i can bring back certain scents from memory
maybe you can too
yesterday in a hospital room i was explaining to mom that because of his septoplasty surgery three weeks earlier he has lost his sense of smell
but I was sitting eating a banana and he was able to smell it
same thing when I walked in with a cup of coffee
i could not say that some people have the ability to summon a scent from memory
because this has not been proven yet
List of scents I can summon on demand:
- The scent the stem of a rose bleeds right when it’s cut.
- The body odor of grandmothers.
- The honey-sweet scent of breast milk on a baby’s warm cheeks.
- A banana.
- Coffee.
- Mastic.
- Amaretto.
- Leather.
- Tobacco, pipe Tobacco.
every scent i am able to recall is associated with a pleasant memory
i an not able to recall a scent associated with a bad memory
~ last tambourine, take it all in while you can
Notes:
- last tambourine = Someone we know.
- Photo: Marta Dzedyshko (via Pixels)
scent is very powerful and holds some of the strongest sensory memories
so agree Beth.
Yes! and it’s relevant to physical survival. (ants’ sense of smell is more powerful than dogs’… Wally should know that deer scat won’t kill him…?)
Let’s hope so Valerie!
Have always been fascinated by the way in which a smell can immediately take me back to a particular place/time/experience. And as Beth said, have always heard that our olfactory memories are the most powerful. Fascinating.
So agree. A whiff of lavender, or birch does it for me.
Scent is as powerful as its cohorts, and as visceral a trigger…and whoever wrote this, thank you for posting…
🙂 Agree Mimi. And if you see Dale’s comment, she let the cat out of the bag!
Thank you for sharing DK.
LOVE this photo pairing.
I heard that highly intuitive people can bring a scent back from memory.
When I got COVID I lost my senses of taste and smell. That was not fun.
Thanks Sawsan! Your haven’t lost your smell for stirring up trouble!
I did not stir trouble. But you definitely are in deep trouble, Mr.!
Our Sawsan is so very poetic. I really wish she would share more of her writings… I miss Last Tambourine.
As for this, the sense of smell is so very powerful… After Austin died, I kept a pile of his dirty laundry on the floor. Don’t ask why I left it there, I just did. I found out Mick would go in there daily to scoop it up and deep breathe it in. He didn’t tell me until I finally brought myself to wash it. He was so mad… and now it’s me who tries to find his scent in the sweaters I kept…
Awwwwww. Moved!
💞
Wait, Sawsan wrote this?! I’m so out of the loop. Beautiful, evocative imagery.
It is Beautiful! Agree!
Not sure if a memory can trigger a scent (maybe), but scents sure can trigger memories.
I need to think about that Anneli.
There’s a flowery scent that is like lily-of-the-valley that always reminds me of women walking their babies in strollers about 10:30 at night in the summertime in Greece when the heat of the day is more tolerable, and they pass by a place with some kind of tropical flowers or shrubs and banana tree leaves hanging over a white wall. If I smell that scent, it takes me back there, and that’s 45 years ago.
Wow. I’m reading your comment and thinking how beautiful Anneli’s recall is. Amazing!!!
Well, there you are. That’s testimony to the power of scents with regard to our memory.
Right!!!