Reincarnation pioneer, Dr. Ian Stevenson presents cases of children who claim to remember previous lives and people with birthmarks and birth defects.

FRONTLINE follows renowned New Yorker writer and Boston surgeon Atul Gawande as he explores the relationships doctors have with patients who are nearing the end of life. In conjunction with Gawande’s new book, Being Mortal, the film investigates the practice of caring for the dying, and shows how doctors — himself included — are often remarkably untrained, ill-suited and uncomfortable talking about chronic illness and death with their patients.

Dr. Christopher W. Kerr is the Chief Medical Officer at The Center for Hospice and Palliative Care, where he has worked since 1999. His background in research has evolved from bench science towards the human experience of illness as witnessed from the bedside, specifically patients’ dreams and visions at the end of life. Although medically ignored, these near-universal experiences often provide comfort and meaning, as well as insights into the life lived and the death anticipated.

Jeff Lieberman, an MIT-trained artist, scientist, and engineer, makes a scientific argument for mystical experience. He asks us to challenge our perception of what we are, our relationship to the universe, and our relationship with one another. Our minds are "thought-generating machines." What we would happen if we could turn off the machine? If we could transcend our individual experience of the world?