What it’s like to have your head chopped off? What would you feel and think? Would there be anxiety and terror or…? I’ve read that the head lives for one to two minutes before expiring so you can presumably see, hear, smell and even taste things before blacking out.
I remember being stoned one night and imagining a conversation between myself and a kind of spectral administrator of in-between states just after my head and body had been separated. “I’ve got a couple of minutes left and I want to be both,” I told the administrator. “I’ve felt the organic totality of my body since birth and don’t want to let that go of that until I’m dead, and I don’t want to lose any kind mental awareness either, much less my sight, smell and hearing in my head.” Sorry, said the administrator — you can’t be both. You’ve been separated and you’re going to have to choose. “All right, all right,” I said. “I’ll be the head.”