Do your memories trigger smells?

[ofwarren]

I often read about smells triggering memories but do you get it the other way round?

For example, if I am thinking about the library, I can smell the books. I saw a photo earlier of crayons and I can instantly smell them. This happens for most thoughts, even when I'm not thinking about what they smell of.

If I'm thinking to myself, "right, I need to go to Lidl" I instantly get the smell of lidl in my mind.

Every place in my memory has a smell. It's not an abstract smell, it's the smell of the place. When I think of the hospital I smell disinfectant, when I think of places from long ago I still smell them, even my primary school classrooms.

Is this what most people do?

It's not even just memories.
If I think candle, I smell wax.
If I think popcorn, I smell popcorn.
If I think one of my kids, I smell said child.

I get the visual too but the smell at the same time.

for me smells only trigger memories rather than the other way round. I find it difficult/impossible to think of a smell in my head

Interesting.
Can you see images?

I definitely do this, although the smell is inside my head much like seeing pictures or hearing sounds inside.

Yes! How weird. I can think of a smell in my head but only this thread made me realise

It's so weird isn't it!
I don't understand how it works at all.

Yes, it's not in your nose it's in your head. So strange.

Both.
Libraries definitely, but bar far the weirdest is some football cards I had as a kid. One was a shiny Notts Forest one. I can still smell it.

@ofwarren yes I can see images and hear sounds really clearly in my head, but not smells. I've always found it weird!

Just guessing, but could this be a form of synaesthesia?

I can invoke the smells if I try but they don't come automatically. That's a cool ability - if you recall baking cookies do you instantly smell cookies baking? I'd love that!

The only strange parallel is that being thirsty makes me feel like a fool. Really bizarre! The only thing I can guess at is that I got a lot of UTIs when I was tiny and my mum told me she made sure I didn't wet the bed at night by just stopping me drinking late afternoons. Maybe I was made to feel a fool for wanting more water every time, so had to stay thirsty, and she got a kid that was dry at night.

Worked in a pub at College. Every time I hear I’m still standing by Elton John, I can smell the drip trays 😁

yes I do this although I am not physically smelling the smell up my nose but the memory of it in my head. Like seeing a picture or hearing a specific noise but smell something with my 'mind's nose'

I did wonder about this but it seems that lots of others have it too so probably not.

if you recall baking cookies do you instantly smell cookies baking? I'd love that!

Yes, that's exactly what happens

Its is the minds nose! 🤣
I'm going to call it that from now on

Sometimes, but it doesn’t happen for everything. Just randomly. And it’s just the memory of a smell rather than actually smelling it.

The other way around is very intense- if I smell e.g. an old perfume I am immediately transported to a time and place, all the surroundings, boy angst and whatever else was happening at the time 😂

As I understand it the olfactory nerve is the only one where the neural pathway goes straight into the brain without passing through the (bit of the brain that I can’t remember the name of). It ends up right next to the emotional memory centre of the brain which is why smell and emotional memories are so closely connected.