How realistic is your favorite paranormal TV drama? Proof," a new summer series on TNT ... stars Jennifer Beals as a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon recruited by a billionaire to investigate near-death experiences. You may or may not believe in such phenomena, but there are serious researchers exploring this realm. The University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies [is] one of only two university-affiliated labs in the country still doing parapsychology research. How realistic does "Proof" seem to real-life near-death researchers? [According to] Jim Tucker, director of U.Va.'s perceptual studies lab: "Patients who've died for a time have accurately reported conversations that took place outside of their hospital rooms. Some have reported seeing deceased relatives that at the time they didn't know were deceased." But the researchers give a thumbs-down to the show's treatment of reincarnation studies. "Seems a little unrealistic," said Tucker, after watching an episode where a patient undergoes hypnosis and suddenly remembers a past life. Tucker and his colleagues "don't place much stock in the idea of hypnotic regression of adults in order to remember past lives." The Virginia lab has extensively explored the potential of past-life memories, he said - but with an exclusive focus on very young children who, in their early years of talking, have spontaneously reported what seem to be accounts of previous lives, no hypnosis involved. "They left out the most important part, which is that the children we work with report actual memories of past lives."