What is the strangest thing that triggers intense nostalgia or emotion for you?

[Missohnoyoubetterdont]

Not the standard smell of cut grass or old perfume. I mean something completely specific and quirky. For me, it is the sound of wood pigeons calling on a warm summer’s evening , or the feeling when you get up really early and there’s that stillness and possibility hanging in the air , I think it’s the wonderful feeling of potential and reminds me of travelling in hot sunny climbs. Other weird one is the smell of hot water bottles! Reminds me of childhood. It gives me a profound, aching sort of homesickness for a time I can’t quite name. What is your weird emotional trigger?"

The smell of a proper old fashioned greengrocer shop. Supermarkets don't have the same smell.
It needs to include tomatoes and apples

Loving reading everyone's stories 🥺

The quiet whine of the electric milk floats that used to come before dawn. As a child, I found it both comforting and exciting, somehow.
The old foghorn that I used to hear faintly through the night.
The peaceful sound of those push cast iron lawnmowers.
Yes to wood pigeons and distant trains.
The little noise emitted by a contented hen.
Although I listened mainly to “underground” music, many of the mainstream sixties/seventies hits that were all over the radio, the fairground and the amusement arcades evoke the feelings of summer days in my youth. “Good Morning Starshine” “All Right Now” “Woodstock” and others.
Pears soap = DM
Imperial Leather = DGM
Patchouli = all my friends
When you get what I call the night smell, when the sky is that wonderful dark blue and you know it has changed from day into night.
On a sadder note, anything to do with World War One upsets me greatly; I sometimes wonder if I was there in a previous incarnation.

Fresh sawdust, reminds me of hubby woodworking in the shed, i miss that smell .

I absolutely know that smell. In fact I think I am subcouncioisly seeking that smell every Christmas but it's just not there now. I can imagine the smell. Something is always missing and I think it's the smell. Plastic. 80s.

And creosote. Takes me instantly back to my childhood going through the alleys of the estate.

Creosote and privet hedges, and tar bubbles on the road.

I saw one of those old wooden school desks recently where you lifted the top and kept your books underneath, immediately transported back to my primary school classrooms.

There was also an episode of series 2 of Rivals with the ‘It’s a knock out’ type episode. The shots of the crowds through the 1980s camera lenses brought floods of memories back about how TV used to look.

I got very emotional a few weeks ago remembering the carefree teenage years when studying for A levels, a couple of friends have since died but those heady days of the promise of youth, the weekend jobs that paid for the nights out, the 90s indie scene at nightclubs that have since closed down etc were great. I stood outside one of those clubs that are now flats and smiled with a tear in my eye for my friends who didn’t make it.

The smell of Vic vapour rub takes me right back to my childhood in the 1960’s when my mum would rub it on my throat and chest when I had a cold. A feeling of being loved, cared for and so safe by my lovely mum who died nearly 30 years ago.
it’s actually very comforting.

The smell of bracken takes me right back to childhood caravan holidays in Wales when we walked through the bracken to the beach. If the ground is sandy all the better. The memories are so vivid, and I must be thinking back to when I was no older than 5.

Also the smell of a tin of Quality Street is childhood Christmas all wrapped up, but sadly they just don’t smell (or taste) how they used to.

TV programmes is a massive one, also Christmas, always get a kick in the nostalgia around Christmas. Sometimes certain songs, like I’ll remember when I first heard it and then it will remind me of something else.

The smell of tomato vines in a warm greenhouse. Actually holding the tomatoes and smelling where the vine joins the fruit. Makes me think of growing/picking tomatoes with my grandad and I get a flash of feeling like a young child. Magical.

Oh i loved Exclamation it was my first real perfume as a teenager the white and black bottle looked so stylish.

You can still get it from Amazon. One of the very few perfumes that hasn't changed it's scent 😃

Can you ? I will have a look * see if it makes me feel 14 again 😀

Make a statement…without staying a word

ha! Loved it too

The smell of tinsel and just seeing coloured fairy lights, but they need to have pink in and not look too flashy and like LED's. Reminds me of childhood. Sometimes I get a whiff of paper that smells the same as the sheets of christmas paper you used to get from the market too.

The distant buzz of lawnmowers on a summers day.

Small blonde toddlers have begun to trigger nostalgia for when my teenagers were small too.

Goose fat roast potatoes and sausages cooked in the oven, immediately takes me back to my lovely Nan’s kitchen. What a fantastic cook she was!

She could rustle up a meal for 10 at the drop of a hat; no weighing or measuring, she just knew.

Tins of overflowing “good” biscuits like Clubs or Trios and always a fruit cake ready when we arrived.
Hot chocolate made on the stove.

Many, many happy childhood memories.

All the talk of tinsel smells reminded me that I saw these on a Facebook thread recently. Instantly transported to Xmas day some point in the 1980s unwrapping an Enid Blyton book or a Selection box. I still feel the wafer thinness of it! Like bible paper!

Agree about wood pigeons! They'd sit on the roof and the sound would come down the chimney.
Oddly, panel beating, but only in the distance. I grew up near a speciality garage and heard it faintly a lot.
Bunsen burner gas. School science corridors smell exactly the same as they did in the 80s.

Rhubarb and custard sweets take me right back to my childhood

My first Tiny Tears smelled like this....such an aching nostalgia. So agree with you.

"And the creed and the colour and the name don't matter, were you there?"♥️

I have 2, quite contrasting things both related to smell

The first is an original chapstick lip salve. It reminds me of snowy or very cold days when I was about 5 and my mum had a pair of heeled (??) boots that she only got out in very cold weather, they were black leather with a zip up the inside, but the zip was broken on one and she used to put an envelope inside. And presumably thats when she put chapstick on us.

The second is the smell of thick paper brochures. (Thin paper/magazines aren't the same) It takes me back to applying for university and looking at university prospectus. I was going through a period of depression and ED, and didnt end up going to uni.
The smell of certain type brochure takes me back to that time, and I get a sense of panic and fear in the pit of my stomach. Online info is a lot safer! 😉

There's a Soap and glory shower gel called Vanillaloco which smells like a rubber doll from the 80s. The smell takes me right back 🥰