Polls Archive 39 - Can memories be transplanted?

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTdGVci6Ebo

Poll Question 39 - "Is it possible that a person who has received a heart transplant could take on bits of the memories or behaviors of the donor?" Poll ended May 12 2009. 43% agreed that this could be "Possible", while the rest said "Impossible".

Back in Poll 33, we asked whether this way of visualizing reality could allow for the possibility of meeting another version of yourself, living another life, right here in the present. The question we're looking at here is somewhat related to that concept, but does require us to make another major conceptual leap if we're going to accept this additional supposition.

Check out the following set of videos, which is from a program shown on the Discovery Health channel a few years ago. This is from a documentary series called Mindshock, and the episode is called "Transplanting Memories?".

Part 1:
A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sudmW97FZA0

Part 2:

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky6eEiVbgMg

Part 3:

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei6FmA6-N14

Part 4:

A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY5SiWHDInQ

As we can see from the poll results, the idea that a heart transplant patient might take on memories or behaviors from the donor is pretty "out there", and more people disagreed than agreed with this as a conjecture. Would the poll results have been somewhat different if every person answering the poll were obliged to watch at least part of the above documentary? Perhaps. Certainly, for many of us this is a new idea: and to be clear, this "transplanting memories" concept is not a conclusion I arrived at in my book or have promoted with my project up to now. The idea does seem to be connected to Rupert Sheldrake's ideas about morphic resonance, though, and Sheldrake's work has received some attention in my book and in this blog. Here are some of the past blogs where I've talked about related ideas:

Are Animals and Kids More Fifth-Dimensional?
Souls as Interlocking Patterns
Underlying Patterns
Magnets and Souls

"Transplanting Memories" is not without its detractors - like many of the other ideas we've explored here in this blog, there are skeptics who automatically ridicule the above documentary, and that extends to any suggestions that there could be unseen connections linking our reality together. Setting those knee-jerk reactions aside, though, requires us to think about the possible consequences of this - if some imprint of a certain organ's previous owner remains, does that mean a heart from a murderer or a suicidal person could dramatically alter the behavior of the recipient? The mind boggles at the implications.

In blog entries like Auras, Ghosts and Pareidolia, Do You Believe in Ghosts?, Ever Seen an Aura?, and Going to the Light, I've looked at some of the possible ways that a person's unique patterns might continue on after death. For me, the idea that a transplanted heart from a murderer could cause the recipient to become one too seems too far-fetched. It seems more possible to me that some parts of the donor's awareness might continue to focus on the timeline of the recipient and exert some minor influences , but I'm reminded of what hypnotists say - no person in a hypnotic state can be induced to do something that goes against the basic morals of that person. I think the same could be true of the subtle influences seen in these situations: the patient might find themselves becoming interested in a new food or willing to listen to a kind of music that previously held no interest for them, and there are transplant recipients interviewed in the above documentary who experienced just such effects. But like the hypnotized subject, these people are not going to take on any new characteristics that they wouldn't already have been willing to accept regardless of where they came from.

Although the source of these new influences might seem troubling, when you stop and think about it this is not particularly different from the process of growth, discovery and taking on new patterns that each of us goes through within our lives each and every day. As I say in my song Change and Renewal:

Every minute of every day
I keep changing, I keep changing
Nothing ever stays the same
All replacing, rearranging
Every cell that’s in me now
Was not the same when I was born
In an endless constant flow
Renewing when they’re old and worn

Am I the same person I was twenty years ago? No! And neither are you. We learn, we change, we grow. But there are threads that connect us each to our previous selves, and the unique journey each of us is on is what makes this all so interesting.

Enjoy the journey,

Rob Bryanton

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