Peeranormal 08: Do Transplant Recipients Take on the Personalities of Their Donors?

Peeranormal
Peeranormal
Peeranormal 08: Do Transplant Recipients Take on the Personalities of Their Donors?
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There have been dozens of documented cases where the recipient of a transplant, often involving the heart, apparently take on the personalities of the organ donor. Recipients also report memories of the donor, and memories that belong to the donor, despite never having met the donor. These cases range from very young children to adults. How can memories and behaviors be transmitted from one person to the next when brain and neural tissue is not involved? Does this phenomenon relate to the question of consciousness?

Source articles for the episode:

B. Bunzel, B. Schmidl-Mohl, A. Grundböck and G. Wollenek, “Does Changing the Heart Mean Changing Personality? A Retrospective Inquiry on 47 Heart Transplant Patients?” Quality of Life Research, vol 1, no 4 (1992): 251-256

Paul Pearsall, Gary E. R. Schwartz, Linda G. S. Russek, “CHANGES IN HEART TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS THAT PARALLEL THE PERSONALITIES OF THEIR DONORS,” Integrative Medicine vol 2, nos. 2-3 (1999): 67-52; republished in the Journal of Near Deaf Studies vol 20, no 3 (2002): 191-206. HTML version

Thomas Verny, “What Cells Remember: Toward a Unified Field Theory of Memory,” Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, vol 29, no 1 (Fall 2014): 16-29

Peeranormal 07: DMT, Psychedelics, Religious Mysticism, and Paranormal Experiences

Peeranormal
Peeranormal
Peeranormal 07: DMT, Psychedelics, Religious Mysticism, and Paranormal Experiences
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This episode focuses on entheogens—psychedelic drugs that are known to cause “mystical states” of consciousness. Our hosts discuss Rick Strassman’s work on DMT, but that is merely a subset of entheogen study. Current research in the fields of brain science, psychology, and religion are struggling to explain how entheogens and the experiences they cause should be understood. The dilemma of consciousness, more popularly known as the mind-body problem, is at the heart of the struggle. Do entheogens simply affect part of the brain and its chemistry triggering new states of consciousness from inside your head? Or do these drugs separate consciousness from the organ of the body we call the brain, verifying that consciousness is distinct from the brain? Are God and other supernal beings experienced by people under the effect of entheogens just a product of the brain, or are they entities to be experienced by unhindered consciousness?

Articles:

Peter Bebergal, “Mystics Under the Microscope,” Search Magazine (January-February 2009): 35-39

Ron Cole-Turner, “Entheogens, Mysticism, and Neuroscience,” Zygon, vol. 49:3 (September 2014): 642-651

Leonard Hummel, “By its Fruits? Mystical and Visionary States of Consciousness Occasioned by Entheogens,” Zygon, vol. 49, no. 3 (September 2014) : 685-695

Michael Lerner and Michael Lyvers, “Values and Beliefs of Psychedelic Drug Users: A Cross-Cultural Study,” Journal of Psychoactive Drugs 38:2  (June 2006): 143-147

David P. Luke and Marios Kittenis, “A Preliminary Survey of Paranormal Experiences with Psychoactive Drugs,” The Journal of Parapsychology 69:2 (2005): 305-327

W.A. Richards, “Here and Now: Discovering the Sacred with Entheogens,” Zygon 49:3 (Sept, 2014):652-665

Peeranormal 06: Sleep Paralysis

Peeranormal
Peeranormal
Peeranormal 06: Sleep Paralysis
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Sleep paralysis can be defined in several ways. In terms of the experiencer, it can be described as “a visitation by a malevolent creature which attacked its victims as they slept” (Cox). More clinically, sleep paralysis is understood as “a transient,conscious state of involuntary immobility occurring when falling asleep or upon wakening” (Cheyne, 2002). Research into sleep paralysis has produced compelling evidence that the phenomenon can be explained by brain chemistry and physiology in conjunction with REM sleep. But is that all there is to it?

Articles:

Patricia Brooks and John H. Peever, “Identification of the Transmitter and Receptor Mechanisms Responsible for REM Sleep Paralysis,” The Journal of Neuroscience (July 18, 2012): 9785-9795

J. A. Cheyne, S. Rueffer, and Ian R. Newby-Clark, “Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic Hallucinations during Sleep Paralysis: Neurological and Cultural Construction of the Night-Mare,” Consciousness and Cognition 8 (1999): 319–337

J. A. Cheyne, “Situational factors affecting sleep paralysis and associated hallucinations: position and timing effects,” Journal of Sleep Research 11 (2002): 169–177

Ann M. Cox, “Sleep Paralysis and Folklore,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Open 6(7) (2015): 1-4