by Lakish Campbell

Created on: February 02, 2008   Last Updated: May 04, 2008

In the 2008 film "The Eye", Sydney Wells, a blind but skilled concert violinist, receives the gift of sight through corrective corneal surgery. Finally able to see, Sydney is overwhelmed to see a world in Technicolor. However, Sydney has also been granted another type of sight: visions of horrifying deaths and souls from the Underworld. Apparently the donor either had delusions or was actually able to see dead people.

So the question is this: could a situation like this really happen? If so, what would this medical phenomenon be called?

The answer is cellular memory. According to The Skeptic's Dictionary, "cellular memory is the speculative notion that human body cells contain clues to our personalities, tastes, and histories, independently of genetic codes or brain cells." Simply put, cells given to another person would provide the recipient with characteristics of the donor. The academic organ community deems cellular memory as a pseudoscience, as it has not been successfully proven scientifically.

However, there has been cases of cellular memory happening. Leslie A. Takeuchi, a physical therapy assistant, wrote an article titled "Cellular Memory in Organ Transplants". In this article, she mentioned how Gary Schwartz, PhD; Linda Russek, PhD; and Paul Pearsall, MD collaborated on a study of 10 chronicled interviews of recipients and their families and friends along with the families and friends of the donors. After conducting their research, the doctors were pleasantly surprised to find that the cases had similar details.

One famous case was Claire Sylvia. Sylvia, an accomplished dancer, choreographer and teacher, needed a heart-lung transplant. She was suffering from primary pulmonary hypertension. According to MedicineNet.com, primary pulmonary hypertension is "high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery that conveys blood from the right ventricle to the lungs." Unknown to her, not only would she have a psychic connection with her donor through dreams. She would also develop cravings such as fried chicken, chicken nuggets, green peppers and beer. Through her dreams, she learned the name of her donor (Tim L.) and what he looked like. He was 18 and drove a motorcycle. Shortly after this occurred, Sylvia became curious about what her donor might be telling her. Unable to access his medical records, Sylvia's friend relayed a dream that he had, which ultimately led her to meet her donor's family. Tim's family would later say that taking to Sylvia was like talking to Tim all over again. Sylvia later wrote a book titled "A Change of Heart: A Memoir" and starred in the documentary "The Secret World of Dreams".

If cellular memory is a pseudoscience, then how would the medical community explain Claire Sylvia's case? Was it just luck that she found out about her donor in her dreams? How about the expected cravings? Before the surgery, Sylvia disliked beer, chicken nuggets, fried chicken and green peppers. However, her donor loved these foods. In fact, Sylvia found out that on the night her donor died, he had chicken nuggets in the pocket of his leather jacket! Based on the information presented in this case, Tim's cells merged with her cells by transferring memories and tastes.

Hopefully, cellular memory will be seen as a real science someday soon.

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