The following appeared in the book She Came In Through The Kitchen Window by Stephen J. Spignesi. This is a cookbook of recipes inspired by The Beatles and their music. If you would like to purchase this book click here.
Trepanning is the practice of drilling a hole in the human skull. It is performed for hoped-for enlightenment, "balancing" of bodily fluids, and, during the Middle Ages, to rid the body of possessing demons.
The following anedote was recounted by Paul McCartney during an interview in October 1986.
Linda and me came over for dinner once and John said, "You fancy getting the trepanning thing done?" I said, "Well, what is it?" and he said, "Well, you kind of have a hole bored into your skull and it relieves the pressure."
We're sitting at dinner and this is seriously be offered!
Now this wasn't a joke, this was like, Let's go next week, we know a guy who can do it and maybe we can do it all together. So I said, "Look, you go and have it done, and if it works, great. Tell us about it and we'll all have it."
But I'm afraid I've always been a bit cynical about stuff like that-thank God!-because I think that there's so much crap that you've got to be careful of. But John was more open to things like that.
There is not evidence (to quote Paul, "Thank God!") that John Lennon ever seriously pursued the idea of having his head trepanned. He did talk about it though.