Medical Mystery: Donated Heart Tells New Owner to Find Old Owner's Home, Even Though Identity Is Hidden

Anyone who has received or has a family member who has received a donated organ knows: "Information about the origin of those organs is a secret protected by law."

People who receive an organ transplant will never know whose heart, kidney or part of the liver they have just received – unless they receive the organ from a relative, or have made a prior agreement.

Article 4 and Article 11 of the " Law on Donation, Collection and Transplantation of Human Tissues and Organs and Donation and Collection of Corpses " stipulate: Information of organ donors is confidential. Disclosing information of organ donors is among the prohibited acts.

This is to ensure the privacy of the recipient, the donor and their families, and to avoid possible awkward situations and emotional burdens, such as feelings of gratitude or indebtedness.

So imagine if you woke up from surgery with a heart donated by a kind stranger, with no way of knowing who that person was?

The doctors won't tell you, the National Organ Transplant Coordinating Center will keep that record confidential. The law will protect the information and cut off all connections between you and the donor.

Yet, there is a connection that no human document or regulation can sever. A " spiritual " thread seems to bind the recipient and the donor, once their hearts are transplanted into the chest of another person.

Can you imagine? The heart – the donor's heart beating in your chest – can hold the memories of its previous owner. It will guide you, show you the way to find your previous owner's home.

This true story is among the most puzzling medical mysteries of the 20th century, and to this day, scientists are still trying to find a satisfactory explanation.

1. A woman received a heart from a donor, which then told her to find the previous owner's house, although both parties' identities were kept secret.

The story begins in 1988, when Claire Sylvia , 47, became the first woman in New England, northeastern United States, to receive a heart and two lungs transplant at the same time.

The surgery, considered the most advanced at the time, a medical miracle, turned Sylvia into an unwilling celebrity. The press hounded her so enthusiastically that, while Sylvia was still recovering in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), a reporter asked permission to interview her.

During the interview, Sylvia talked about her pulmonary hypertension, which led to her heart-lung transplant. At one point, Sylvia was lying on her deathbed with her chest hollow. Her heart and lungs had been removed by surgeons and lifted out to prevent a fatal blood clot.

Sylvia was kept alive by an ECMO machine, while her new heart and lungs were still in the air. They were being transported to New England on a Learjet, the most modern jetliner at the time.

The story here is dramatic enough for an article, about a cutting-edge medical achievement, a patient miraculously saved by doctors, that could be published on the front page of any newspaper.

But that was just the beginning of an even more dramatic mystery that has endured for two centuries. The mystery was revealed by the final question the journalist asked Sylvia:

- Now that you have this miracle, do you have any other wishes?

- Actually, I'm dying for a beer , she blurted out.

At that moment, Sylvia said she was embarrassed. Sylvia didn't mean to say that, but some force urged her to say it. Sylvia had never been a woman who liked to drink beer. But after waking up from the surgery, she had a terrible craving for beer.

Not only that, she also craved Snickers, green peppers and McDonald's chicken – foods she had never liked to eat.

And that's not the most surprising change. With her new heart and lungs in her chest, Sylvia feels healthier than ever. " I used to get sick a lot, but since I got my new heart, I rarely get sick ," she said.

It was then that Sylvia's daughter first noticed more subtle changes in her mother's personality. She described Sylvia as having a more masculine gait, appearing more confident, and having a stronger body odor. Over time, she saw her mother becoming more and more masculine.

Admitting all that, Sylvia said: " Although I still feel attracted to men, after receiving a new heart transplant, I don't feel the need to have a man anymore ."

Instead, Sylvia found herself drawn to young, buxom blondes. One time, Sylvia innocently invited a new girl to her home. The girl then thought that Sylvia wanted to sleep with her. This left Sylvia confused, wondering how she had behaved to make the girl think that.

" My sexual preference hasn't changed in any outward way — I'm still heterosexual — but something deep inside me has changed. And I can tell that other people can sense it too ," she says.

After doctors explained the changes in her body, Sylvia was able to understand that some of them – such as the fact that she was growing a beard – were a side effect of the anti-rejection drugs.

But she doesn't believe the drugs she was taking after surgery were responsible for all the changes on and inside her body. " I felt like a second soul was starting to share this body with me , " Sylvia said.

2. Searching for the identity of the mysterious "soul"

Receiving an organ donation is more than a purely physical experience for the body. When you take a beating heart out of one person's chest and put it into another, it's not just like attaching a pump to a water tank.

Even patients who have received a titanium artificial heart do not experience the complex emotions of those who receive a donated heart. Receiving an organ creates a range of profound psychological experiences, especially when it comes to the heart, a long-standing cultural symbol of human emotion and soul.

Surveys of organ recipients show that the most common emotion they feel is gratitude. This arises from a need to find meaning and a connection to the source of the ' gift' of life they have been given.

Psychologists say that when people receive a great favor, they often have a strong need to repay the favor or at least understand the person who did it. They want to know the story of the person who gave them a second chance, not only to remember but also to help them face the responsibilities of their new life.

However, along with gratitude comes an even stronger desire for the donor's true identity. From a psychological perspective, this need can be explained through the concepts of personal identity and self-integrity.

According to German psychologist Erik Erikson, every individual yearns to maintain their own integrity and a clear sense of 'who I am.' But when a person receives an organ transplant, it can lead to a disruption in their sense of self, because now their body carries a part of someone else's body.

When the transplant recipient's sense of personal identity is disrupted, they become skeptical about their existence as a whole being.

Carl Jung's theories can also explain this phenomenon through the concept of the collective unconscious , where one individual's experiences can be connected to the experiences of others.

For recipients, this may explain why they feel a deep connection to their donor, even though it is a complete stranger they have never met. The presence of another person's organs in their body may evoke a sense of an invisible connection, an undefined but very real relationship in the subconscious.

This imagined relationship creates a deep emotional bond. So learning about the donor helps the recipient form a narrative, giving them a clearer sense of their own identity and, at the same time, helping them process the emotions of the change they are going through.

For Sylvia, who received both a heart and lungs from an anonymous donor, that desire was even stronger. She likened herself to a Humpty Dumpty egg that had been broken open and then reassembled by doctors from other people's body parts.

" That new person I created was no longer me ," Sylvia said. " Deep down, my being was no longer just me."

3. Dreams told by the heart

Writing in her memoir " A Change of Heart ," Sylvia said her journey to find the identity of the person who donated her heart to her was almost hopeless. In the United States, the law is very strict in protecting the identity of organ donors to ensure privacy and safety for both donors and recipients.

Federal law and the policies of organizations like the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) clearly state that the personal information of donors and recipients must be kept strictly confidential. This includes their names, addresses, and any other personal information that could identify them.

Organ recipients can usually be given general information about the donor, such as the donor's gender, age, and state of death, but their exact identity will not be revealed.

If patients want to express their gratitude, doctors can only instruct them to write a letter to the donor or their family. An intermediary organization, usually a hospital or transplant coordination agency, will check the letter, ensure its anonymity, and then send it to the recipient.

Again, procedures are very strict so as not to violate security regulations.

Sylvia said when she asked the doctor about the heart beating in her chest, the hospital only told her it belonged to an 18-year-old man from Maine who had died in a motorcycle accident.

This could help Sylvia explain the subtle changes that occur in her body like cravings for beer, Snickers, and McDonald's chicken. It could also be the reason why she becomes more masculine and attracted to hot blondes.

Psychologists say the information the doctor provided may have triggered a self-hypnosis mechanism, causing Sylvia to convince herself that she inherited personality traits or interests from her donor.

But it couldn't explain how she found out the name of the young man who donated his heart to her, starting from a dream in the fifth month after the surgery.

" In that dream, I was in a grassy outdoor place, it was summer, and I was with a tall, thin young man with sandy blond hair. His name was Tim - maybe Tim Leighton, but I'm not sure. I think he was Tim L. We seemed to be good friends.

As I walked away from him, I felt something unfinished between us. I turned back to say goodbye and we kissed. It felt like the deepest breath I had ever taken. In that moment, the two of us were forever one ," she wrote in her memoir.

After waking up from the dream, Sylvia was certain that the boy had donated her heart and lungs . "A part of his soul and personality is now in me ," she told a friend. The friend then suggested that Sylvia look in the newspapers at the time of her surgery to see if there was a Tim L, 18, who had died in Maine.

To their surprise, they found a match: Tim Lamirande , 18, of Saco, Maine.

Sylvia immediately wrote to the Lamirande family to ask if their son had donated his heart and lungs right after he died in a motorbike accident. If so, she wanted to meet them, because Sylvia was the one carrying the heart of the unfortunate young man.

The meeting actually took place at a theater in Boston, where the Lamirande family lived. Sylvia met Tim Lamirande's father, mother, and siblings. They all confirmed that the physical features of the boy she had dreamed about, his love of fast food, and his ideal type of girlfriend all matched.

When asked again: " How do you know that Tim is the one who donated your organs? ", Sylvia simply replied:

" Sometimes you just know. It's what you believe in. Especially if you're a spiritual person. You can't see love, you can't touch it, you can't smell it. But you know it's there. It just depends on what you believe in."

In fact, Sylvia is not the only patient to experience memories of their organ donor. A study in the Journal of Near-death Studies reported 10 strange documented cases in which transplant recipients experienced personality changes or memories similar to those of their donors .

One report tells the story of a 5-year-old boy named Daryl, who received a heart transplant from a 3-year-old boy. After Daryl's successful surgery, his parents noticed that he no longer played with Power Ranger toys, the superhero dolls he had previously loved.

Daryl later tells his parents that he often dreams about a young friend named "Timmy". Timmy tells Daryl that he is in pain because he fell. Daryl's recurring dreams cause his parents to investigate.

They then met the family of the boy who donated his heart to their son. The boy's name was Thomas, but his real nickname at home was "Tim." Tim's mother said that he fell out of a window and died while trying to reach for his Power Ranger toy.

Similar cases are not uncommon. A study in the journal Transplantology surveyed 47 transplant recipients and found that 89% of them experienced strange personality changes .