In 1964, a Dutch librarian drilled a hole in his own skull to get permanently high

According to Bart Huges, the Dutch librarian attended medical school in Amsterdam "but was refused a degree due to his advocacy of marijuana use." In 1964 he published a scroll arguing that trepanation — drilling a hole in the skull — "could be used to enhance brain functionality by balancing the proportion of blood and cerebral spinal fluid."

Huges believed that "when mankind began to walk upright, our brains drained of blood," and that a hole in the head "allowed the blood to better flow in and out of the brain, causing a permanent 'high'." On 6 January 1965 he tested the theory on himself: "Using a foot-operated electric dentist drill, Huges drilled a hole in his skull."

His writings persuaded the British-born Joey Mellen to attempt self-trepanation, which Mellen documented in a book called Bore Hole. Huges died of heart disease in 2004, at 70.

Previously:

• You need to drill a hole in your head like you need a hole in the head
• Stone Age humans had 4-inch holes drilled in their skulls to free the demons inside