than crucifixion, which it used to execute non-citizens [source: Clark]. In Medieval Europe, beheading was used by the ruling class to dispatch nobles and peasants alike. Eventually, most of the world abandoned beheading as a form of capital punishment, viewing it as barbaric and inhumane. That said, judicial beheading is legal today in the Middle Eastern states of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iran [source: Weinberg].

The factors that have always made beheading so brutal are the tools used in beheadings and the people who use those tools. The axe and the sword have always been the favored implements of beheading, but they can go blunt and are subject to the physical force exerted by the executioner. While in some cultures, like Saudi Arabia, executioners are highly trained in their jobs, some historical cultures allowed unskilled workers to act as headsmen, or executioners who performed beheadings. The result was that it often took a number of blows to the neck and spine to sever the head from the body, meaning a painful and torturous death.

The guillotine was introduced in the late 18th century as a humane alternative to beheading. Contrary to popular belief, the instrument doesn't get its name from its inventor; in actuality, surgeon Antoine Louis invented the guillotine. The machine's namesake, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, was a physician who called for a humane means of dispatching the convicted and championed the device that now bears his name. With the invention of the guillotine, executions could be carried out more efficiently and post-Revolutionary France officially adopted the contraption in 1792. This major increase in efficiency led to the Reign of Terror in France, in which more than 30,000 people suffered the guillotine in one year alone [source: McCannon]. France used the guillotine for state-sanctioned executions until it removed the last head in 1977.

The guillotine developed a dreaded reputation in France. The author Victor Hugo wrote, "One can have a certain indifference on the death penalty as long as one has not seen a guillotine with one's own eyes" [source: Davies]. But almost from the beginning of its use, many sensed the guillotine worked almost too precisely.

The circulatory system delivers oxygen and other necessary particles via blood to the brain so that it can carry out its necessary functions. Deprived of oxygen or blood, the brain's function deteriorates rapidly. Circulation takes place in a closed system based on a pressurized environment; blood is pumped in and out of the heart and past the lungs, where it is refreshed once more. Decapitation opens this closed system irrevocably, causing a full and massive drop in blood pressure, leaving the brain starved of both blood and oxygen.

Depending upon how the head is removed from the body, this loss of blood and ultimately consciousness can take longer in some modes of decapitation than in others. Several blows to the back of the neck with a sword or axe can lead to blood loss before the head is fully severed from the body. But the guillotine's design in particular makes severing the head cleaner and quicker. The blade and mouton (weight) assembly of the guillotine weighed more than 175 pounds (80 kilograms) and was dropped from a height of 14 feet (4.3 meters) from ground level onto the back of the victim's neck [sources: Guillotine.info, Davies].

Moreover, the guillotine's blade was set within a track leading in a direct line down to the back of the victim's neck, improving the chances that a head will drop rather than be sent flying toward the crowd. A wooden screen called a shield further prevented any potential trajectory for a flying head. Instead, the victim's head generally went into the basket situated handily beneath the victim's head.

This made for quick and easy retrieval of the head by the executioner -- who merely pulled a lever -- after it was cut off. Picking up the head to show to the crowd was customary, and occasionally the executioner showed disrespect to the head as well. This was the case with Charlotte Corday, a woman executed by guillotine in France in 1793 after she assassinated the revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat.

After her head was severed, the executioner smacked its cheeks while he held it aloft. To the astonishment of the crowd, Corday's cheeks flushed and her facial expression changed into the "unequivocal marks of indignation" [source: Ernle, et al].

Corday was the first, though not the last, severed head reported to show the signs of consciousness following decapitation.

There has long been an argument against the concept of consciousness following decapitation. Some believe that the movements seen in the face are the result of the voluntary muscles that control the lips and eyes are merely in spasm after a sort of short circuit or from relic electrical activity. This is likely true for the rest of the body, but the head has the distinction of housing the brain, which is the seat of consciousness. The brain receives no trauma from a clean decapitation and may therefore continue to function until blood loss causes unconsciousness and death.

Exactly how long a person can remain conscious after decapitation remains debatable. We know that chickens often walk around for several seconds after decapitation; the Dutch rat study mentioned earlier suggests a length of perhaps four seconds. Other studies of small mammals have found up to 29 seconds [source: Khuly]. This in itself seems a horrid length of time for such a state. Take a moment to count off four seconds while you look around the room; you'll likely find you can take in quite a bit visually and aurally during that time.

This is what is most disturbing about the concept of consciousness remaining after decapitation; we may feel pain and experience fear in those few moments before death. This has been reported in a number of cases where consciousness appeared to remain following decapitation. Most recently, in 1989, an Army veteran reported that following a car accident that he was in with a friend, the decapitated head of his friend changed facial expressions: "First of shock or confusion then to terror or grief," [source: Bellows].

Both King Charles I and Queen Anne Boleyn are reported to both have showed signs of trying to speak following their beheadings (by executioners' swords, rather than by guillotine) [source: Maslin]. When he spoke out against the use of the guillotine in 1795, German researcher S.T. Sommering cited reports of decapitated heads that have ground their teeth and that the face of one decapitated person "grimaced horribly" when a physician inspecting the head poked the spinal canal with his finger [source: Sommering].

Perhaps most famously was the study conducted by a Dr. Beaurieux in 1905 of the head of executed criminal Henri Languille. Over the course of 25 to 30 seconds of observation, the physician recorded managing to get Languille to open his eyes and "undeniably" focus them on the doctor's twice by calling the executed man's name [source: Bellows].

For more information on decapitation and other forms of capital punishment, head over to the next page.