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It is poetic to believe that memories and personality exist within every fiber of our being. Ideas abound in movies and books about the essence of one person transferring to another with a body part - to both the comfort and detriment of the recipient. However, science offers a different explanation of what is known as 'cellular memory'.

The idea of a donor passing something to a transplant recipient appears to have begun making public appearances in the scientific literature in 2002, though the clinical anecdotes and fictional stories of such experiences have existed for much longer. Recent research found that the chemical characteristics of cells may be transferred from the donor to the recipient, which can cause tissue-dependent alterations. Overall, it is simply chemicals and their signals being retained in the cells, which ultimately alters the cellular environment of the recipient, causing a change. It is not, by any means, transferred consciousness. In this case, "memory" means something different.

Misunderstanding Terminology

Popularized in movies such as "The Eye", "Idle Hands", "Blink", "Return to Me", and "Body Parts", cellular memory is a speculative theory on the transference of properties from a donor to a recipient upon transplant. Much of the scientific research on the chemical compositions of cells has been misinterpreted and combined with psychological impressions to create the theory as it has been represented by Hollywood. An indication of this is that most of the material presented scientifically has been published in psychiatric journals, or in journals known to cater to the pseudosciences, fields that attempt to approach ideas scientifically but have no way to experiment and gain empirical evidence.

A popular argument by those who want the scientific establishment to accept cellular memory is the story of Claire Sylvia, who received a heart transplant in 1988 and went on to find the donor's family via a series of dreams and fateful encounters. A handful of other stories also circulate about recipient experiences brought on, seemingly, by their donated parts. The theory is that our cells contain information about our personality, likes, dislikes, and memories.

The problem is that human thought and personality is so complex that it does not reside in a single cell, but in the entirety of the organ known as the brain, and for speculative purposes, even beyond on a grander scale. What research has shown is that the chemical environment

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