[Alan McDougall (OP)]

A few nights ago I saw a TV show about a lady that had a heart lung transplant.

After a fairly successful albeit protracted recovery period, when her daughter was going shopping and asked her it there was anything she could get for her while she was out shopping

This previous health conscious woman blurted out she would really like a “bear and burger and chips”,

Things she has never drank or ate due to being extremely careful all her life due to her fragile health. One can just guess the amazement and disbelief from her daughter.

As time went by she had dreams of riding on a motor bike, and even dancing, how could an elderly lady ever dream of such things so remote from her past daily life?

She then went to the hospital to see it they would tell her who was the donor of these organs

To cut the story short she found that it was a healthily young man of 19 who had died in a motorbike accident.

Just like her new thought he was a keen motor cyclist, loved burgers and chips and went out often with his friends dancing

Medical science in now recognizing this as a genuine phenomenon often found in organ transplants and the term the use is Cell Memory

It seems that our consciousness or intelligence does not just reside in the brain, but it pervades our whole body down to the very cellular level

This is interesting to me, Have any of you guys read about this?

I would be most interested to read what you have to add

Alan

[blakestyger]

Instinct tells me that this is an urban myth or similar. Inheritance occurs via germ cells at conception.

However - this week's New Scientist has an article on nanotubes that have been discovered connecting cells to one another in a matrix...to everyone's amazement. I'm not implying that the two are related, merely that there are 'things' being discovered that change the way we understand biological processes.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

This is no urban legend and you do me a disservice to suggest I would post that sort of lie.

This post is based on fact and I will return with evidence later

Alan

[Flyberius]

Your still taking one ladies word for it.

Also its likely, with all the transplants happening all the time, that this would be reported at least once.  Satistically this kind of thig will happen.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

Blake

There is considerable evidence that the carry over of actual memories from donor to transplant recipient occurs regularly

(My comment Alan)

http://hubpages.com/hub/Cellular-Memories-in-Organ-Transplant-Recipients

Here is the case I mentioned is the first post” and more below

One of the few cases we know the patient's name was a woman called Claire Sylvia who received a heart and lung transplant in the 1970's from an eighteen year old male donor who had been in a motorcycle accident. None of this information was known to Sylvia, who upon waking up claimed she had a new and intense craving for beer, chicken nuggets, and green peppers, all food she didn't enjoy prior to the surgery. A change in food preferences is probably the most noted in heart transplant patients. Sylvia wrote a book about her experiences after learning the identity of her donor called A Change of Heart.

Other documented cases have ben perplexing and sometimes extreme. A 47 year old man receiving a heart from a 17 year old black boy suddenly picked up an intense fondness for classical music. The boy whose heart had been donated was killed in a drive-by shooting, still clutching his violin case in his hands. A 47 year old transplant patient claimed that his new heart was responsible for a sudden onset of eating disorders, heralded from the heart's previous owner, a 14 year old girl. Once a change in sexual orientation was even documented in a twenty seven year old lesbian who soon after getting a new heart settled down and married a man.

The most stunning example of cellular memory was found in an eight year old girl who received the heart of a ten year old girl. The recipient was plagued after surgery with vivid nightmares about an attacker and a girl being murdered. After being brought to a psychiatrist her nightmares proved to be so vivid and real that the psychiatrist believed them to be genuine memories.

As it turns out the ten year old whose heart she had just received was murdered and due to the recipients violent reoccurring dreams she was able to describe the events of that horrible encounter and the murderer so well that police soon apprehended, arrested, and convicted the killer.

Other common quirks recorded have been changes in attitude, temperament, vocabulary, patience levels, philosophies, and tastes in food and music. The phenomena has just recently been put into studies. The most notable of which was Dr Paul Peasall's questioning of 150 heart transplant patients which was published in Near-Death Studies magazine in 2002 entitled "Changes in Heart Transplant Recipients That Parallel the Personalities of Their Donors" from which the aforementioned cases are mostly from.

How Cellular Memory Might Work
It is thought that cellular memory might be possible since the discovery that neauropeptides exist not only in the brain as once thought but in all the tissues of the body. These neauropeptides are a way for the brain to "speak" to other bodily organs and for the organs to rely information back. However it is unknown if these newly found circuits could indeed store memories as the brain does in different organs.

Due to the amount of peptides in the heart this organ is seen to have special potential in the study of this phenomena. However many answers still remain. Why don't all transplant recipients have these experiences? It's been theorized this may be due to the fact not all of them are in tune with their body as some other individuals may be. Perhaps the explanation lies with the sensitivity of the individual.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/426766/one_in_ten_transplant_patients_inherit_personalities_of_their_organ/

By RACHEL ELLIS

A LEADING scientist will claim this week that he has proof that patients who undergo major organ transplants can inherit the personalities of their donors.
Gary Schwartz, a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, says he has details of 70 cases where this controversial phenomenon has occurred.

And he will argue that it affects at least ten per cent of people who have a heart, lung, kidney or liver transplant. The theory that personality and character traits can be transferred via an organ transplant has existed for some time, but most scientists have ridiculed the notion.

Professor Schwartz now claims to have evidence that in the most extreme cases patients adopt a donor's taste in food, take up the same interests and pastimes as a donor, and even develop talents that a donor possessed. In one case, outlined opposite, a woman who had been health-conscious and calm began craving fast food and became aggressive, just like the biker whose heart and lungs she received.

In another, a seven-year-old girl had nightmares about being killed after being given the heart of a girl who had been murdered.

Professor Schwartz will present his findings at a holistic living conference in London next weekend, titled Icons of the Field. Critics put such events down to chance, the trauma of the surgery or the side-effects of the drugs that transplant patients have to take.

But last night Professor Schwartz, who is also a professor of medicine, neurology, psychiatry and surgery and has published more than 400 scientific papers, said that all transplant patients should be warned that there is a chance they will inherit the personality of a donor.

'It is a big ethical question, but I believe transplant patients should be told there is a possibility that they will take on a donor's characteristics,' he said.

'Then they can have a choice. They can decide what is important to them: being active and being with their family, but with the chance that they might take on some traits of the donor that they might not like. Our research shows that about ten per cent of patients will inherit some of a donor's characteristics. However, it may be higher because most patients are afraid to share their experiences.

'I don't want to frighten people, but to make it more acceptable for them to share what is happening to them.



If this is a real phenomenon, we shouldn't ignore it and it requires further scientific study.' Professor Schwartz's claims are based on the theory that all major organs develop a certain amount of memory. When they are transplanted, this memory can be transferred-from one person to another.

He explained: 'When the organ is placed in the recipient, the information and energy stored in the organ is passed on to the recipient.
'The theory applies to any organ that has cells that are interconnected.

They could be kidneys, liver and even muscles. The stories we have uncovered are very compelling and are completely consistent with this systematic memory hypothesis.' Since starting his research in the Eighties, Professor Schwartz has attracted widespread criticism from the medical establishment.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

Flyberius

Do you think I am so uninformed that I would start a thread on the based of one woman's testimony?

This phenomenon is happening  to thousand of translplant recipient's all over the world.

Do a little research before jumping in with a silly comment

Alan

[Flyberius]

I was just posting the old statistics arguement.  You know.

Whats silly about that, if you cant retort to it then I would have thought it was marlarky.

As it happens you have posted your evidence.

Dont take it so personally...   ...bitch.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

Flyberius

Dont take it so personally...   ...bitch.

"bitch???"  []

[Flyberius]

That was lucky.  Didn't know how that was going to go down.

[Flyberius]

If you took a heart from a burger lover, could it be possible that cells in that heart have dependencies on fat, alchohol or their effects in the same way a drug addict becomes physically dependent on their chosen poison?

So rather than a memory its a craving.  Just a thought.

[RD]

Heart transplantation is not simply a question of replacing an organ that no longer functions. The heart is often seen as source of love, emotions, and focus of personality traits. To gain insight into the problem of whether transplant patients themselves feel a change in personality after having received a donor heart, 47 patients who were transplanted over a period of 2 years in Vienna, Austria, were asked for an interview. Three groups of patients could be identified: 79% stated that their personality had not changed at all postoperatively. In this group, patients showed massive defense and denial reactions, mainly by rapidly changing the subject or making the question ridiculous. Fifteen per cent stated that their personality had indeed changed, but not because of the donor organ, but due to the life-threatening event. Six per cent (three patients) reported a distinct change of personality due to their new hearts. These incorporation fantasies forced them to change feelings and reactions and accept those of the donor. Verbatim statements of these heart transplant recipients show that there seem to be severe problems regarding graft incorporation, which are based on the age-old idea of the heart as a centre that houses feelings and forms the personality.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1299456

[blakestyger]

Alan

This is no urban legend and you do me a disservice to suggest I would post that sort of lie.

This post is based on fact and I will return with evidence later

Alan

I think you have over-reacted a bit here, especially as it appears that you did start a thread based on one woman's testimony. Me saying that I instinctively felt it was an urban myth is not the same as suggesting you posted a lie!

Also, in your longer reply to me there was not one fact I could hang my hat on - the whole piece was littered with qualifiers like 'claim', 'thought that', 'might' as well as testimony from what people have told psychiatrists; psychiatry is not, strictly speaking and in my opinion, science.

[RD]

If a heart transplant recipient was in contact with the donor's family there could be psychological pressure on the recipient to say that the donor's personality lives on in them. Meeting the family could also be a route for the reported changes in vocabulary, philosophy and diet which match the donor.

[Alan McDougall (OP)]

Blake,



I meant no disrespect to you and you are correct that this sort of phenomenon has not been proved by medical science of any other science in fact.

I have a volatile nature that makes me respond in an abrupt manner, without thinking the whole reply through.

I regret and am sorry, I will do the utmost to keep myself in check in future


A quote from my post today

The most stunning example of cellular memory was found in an eight year old girl who received the heart of a ten year old girl. The recipient was plagued after surgery with vivid nightmares about an attacker and a girl being murdered. After being brought to a psychiatrist her nightmares proved to be so vivid and real that the psychiatrist believed them to be genuine memories.

As it turns out the ten year old whose heart she had just received was murdered and due to the recipients violent reoccurring dreams she was able to describe the events of that horrible encounter and the murderer so well that police soon apprehended, arrested, and convicted the killer

If the above account is true and I cannot see why it is not , this phenomenon deserves futher investigation or at least some interest. These are medical doctors making these reports, not the esoteric misinformed bunch who will grasp onto any  unexplained event and twist it for their ends

However, I do not think it can ever be proved scientifically.

Alan

What promted me to start the thread was the National Geographic documentary I saw the night before I started the thread.

[blakestyger]

Alan

It's OK, no offence taken  - I only deal with the argument, not the person, it's never personal.

This subject certainly needs to be looked at properly - National Geographic may not carry as much weight as is needed here though.

[zachary]

Holy sh1t this is awesome.  Can someone point me to the story about the murder of the 10 year old girl.  Is there any documentary or official like story or any good source for the information?  I think saying that there is no scientific proof, is putting scientific proof on too much of a pedestal.  If it happened, the proof is in the evidence of the crime scene that the girl did not see.  IF that is consistent with her dreams and testimony, I think that is as scientifically proven as it gets.

[ricbritain]

Wow! Did I just stumble into the new age forum or what?

[nirsch]

I've been extremely intrigued about this idea after I attended a lecture in my city.  Although we have little scientific evidence to fully support this theory now, I feel like in a matter of years, more evidence will surface as it already seems to be arising.  In the lecture I attended, they showed a video clip (I'm not sure from where, but I will try to find it and post it on here) where scientists looked more closely at organ intelligence, specifically the heart.  These scientists attached wires to a patient's heart and head, recording the activity of both.  They showed a variety of disturbing photographs to the patient and found that the heart reacted before the picture was shown and the brain reacted after the picture was shown. 

Anyways, sorry for going on a rant...I'll try and find that video.  And thanks for starting this thread!  Super interesting stuff!

[nirsch]

newbielink:http://www.heartmath.org/research/research-science-of-the-heart.html [nonactive]

Here's a huuuuge article all about it!