Extracted from an article in Nexus Magazine. The article by Paul Pearsall, Gary E. R. Schwartz, and Linda G. S. Russek was originally published under the title “Changes in Heart Transplant Recipients that Parallel the Personalities of their Donors” in the Journal of Near-Death Studies 20 (3), 2002.
According to this study of patients who have received transplanted organs, particularly hearts, it is not uncommon for memories, behaviours, preferences and habits associated with the donor to be transferred to the recipient.
In 1997, a book titled A Change of Heart was published that described the apparent personality changes experienced by Claire Sylvia.9 Sylvia received a heart and lung transplant at Yale–New Haven Hospital in 1988. She reported noticing that various attitudes, habits and tastes changed following her surgery. She had inexplicable cravings for foods she had previously disliked. For example, though she was a health-conscious dancer and choreographer, upon leaving the hospital she had an uncontrollable urge to go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and order chicken nuggets, a food she never ate. Sylvia found herself drawn toward cool colours and no longer dressed in the bright reds and oranges she used to prefer. She began behaving in an aggressive and impetuous manner that was uncharacteristic of her but turned out to be similar to the personality of her donor. Interestingly, uneaten Kentucky Fried Chicken nuggets were found in the jacket of the young man (her donor) when he was killed…
This paper reports key observations from 10 representative cases of transplant recipients who were open to sharing experiences of personal changes following their operations that are consistent with the systemic memory prediction…
Case 1 The donor was an 18-year-old boy killed in an automobile accident. The recipient was an 18-year-old girl diagnosed with endocarditis and subsequent heart failure.
The donor’s father, a psychiatrist, said:
My son always wrote poetry. We had waited more than a year to clean out his room after he died. We found a book of poems he had never shown us, and we’ve never told anyone about them. One of them has left us shaken emotionally and spiritually. It spoke of his seeing his own sudden death. He was a musician, too, and we found a song he titled “Danny, My Heart Is Yours”—the words about how my son felt he was destined to die and give his heart to someone. He had decided to donate his organs when he was 12 years old. We thought it was quite strong, but we thought they were talking about it in school. When we met his recipient, we were so…we didn’t know, like, what it was. We don’t know now. We just don’t know.
The recipient reported:
When they showed me pictures of their son, I knew him directly. I would have picked him out anywhere. He’s in me. I know he is in me and he is in love with me. He was always my lover, maybe in another time somewhere. How could he know years before he died that he would die and give his heart to me? How would he know my name is Danny? And then, when they played me some of his music, I could finish the phrases of his songs. I could never play before, but after my transplant I began to love music. I felt it in my heart. My heart had to play it. I told my mom I wanted to take guitar lessons—the same instrument Paul [the donor] had played. His song is in me. I feel it a lot at night and it’s like Paul is serenading me.
The recipient’s father reported:
My daughter, she was what you say….a hell-raiser. Until she got sick—they say from a dentist, they think—she was the wild one. Then she became quite quiet. I think it was her illness, but she said she felt more energy, not less. She said she wanted to play an instrument and she wanted to sing. When she wrote her first song, she sang about her new heart as her lover’s heart. She said her lover had come to save her life.
Case 2 The donor was a 16-month-old boy who drowned in a bathtub. The recipient was a seven-month-old boy diagnosed with tetralogy of Fallot (a hole in the ventricular septum with displacement of the aorta, pulmonary stenosis and thickening of the right ventricle).
The donor’s mother, a physician, noted:
The first thing is that I could more than hear Jerry’s [donor's] heart. I could feel it in me. When Carter [the recipient] first saw me, he ran to me and pushed his nose against me and rubbed and rubbed it. It was just exactly what we did with Jerry. Jerry and Carter’s heart is five years old now, but Carter’s eyes were Jerry’s eyes. When he hugged me, I could feel my son. I mean I could feel him, not just symbolically. He was there. I felt his energy.
I’m a doctor. I’m trained to be a keen observer and have always been a natural-born sceptic. But this was real. I know people will say that I need to believe my son’s spirit is alive, and perhaps I do. But I felt it. My husband and my father felt it. And I swear to you, and you can ask my mother, Carter said the same baby-talk words that Jerry said. Carter is six, but he was talking Jerry’s baby talk and playing with my nose just like Jerry did.
We stayed with the … [recipient family] that night. In the middle of the night, Carter came in and asked to sleep with my husband and me. He cuddled up between us exactly like Jerry did, and we began to cry. Carter told us not to cry because Jerry said everything was okay. My husband and I, our parents and those who really knew Jerry have no doubt. Our son’s heart contains much of our son and beats in Carter’s chest. On some level, our son is still alive.
The recipient’s mother reported:
I saw Carter go to her [donor's mother]. He never does that. He is very, very shy, but he went to her just like he used to run to me when he was a baby. When he whispered ‘It’s okay, mama’, I broke down. He called her ‘Mother’, or maybe it was Jerry’s heart talking. And one more thing that got to us. We found out talking to Jerry’s mom that Jerry had mild cerebral palsy mostly on his left side. Carter has stiffness and some shaking on that same side. He never did as a baby and it only showed up after the transplant. The doctors say it’s probably something to do with his medical condition, but I really think there’s more to it.
One more thing I’d like to know about. When we went to church together, Carter had never met Jerry’s father. We came late and Jerry’s dad was sitting with a group of people in the middle of the congregation. Carter let go of my hand and ran right to that man. He climbed on his lap, hugged him and said ‘Daddy’. We were flabbergasted. How could he have known him? Why did he call him dad? He never did things like that. He would never let go of my hand in church and never run to a stranger. When I asked him why he did it, he said he didn’t. He said Jerry did and he went with him.
Case 3 The donor was a 24-year-old woman who was the victim of an automobile accident. The recipient was a 25-year-old male graduate student suffering from cystic fibrosis who received a heart-lung transplant.
The donor’s sister reported:
My sister was a very sensual person. Her one love was painting. She was on her way to her first solo showing at a tiny art shop when a drunk ploughed into her. It’s a lesbian art store that supports gay artists. My sister was not really very ‘out’ about it, but she was gay. She said her landscape paintings were really representations of the mother or woman figure. She would look at a naked woman model and paint a landscape from that! Can you imagine? She was gifted.
The recipient reported:
I never told anyone at first, but I thought having a woman’s heart would make me gay. Since my surgery, I’ve been hornier than ever and women just seem to look even more erotic and sensual, so I thought I might have gotten internal transsexual surgery. My doctor told me it was just my new energy and lease on life that made me feel that way, but I’m different. I know I’m different. I make love like I know exactly how the woman’s body feels and responds—almost as if it is my body. I have the same body, but I still think I’ve got a woman’s way of thinking about sex now.
The recipient’s girlfriend said:
He’s a much better lover now. Of course, he was weaker before, but it’s not that. He’s like, I mean, he just knows my body as well as I do. He wants to cuddle, hold and take a lot of time. Before he was a good lover, but not like this. It’s just different. He wants to hug all the time and go shopping. My God, he never wanted to shop! And you know what, he carries a purse now. His purse! He slings it over his shoulder and calls it his bag, but it’s a purse. He hates it when I say that, but going to the mall with him is like going with one of the girls. And one more thing, he loves to go to museums. He would never, absolutely never, do that. Now he would go every week. Sometimes he stands for minutes and looks at a painting without talking. He loves landscapes and just stares. Sometimes I just leave him there and come back later.
Case 4 The donor was a 17-year-old black male student victim of a drive-by shooting. The recipient was a 47-year-old white male foundry worker diagnosed with aortic stenosis.
The donor’s mother reported:
Our son was walking to violin class when he was hit. Nobody knows where the bullet came from, but it just hit him and he fell. He died right there on the street, hugging his violin case. He loved music and his teachers said he had a real thing for it. He would listen to music and play along with it. I think he would have been at Carnegie Hall some day, but the other kids always made fun of the music he liked.
The recipient reported:
I’m real sad and all for the guy who died and gave me his heart, but I really have trouble with the fact that he was black. I’m not a racist, mind you, not at all. Most of [my] friends at the plant are black guys. But the idea that there is a black heart in a white body seems really…well, I don’t know. I told my wife that I thought my penis might grow to a black man’s size. They say black men have larger penises, but I don’t know for sure. After we have sex, I sometimes feel guilty because a black man made love to my wife, but I don’t really think that seriously.
I can tell you one thing, though. I used to hate classical music, but now I love it. So I know it’s not my new heart, because a black guy from the ‘hood wouldn’t be into that. Now it calms my heart. I play it all the time. I more than like it. I didn’t tell any of the guys on the line that I have a black heart, but I think about it a lot.
The recipient’s wife reported:
He was more than concerned about the idea when he heard it was a black man’s heart. He actually asked me if he could ask the doctor for a white heart when one came up. He’s no Archie Bunker, but he’s close to it. And he would kill me if he knew I told you this, but for the first time he’s invited his black friends over from work. It’s like he doesn’t see their colour any more, even though he still talks about it sometimes. He seems more comfortable and at ease with these black guys, but he’s not aware of it.
And one more thing I should say. He’s driving me nuts with the classical music. He doesn’t know the name of one song and never, never listened to it before. Now, he sits for hours and listens to it. He even whistles classical music songs that he could never know. How does he know them? You’d think he’d like rap music or something because of his black heart.
Case 5 The donor was a 19-year-old woman killed in an automobile accident. The recipient was a 29-year-old woman diagnosed with cardiomyopathy secondary to endocarditis.
The donor’s mother reported:
My Sara was the most loving girl. She owned and operated her own health food restaurant and scolded me constantly about not being a vegetarian. She was a great kid. Wild, but great. She was into the free-love thing and had a different man in her life every few months. She was man crazy when she was a little girl and it never stopped. She was able to write some notes to me when she was dying. She was so out of it, but she kept saying how she could feel the impact of the car hitting them. She said she could feel it going through her body.
The recipient reported:
You can tell people about this if you want to, but it will make you sound crazy. When I got my new heart, two things happened to me. First, almost every night, and still sometimes now, I actually feel the accident my donor had. I can feel the impact in my chest. It slams into me, but my doctor said everything looks fine. Also, I hate meat now. I can’t stand it. I was McDonald’s biggest money-maker, and now meat makes me throw up. Actually, when I even smell it, my heart starts to race. But that’s not the big deal. My doctor said that’s just due to my medicines.
I couldn’t tell him, but what really bothers me is that I’m engaged to be married now. He’s a great guy and we love each other. The sex is terrific. The problem is, I’m gay. At least, I thought I was. After my transplant, I’m not…I don’t think, anyway…I’m sort of semi- or confused gay. Women still seem attractive to me, but my boyfriend turns me on; women don’t. I have absolutely no desire to be with a woman. I think I got a gender transplant.
The recipient’s brother reported:
Susie’s straight now. I mean it seriously. She was gay and now her new heart made her straight. She threw out all her books and stuff about gay politics and never talks about it any more. She was really militant about it before. She holds hands and cuddles with Steven just like my girlfriend does with me. She talks girl-talk with my girlfriend, where before she would be lecturing about the evils of sexist men. And my sister, the queen of the Big Mac, hates meat. She won’t even have it in the house.
…underreporting appears to be the rule rather than the exception. Case 4 illustrates this point expressly. When a 47-year-old white male foundry worker received the heart of a 17-year-old black male student, he presumed that the black youth would prefer “rap” music. Hence, he dismissed the idea that his new radical change in preference for classical music could have come from the heart of the donor. However, unbeknownst to the recipient, the donor actually loved classical music, and died “hugging his violin case” on the way to his violin class.
The Authors:
Paul Pearsall, PhD, is a Clinical Professor at the Department of Nursing, University of Hawaii. He is the author of over 200 professional articles and 15 international best-selling books including The Heart’s Code (Broadway Books, 1998).
Gary E. Schwartz, PhD, is Professor of Psychology, Surgery, Medicine, Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Arizona. He is also Director of the Center for Frontier Medicine in Biofield Science and Director of the Human Energy Systems Laboratory, both at the University of 
Arizona. He is the co-author (with Linda Russek) of The Living Energy Universe (Hampton Roads Publishing, 1999), and co-author (with William L. Simon) of The Afterlife Experiments (Pocket Books, 2002) and The G.O.D. Experiments (Atria Books, 2006).
Linda G. Russek, PhD, is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona and Director of The Heart Science Laboratory of The Heart Science Foundation in Tucson, Arizona. She has co-authored more than 40 papers as well as the book, The Living Energy Universe.
