All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.S01E06.WEBRip.x264-ION10

SOLDIER:
Fire!

WILLIAM SHATNER:
Eerie recollections...

of someone else's memories.

Two people who share one mind.

And people who have been able
to see their own bodies

while at the point of death.

What happens to us after we die?

Do our memories
or our personalities--

everything that makes us
who we are--

does it all just... disappear?

Or do we have a consciousness,
a-a soul...

that lives on?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

SHATNER:
Lynchburg, Virginia.

November 10, 2008.

Accomplished neurosurgeon,
Dr. Eben Alexander,

is rushed to the hospital
after suffering

from severe back spasms
and headaches.

After performing a spinal tap,
doctors discover that

his spine and brain are swollen

with a thick,
pus-filled liquid--

the sign of a deadly
meningitis infection.

Shortly afterward,
Dr. Alexander slips into a coma.

His brain begins shutting down.

My brain was being overrun
by an extremely primitive,

aggressive bacterial infection.

One that is almost
uniformly fatal.

Some of the fundamental
brain stem reflexes were absent.

My pupils weren't responding.

My neocortex was
horribly damaged.

People just don't come back
from this kind of meningitis.

My doctors called
my family together,

and they felt that there was
no chance for recovery.

SHATNER:
As a surgeon, Dr. Alexander
helped save the lives

of countless others.

Now he lies helpless,
at the mercy

of the killer bacteria
that is whittling

his brain function
down to nothing.

But then,
something remarkable happens.

I was in very deep coma.

My brain was fully inflamed
from this.

All eight lobes were involved.

Uh, there was really
no place in my brain

for any kind of
conscious experience to happen.

SHATNER:
After clinging to life
by the barest of threads,

Dr. Alexander eventually makes
an extraordinary recovery--

one that baffles his physicians.

But perhaps even more baffling
is the inexplicable array

of sensations that Dr. Alexander
believes he experienced

while in a coma.

I was rescued by this
slowly spinning white light

that came packaged
with a perfect musical melody.

I felt a sensation
of going through a tunnel,

being lifted up
out of space and time,

and that opened up
into this rich ultra-real valley

that I call the Gateway Valley.

It was an incredible,
beautiful scene,

and yet, the most
profound mystery.

SHATNER:
Did Dr. Alexander experience

a hallucination?

Or was he really given a glimpse

into a life beyond
the one we know?

A life beyond death?

If true,

the idea is almost
too incredible to comprehend.

But consider this: Dr. Alexander

is just one of millions who,
at the point of death,

claim to have taken the same,
virtually identical journey--

a journey which is
collectively referred to

as a near-death experience.

GREGORY SHUSHAN:
A near-death experience is when

somebody dies clinically,

and they come back to life
and describe having had

strange experiences,

such as traveling
through darkness,

emerging into another realm,

meeting deceased relatives
or a being of light,

traveling back to the body,

often being told to go back to
the body by this being of light.

Raymond Moody was really
the pioneering figure

in the scientific study
of near-death experiences,

who wrote a book called
Life After Life.

Before Moody came along,

you had descriptions
of these accounts,

but nobody called it
a near-death experience.

In the United States,
about 800 people a day

report that they're having
near-death experiences.

And if you think about that
over the course of years

and across the whole world,

that's probably
millions of people,

which makes me think that
this is a real phenomenon.

People are really
experiencing this.

They're not making it up.

Before my coma, I fully bought
into the, uh, teachings,

uh, that the physical world
is all that exists.

That's kind of the conventional
scientific model.

But when I first opened my eyes
in that ICU bed,

my brain was absolutely wrecked,

and all I remembered
was where I'd been,

that extraordinary
spiritual journey deep in coma.

That's why near-death
experiencers

come back to this world
and realize

that we are eternal
spiritual beings

and that our physical body
is only a vessel

that serves our soul
in transition

through this phase
of our journey.

SHATNER:
The soul?

The intangible essence of who we
are that lives on after we die?

If the near-death experiences
reported by millions

have, in fact, really happened
as described,

then could this be proof

that the soul actually exists,

and that there really is
some form of life

beyond death?

The concept of the soul
is one of the deepest,

most far-reaching questions
in all of science,

and for that matter,
in all of human history.

Throughout history,
poets, philosophers have tried

to single out what is the soul,

what is the essence
of what makes us human?

It speaks to our yearning
for more time.

To go beyond
the short amount of time

that's been given us
as human beings.

If you look to questions
about the soul,

you see that these really speak
to our fears, our desires,

what we want most
and what matters most.

SHATNER:
Not surprisingly,
not everyone's convinced

that the soul really exists.

As far as many in the scientific
community are concerned,

it is little more
than a concept brought about

by wishful thinking.

KAKU:
There is a theory

that says that people
who are prone

to have these near-death
experiences are also prone

to have lots of dream activity
during REM sleep.

Maybe they were hallucinating,
or some people think that, aha,

maybe that could explain
near-death experience.

I would maintain,
along with virtually everybody

who is engaged in the study
of near-death experiences,

that these are not aberrations,
these are not hallucinations.

How is it possible
that people are having

such rich conscious experiences

when the brain itself
is not functioning?

There's a case report
in September 2018

in the Journal of Nervous
and Mental Diseaseon my case,

and it makes it clear to anyone
in the medical profession

that I was deathly ill and that
my brain was terribly devastated

by this infection

and should not have been able
to produce

any kind of consciousness.

From my point of view,
death of the physical body

is not the end of the
conscious awareness.

Near-death experiences
are showing us,

in no uncertain fashion,
that we are souls

living in a spiritual universe
and that all the major factors

involved in the events
of our lives

have to do with that
soul journey

and with that spiritual nature.

SHATNER:
Consciousness in the absence
of brain activity?

According to mainstream
scientists,

such a thing is not possible.

But what if they're
missing the target?

Perhaps the answer can be found

by investigating
further evidence that,

not only does a soul exist,

but it might actually be
transplanted

from one body to another.

SHATNER:
Atlanta, Grgia.
December 1992.

17-year-old Amy Tippins
is having difficulty breathing.

Suspecting that she has
some form of pneumonia,

she makes an appointment
with her family doctor.

But the actual diagnosis
she receives is,

in a word, shocking.

TIPPINS:
My senior year of high school,

I started developing
what I thought was pneumonia,

and then when they went in
to do some further testing,

they realized
I didn't have pneumonia,

it was actually a tumor
pushing on my diaphragm

and making it much harder
for me to breathe,

and I was in full liver failure.

They said, "She'll," you know,
"she needs to have a transplant

or she'll hemorrhage to death."

SHATNER:
With time running out,

Amy received her new liver
and survived.

But in the months
following her transplant,

she found herself exhibiting
interests and abilities

that were, not only new to her,

but also surprising.

TIPPINS:
Not long after surgery,

some things about myself and
some of my traits had changed.

Within a couple of years
of my transplant,

I really started
to love projects,

like replacing flooring
on my own.

I never saw flooring
being put in.

I never saw anything
like that being done.

What I discovered
is it was actually fun

to work with my hands.

Just kind of go,
"Huh, that's interesting."

SHATNER:
Of course,
it isn't surprising that people

who have had lifesaving
transplant operations

often report experiencing

-a new outlook on life.

But new interests?

New personality traits?

Is it possible that Amy Tippins
was getting these

from somewhere else?

I knew my donor was a male,
I knew he was 47

and that he had been killed in a
car wreck in Columbus, Georgia.

So I went to the library
and I started

looking up obituaries
from that time.

And I kind of backed
into his obituary,

and backed into figuring out
who he was.

What I discovered
is he was a police officer.

He was 47 and his name was Mike.

His sister told me that he did a
lot of his own home renovation.

He also liked
to work with his hands.

He liked to do projects.

When I found out who my donor
was, it made a lot more sense

on why some things about myself
and some of my traits

had changed after transplant.

SHATNER:
Personality traits and even
recreational interests

coming from
a transplanted organ?

Is such a bizarre notion
even scientifically possible?

I've had clients
come to the office

who've had organ transplants

who are baffled
by what they experience,

and some did have memories
that were foreign to them.

And then somehow or other found
out what the person was like

whose organ that they now have,
and it matches.

It's unusual, and I don't have
an explanation for it.

MISHLOVE:
They very often report not only
the memories of the donor

but sometimes the behavioral
patterns of the donor.

It certainly suggests
that memory

and-and even behavior patterns
can be embedded

in these organs in ways
that science has no clue.

GARY SCHWARTZ:
After looking at all the cases

that we had access to,
I developed a theory about how

if the brain can learn,
then other organs

like the heart or the lungs
or the liver could learn.

We analyzed ten
of the best cases

where the-- it was clear
that the individual

had these kinds
of personality changes,

and it was only later that
they then met family members.

One case in particular
was of a young boy

who had been killed
in a drive-by shooting,

and his heart was donated

to a foundry worker
who was 47 years old.

What happened was he developed
a passion for classical music.

And then he subsequently
ended up meeting the mother

of this young boy, and he
learned that this young man

was taking
classical violin lessons

and literally was shot as he was
leaving his music lessons.

From my point of view,
it simply goes to show

that as much as we want
to pretend that things

like mind and consciousness
and personality

are all stuck in the brain,
um, they're really not.

SHATNER:
Could our memories,
our identities,

even our consciousness, be
stored in not just our brains,

but within each and every part
of our bodies?

If that's true, could these
traits also be inherited,

just like the color of our eyes
or the size of our ears?

According to a groundbreaking
study conducted

at the Icahn School of Medicine

at Mount Sinai Hospital
in New York City,

the answer might just be
a resounding yes.

About 25 years ago, we began
studying the adult children

of Holocaust survivors.

And what we learned
was that Holocaust offspring

were more likely
to have been diagnosed

with mood and anxiety disorders.

And we were able to observe
epigenetic changes

on, actually, two small segments
of two stress-related genes,

which really captured
our attention.

Then you start to wonder
why a child of a trauma survivor

would have such a change
on their DNA.

Is there a way that information
somehow stays with us,

maybe in our germ cells,

maybe in other places, and then
somehow, they are passed?

SCHWARTZ:
The findings about
the cross-generational

parent transfer from Holocaust
survivors to their children,

is evidence that the, uh,
the body itself

is a much more exquisite system

for storing energy information
about our lives.

And that that information
could not only be transferred

in the case
of an organ transplant,

but it also could be transferred

and continued
across generations.

KINSELLA:
Studies like this are suggesting

that we really don't know
how mind, how memory,

how experience work, we don't
know how that resonates

with us in body.

HAWKES:
I think it's very clear
that there's something

about us as beings
that's beyond the brain,

and people have
used the word soul or spirit.

It's one of those very curious
and unexplained mysteries

of who are we

and what comes
and goes with our bodies,

our cells, our organs.

His DNA is still
in my bloodstream,

and they say
that DNA carries memories.

To this day, I still continue to
find out information about him.

I'd go, "Huh, that's interesting

in how it relates to me."

Can transplanted organs
really contain

some part of
the donor's identity?

Conventional medicine believes
the notion is far-fetched.

So how do you explain
what we just saw?

Is our life experience encoded
not just in our brain

but throughout our entire body?

Perhaps the answer
can be found by examining

whether such a connection exists
between two people

who are physically identical
in every way.

Twins.

SHATNER:
Los Angeles, California.

March 2004.

Linda Jamison is out
for a romantic evening

when she becomes struck
by a strange

and overpowering sensation.

Something in her tells her that
her identical twin sister Terry

is in mortal danger.

LINDA:
While I was on a date
with a guy,

in the middle of the dinner,
I said, "Oh, my gosh,

"I... I have this
horrible feeling.

"I have to get home
to see if Terry's okay,

'cause I don't feel she's okay."

And when I went home,
I went up to our apartment,

and Terry was lying in bed,
unable to speak or hear.

And, I mean,
it was so terrifying.

It was kind of like a weird
virus that had taken me over...

-It was a virus.
-...like, very quickly.

And she got me to the ER just
in time and they said, "Wow,

you could have died."

SHATNER:
Faced with what could have been
a fatal viral infection,

Terry was saved
in the nick of time.

But was Linda's belief
that her sister was in danger

merely a coincidence,
or was it something more?

Twins share more than genes.

They've shared
an intrauterine environment.

They've shared a set
of early experiences together.

They have been there with each
other through early attachments

and early developmental
milestones.

So the idea that twins feel
really connected to each other

is not very surprising.

LINDA:
It's a weird thing
to describe to singletons,

but we've always had
that mysterious bond,

that special bond twins have

where they can feel
each other's pain

or they can determine
what's gonna happen next

-with the other twin.
-We're just always intuiting

what the other wants
or what the other twin needs

or, you know,
helping each other constantly.

SHATNER:
Twins,

each one constantly in sync

with what the other
wants or needs?

It is often said that the bond
between twins is so strong,

they can actually read
each other's minds.

But is that just an expression,

or could it be true?

Studies that were done
in Copenhagen and in London

took monozygotic pairs--

so really, really twins,
absolute identical DNA--

isolated them, and then,

for one of them, uh,
was subjected

to different kinds of shocks.

The distant twin was wired up
with polygraph equipment.

So these were designed to see

what was happening
in the distant twin.

But one shock would have been
literally an electric shock,

another would be that, at a time
that they didn't know,

somebody behind them would drop
a whole bunch of plates,

make a big racket.

So they found roughly
eight to ten percent

of the twins that were tested
showed that there was

some kind of a correlation
between one person

getting a shock and the other
person responding.

30% of twins report a telepathic
connection with their twin,

and it is because they're
sharing a similar genetic code

on some level,
but on another level,

they're also connected
on a soul level

that allows them to stay
in this telepathic communication

at all times.

But we also called it
"twin tuition,"

because there was no word
to describe that weird,

you know, mysterious feeling
where your twin is suffering

somewhere, and you pick up on it
somehow and even feel

the physical pain
that that twin is feeling.

It's very eerie.

SHATNER:
Despite the claims
of Linda and Terry Jamison,

and thousands more like them,

skeptics often argue
that what is interpreted

as a psychic connection
between twins

is merely a misinterpretation

of the fondness
they have for each other.

But if identical twins
really do share

an inexplicable attachment,

then perhaps evidence
of this link can be found

in cases of twins who have
remarkable similarities,

even though
they were raised separately.

So I've been working with twins
raised apart for many years.

And we find that identical twins
do show many traits in common,

even after years of separation.

So for example, the Jim twins,
Jim Lewis and Jim Springer,

grew up in Ohio
about 30 or 40 miles apart.

And they had a long list
of similarities.

For one thing, they both had
woodworking benches

in their houses;
they both loved to do woodwork.

They both had dogs named Toy,
and they both had older sons

that they named James Allen.

Both of them worked part-time
as sheriffs,

both drove light blue
Chevrolets, and they both

used to vacation
on the same three-block strip

of beach in Florida.

We don't know the reason
for that, but the point is

that when you see these
similarities repeated

in identical twins raised apart,
and not in fraternals,

it creates a whole new set
of hypotheses

that you can begin to explore.

TERRY:
Whether people want to look
at the evidence,

that's up to them.

And we're not trying to convince
anyone, but it's a weird thing.

It's like we're two wings
of a bird.

We believe that we were
bifurcated--

a bifurcated soul-- which means
one soul with two bodies.

SHATNER:
If one soul can be shared
between two people,

as Linda and Terry Jamison
believe, could it also explain

how twins appear to communicate
with each other telepathically?

And if so, does this
shared consciousness

simply go away
after one of them dies?

Perhaps the answer can be found
by hearing the story of a man

who believes his soul
doesn't just serve onebody...

...but several.

SHATNER:
Sharpsburg, Maryland.

May 1991.

Connecticut fire chief,
Jeffrey Keene,

is on a road trip with his wife

when suddenly he feels
a strange urge

to make a detour.

My wife and I, uh,
like to go antique hunting,

and we had been
through Pennsylvania

and headed down into Maryland.

We were very near where
the Battle of Antietam

had been fought,

and I was always impressed

with the bravery of the men
that fought in the Civil War.

It strikes a chord in you.

So I asked my wife
if it was okay if we, uh,

take a little side trip
to go see the battlefield.

SOLDIER:
Fire!

SHATNER:
On September 17, 1862,

Union forces cornered
Confederate troops

near Antietam Creek
as they attempted an incursion

into Maryland.

It was the first major battle
of the Civil War

to take place on Union soil.

All told, almost
125,000 soldiers took part

in the fighting.

And by day's end,

the battlefield
was soaked with the blood

of more than 22,000 souls.

Now, nearly 130 years later,

Jeffrey Keene and his wife
arrived at the battlefield,

hoping to experience
a bit of this history.

But while visiting the site,

Jeffrey had
a very different experience,

one that would prove to be
far more personal

than he could ever
have imagined.

KEENE:
Well, we went to the
battlefield, and all of a sudden

I couldn't breathe.

I started crying, uh,
I had burning tears

running down my cheek,
I didn't know what was going on.

And, uh, I literally crawled up
to the side of the road

and, uh, got myself together,
went back to the car.

On the, uh, way home, we stopped
at a gift store, and, uh,

there was a magazine there.

The whole magazine
was done on Antietam.

And when we got home,
I was reading through,

and came across
a full-figure picture

of General John B. Gordon.

He was a colonel at the battle,

and he'd been wounded
five times, but he-he survived.

And I looked at the face,
and I told people

I know the face very well.

I shave it every morning.

SHATNER:
Jeffrey Keene.

Confederate General
John B. Gordon.

The resemblance is,
in a word, uncanny.

So much so that Jeffrey began
to wonder...

...could the strange reaction
he experienced

while visiting Antietam

be some sort of emotional echo?

A connection that suggests
that Jeffrey Keene

is actually
John B. Gordon reincarnated?

Reincarnation is the process
that allows your soul

to take on a new life,
a new body.

In other words, you are born
in a human body,

you finish that cycle,
you are deceased, then you

continue to recycle that soul
from one body to the next while

being within
the same Earth plane.

KEENE:
A lot of people say to me,

"Why don't I remember
lifetimes?"

I say, "You do, you just
don't realize that you do."

There'll be haunting songs,

a desire to go to certain
places, countries and things.

The furniture that you use
to decorate your house,

your hobbies, the clothes
you wear, and so on.

SHATNER:
Can departed souls
really pass into new bodies?

And if so,
what evidence might there be

to support
such an incredible claim?

According to Jeffrey Keene,
there are signs

that can be found once you know
where to look for them.

KEENE:
In Antietam,
where Gordon was wounded,

he described that he had been
shot through the right calf,

higher up on the same leg,

and the left arm.

So I had a pretty good picture
of where he'd been wounded.

Now, on my right leg,

I have, uh, I guess you would
call them varicose veins.

I only have them in two places:
on my right calf,

higher up on the same leg.

My left arm,
I had a blood clot removed

when I was in my 20s.

It seems to me that, uh,

could have been one of the
places Gordon had been wounded.

But you use
the word "coincidence,"

it can apply in some cases,

uh, but there are
small coincidences

and then there's
big coincidences.

What I have is evidence.

I have very strong evidence.

SHATNER:
Are Jeffrey Keene's scars

evidence that our souls are
recycled back into this world

after we die?

According to some researchers,
the answer is yes.

And they argue
that further proof can be found

not only in physical scars...

but also in mental ones.

There's been
substantial research done

at the University of Virginia
with children,

showing that a subset
of these children

remember times
before they were born

that are then confirmed
by historical records.

And those data are
very consistent with the idea

that reincarnation
is a real phenomenon.

COREY:
The reason why it is significant

to study children,
it is because their memories

are still fresh--
they haven't been

on the Earth
for a very long time, so...

they still have that remembrance
of the past life

very vividly in their mind.

For example, one of the most
famous reincarnation stories

is that of Shanti Devi.

Shanti, since the age of four,
kept telling her parents

that she came from another town
called Mathura.

After being interviewed
by her teachers,

she gives them the name of
her husband, who was still alive

and lived in Mathura
at that time.

They end up locating
a merchant in Mathura

whose wife had died ten days
after giving birth to their son.

Shanti recognizes him and says,

"This is my husband,
Kedar Nath."

She even says that he neglected
to carry out the promises

that he made on her deathbed.

KINSELLA:
Ultimately, Mahatma Gandhi
set up a commission

to determine whether or not
this story was accurate,

and the committee members
decided that this was, in fact,

proof of reincarnation.

KEENE:
I don't think anybody
should be forced

to believe anything.

But I know it's true to me.

You have to make up
your own mind.

All I ask is
you keep an open mind.

If our souls can,
in fact, be recycled,

I hope mine doesn't get put
in the shredder.

But if, as many believe,

we're locked in a never-ending
cycle of life and rebirth,

what happens when that cycle
gets interrupted

and we're literally
brought back from the dead?

Perhaps the answer
can be found by meeting people

who not only returned,

but have come back

with extraordinary abilities.

SHATNER:
Seattle, Washington.

December 1976.

Research biologist,
Joyce Hawkes,

is spending
a quiet Saturday at home.

But on this particular day,

something happens
that will alter

the course of her entire life.

HAWKES:
I was vacuuming

right in front of my fireplace,
and up on the ledge

on the fireplace was a large,
beautiful leaded glass window

that I'd purchased
in an antique store.

All of a sudden, this leaded
glass window is coming at me.

And I like, "Ah,"
boom and it hits me.

And all I remember then
is just, all of a sudden,

in front of me
was a long, dark tunnel,

and at the end
was this bright light.

And I was drawn to it.

Then I passed through
the entrance to the light

and I was in a place
of rolling hills

and beautiful color.

And then, bang, I'm back,

all of a sudden,
on the floor in my living room.

SHATNER:
In the months after her
near-death experience,

Joyce hoped
to return to normalcy

and resume her scientific work
in the lab.

But she soon realized that,
after her brush

with the afterlife,
nothing would be the same.

Because Joyce
now had the ability

to see things
that no one else could.

What I noticed is I could see
inside people's bodies,

I could read their bodies.

And there are times
when I actually can look

into people's bodies
and see something going on

that hasn't been diagnosed.

I resigned my position
at the lab

and I started seeing individuals
in the basement of my house.

One time, a woman came to me
and was on the treatment table

and, all of a sudden,
her abdomen opened up

and I saw a small tumor
in a very precise location.

And I said, "Please go to your
doctor and have it checked out."

She had to have surgery,
and it saved her

from having a very serious kind
of uterine cancer.

KINSELLA:
In the case of
near-death experiences,

a number of people report
developing heightened intuition,

gaining some kind
of psychic ability.

They report manifestations of
the paranormal that seem to be

much more common after
these kinds of experiences.

MISHLOVE:
A materialistic scientist
would say, "How can that be?

These things
don't exist at all,"

but, in fact, they're reported
hundreds and hundreds of times.

HAWKES:
There's something
beyond the neurons,

the astrocytes, the glial cells,
in our brain

going "jun, jun, jun, jun."

Something beyond that
which we have awareness of.

SHATNER:
The power to see through flesh

and diagnose ailments
might seem preposterous.

But could it be true?

Is it possible that when
Joyce Hawkes nearly died,

she came back with psychic
abilities that defy explanation?

Perhaps the answers can be found
by examining cases

in which people claim to
not only see someone's ailment,

but also heal it.

Richmond, Virginia.

September 5, 2005.

David Schwartz goes
to the hospital to be treated

for what he believes
is a nagging ear infection.

But in fact,
his illness is much, much worse.

DAVID SCHWARTZ:
I checked myself
into the emergency room.

That was Monday afternoon.

And by Tuesday afternoon,
I was in a coma.

My kidneys were shut down,

all of my organs were failing
and the blood flow was lost

in my brain stem as well, which
would have meant brain death.

They told my mom
and my dad that,

really, that I had a limited
amount of time left.

SHATNER:
With their son facing certain
death due to kidney failure,

David's parents
were willing to try anything

that might help him.

So they reached out to
Scarlett Heinbuch, a woman who,

after having a near-death
experience in childhood,

claimed to be gifted
with incredible healing powers.

SCARLETT HEINBUCH:
When I walked
in David's hospital room

for the first time,
I knew he was near death.

He was unconscious
and I took his hand

and I'm standing right by his
bedside when, all of a sudden,

I was out of my body,
in another realm.

And he was hovering there
and there was soul connection

and I felt him
with every fiber of my being,

and he made a decision
at that point to come back.

SCHWARTZ:
When I first awoke
and saw Scarlett,

I had the sense
that I knew who she was,

and I knew everything about her.

HEINBUCH:
David looked up at me
and, all of a sudden,

the next thing I was aware of
was that I was

seeing four beings.

They were tall
and they were colored blue.

I saw them manifesting
a set of kidneys, if you will.

I saw the kidneys
being dropped into his body.

David's recovery after that was
so stunning that the doctors

and nurses at this hospital
called him "miracle boy."

SCHWARTZ:
When I came out of the coma,

it was absolutely
because we had an experience.

I don't know
what happened there,

but I do know that it happened,

because the doctors told me that
they didn't have an explanation

as to why I was making
the recovery that I was making.

SHATNER:
Today, David Schwartz has
two fully functioning kidneys,

and both he and
Scarlett Heinbuch have no doubt

in their minds that it was
the powerful connection

between their souls
that saved David's life.

Are stories like those of Joyce
Hawkes and Scarlett Heinbuch

evidence that the soul is real,

and can actually
become empowered

with strange
and otherworldly abilities?

According to people who study
near-death experiences,

the answer is a profound yes.

And they also insist that these
tales of strange coincidences

and psychic connections are
really meant to assure us

that we are all
very much connected,

and not only in the ways
we've been taught to imagine.

SHATNER:
Everything that lives
must also eventually die.

And yet, for people who believe
they've touched or been touched

by what they refer to
as the other side,

death is not an ending,

but a gateway
toward a new beginning.

They live with a certainty that
the rest of us will never have.

That is, until we die.

KINSELLA:
I think near-death experiences
and related phenomena

are so fascinating,
frustrating and mysterious

because the footprints they
leave behind are very muddied.

And what I mean by that is there
seems to be enough proof,

enough anecdotal evidence,
to where if people really want

to believe these stories, they
want to believe this phenomena,

they certainly can.

But for those that are
absolutely certain

that these experiences are,
by and large, byproducts

of naturalistic phenomena,
like, maybe biological stress,

then there certainly is not
enough compelling evidence

that would be able
to-to shift them over.

HAWKES:
I've heard that
near-death experiences

are really some kind of vision
or sleep experience.

For myself, I know it wasn't,
because I know

what my dreams were like, and
this was so different than that.

It's far beyond a dream state,
or a state

where there's no oxygen
to the brain

and you have some kind
of weird thing that lasts.

Now, before my coma, I thought,
well, it's just a hallucination.

It's a trick of the dying brain.

So, in many ways,
it was very refreshing to me

as I came out
of this experience,

and-and especially
in those months after my coma.

I came to realize that there are
a number of scientists,

literally hundreds of scientists
around the world,

who have been
studying these problems

very diligently for decades,

and they're actually making
tremendous progress.

BERLIN:
It's that there might be
energies, forces,

things that
we haven't yet discovered

that we may never discover.

And however you want
to fill in that gap,

whether it's mysticism,
spirituality, religion,

I think that's left
to each individual person.

SHATNER:
Near-death experiences,

the psychic connections
between identical twins

and tales of reincarnation.

Are these all evidence
that there really is a soul?

Or is it that we're all
so desperate to believe

in our own immortality

that we look for evidence
to reassure ourselves

that death is not really
the end?

Well, when that day comes,

we will not only learn
the truth, but also the answers

to all the other mysteries
that are, until then,

The UnXplained.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY
A+E NETWORKS