You remember, in vivid detail, a conversation you were having not some time prior:
Actually, to be quite honest, I think your suggestion of the HEAD TRANSPLANTATION would actually be a much better idea. If you pull the brain from the skull, you have to deal with reattaching it to a lot of cranial nerves and re-inserting it in to the brainpan just so. This would be almost impossible. You probably would not be able to see or walk or speak ever again, but might reasonably hope to regain vasculature to make the shell of a man your continuing vessel in which to exist. You're also pulling it out which would take time and remove oxygen etc. from the brain with the removal of blood supply. This would almost surely mean you'd be fucked up if they put it back inside. Safer option would just be to take the whole container: the head. Then you just have to worry about attaching muscle tissue, vagus nerve, major arteries and veins etc.
The question is finding a body. Transplantation suggests the use of dead drug addicts for organs. Perhaps the body would be possible if the trauma that killed was anoxic overdose or some such, and other gear was intact.
Some neuroscience tells you that you're going to lose a little in the process. Neurons are what we like to call post-mitotic cells, meaning they no longer really divide and expand. They can branch a little bit, but this decreases with age. Better to refresh the supply with fresh neurons or better still find a way to stimulate neurogenesis using some kind of drug agent. That saves the need for invasive technique. If no such thing was available, after healing and regrowing those major nerves (hopefully correctly) it would probably be a good idea to do some kind of neural stem cell implant in damaged areas or aged areas of the brain to keep up function. It depends on the extent to which one's brain is healthy. I've heard some people say that a healthy brain of someone with low cholesterol, low BP, high mental activity, and no other history of ischemic disease would have enough brain cells to last 300 years. Adding fresh material to keep the network in working order probably still wouldn't be a bad idea.
It does not occur to wonder how you have any memories without a brain to store them, much less such specific and detailed memories of an exchange about head transplants. All you know is that you have the body. Now what is needed is a head!
- You wonder if a new head means a new self, and, if so, how you'll enslave it
- You believe that head transplantation is the only way to go
- You're not sure that your body would accept a new head transplant
- You decide to regrow your own head with the power of will
- You start to come down
- You imagine that you're somewhere else, far away from this awful problem