Smell Memory?

[Khandro]

I had the disagreeable job this morning of sanitizing a dustbin which had been maggot-infested. The smell was awful and I didn't actually touch it, now 3 hours later and inside the house I can still smell it, it isn't on me - my wife can't smell it and I have washed well,
I wonder if there is such a thing as a smell-memory in the way we have a visual memory. Has anyone else experienced this phenomena?

[jennyjoan]

Yes do think memory of bad smells can linger on - but dont worry not for too long. I recall maybe a few times of little babies with sh&t on them and for the life of me the smell would not go away. Even my sister remembers a little now 21 remembers the wee girl smell and not forgot it. She not to digress here - but committeed suicide last week. That's why we were talking about it.

[237SJ]

Yes - the smell of keytosis on a dying person's breath. I often think I can still smell it

[Sqad]

Yes, recurrent smells can be associated with previous experiences due to central connections in the brain. BUT in most cases and particularly in your case, it is persistent molecules of the bad odour in your nose or in your mouth. It will disappear.

[chanel5]

Yes, i believe that smell has a psychological association, and can be re-experienced, even in the absence of the source of the smell. Two experiences in my life have convinced me of this. The first was my proximity to a an explosion in Belfast in the early seventies. The noise was terrifying, but the worst was the smell associated with the aftermath of the explosion. I will not describe the smell, as it might be distressing to others reading this post, but it was this that returned to haunt me in succeeding years. Secondly, As a student needing to pay tuition fees, I worked night shifts in a nursing home, where an elderly man suffering from diabetes developed ulcers in his legs and severe gangrene in both feet. I was very fond of this old man, and although the smell of his illness was unbearable at times, I spent a lot of time with him. Inevitably he died, but over a period of about two years, the smell would return to me unexpectedly. I always felt an immense sadness when this happened and grieved for the old man all over again. No 0ne in my family could notice the smell and I believe that it was part of my own individual grieving process, brought on by profound emotional experience. Your experience with the nauseating smell in the dustbin may be part of a similar psychological process, in which a smell which has had a profound effect on your emotion (in your case, profound horror) can be re-experienced and can provoke the same emotional response that was associated with the original experience. In short, I believe that our sense of smell is involved in the experience of Post Traumatic Stress, and it is this that haunts us after the event. Your re-experiencing of the smell will fade, distressing though it may be. The reassurance from others that they cannot smell it will give you confidence that your experience of the smell is merely a memory.

[Mamyalynne]

Interestingly our sense of smell is the first to develop in the womb,little wonder it is one of our most powerful senses.

[Canary42]

Yes, I have experienced identical situation on cleaning out a maggot-infected wheelie-bin.

[Khandro]

Fascinating chanel, also that sqad says it can, in the short term, be attributed to actual molecules in the nasal passages, which is in itself an uncomfortable thought; actual 'bits' of the dustbins contents being inside one!
But further, it makes me think that I don't actually know what smell is at all. I know that vision is produced by photons of light entering the retina, but is smell formed by actual molecules of the substance entering the nose?

[Sqad]

Khandro

\\\but is smell formed by actual molecules of the substance entering the nose?\\\

Yes, but don't forget the taste buds in the tongue, also perceiving "smell."
The chemical changes are transmitted to the brain by two very large and very different cranial nerves. In many cases when you are perceiving smell, it is actually taste....the tongue of a snake and the special organ in the roof of the mouth of a shark.

[alavahalf]

You are confusing yourself with maggots and smells and all things horrible.
In the defence of maggots .. they don't really smell at all. What you did smell is the rotten food or meat that they were living on.
People associate maggots with dirt and infection but in fact they are quite the opposite .. they aren't the dirty creatures you think they are.

Go onto Youtube and type in 'maggot wound therapy' .. you will see them in a different light .. loads to look at, but I'd save it until well after lunch though !

[Khandro]

alavahalf; //they don't really smell at all. What you did smell is the rotten food or meat that they were living on.//
This smell isn't like anything else, I've smelt rotten food, but this is something horrible, surely they are excreting something as they devour.
P.S. I know they are God's creatures too, and it's not personal :0)

[ukbod2015]

did you wash your hair - hair holds smells quite a while

[Peter Pedant]

no physiologists here then

In zoo which is kinda high-powered biology - you learn that the brain has various phases ( palaeo cortex - neocortex ) which are present in all vertebrates in differing amounts. One of themes is that the olfactory cortex, very old and large in things like dogs is taken over in mammals by memory

and you can discuss philosophical things like if dogs have noses that distinguish ten thousand times more sensitively, can they do without memory ? If they need memory to do it - then dogs should be able to understand 10 000 commands - or intelligible speech.....

anyway goggling hippocampus memory will keep you busy for a morning.
remember that "entorhinal" means to do with the brain bit of the nose.

and goggling hippocampus smell memory will keep you busy for another morning,

No one has mentioned that smells can evoke memories of childhood, a notion that all the lectures in the seventies started off from.

[sandyRoe]

When I was a child the entire school would go to Mass on the first Friday of each month at dinner time and lunch was delayed for almost an hour. For a long while after the aroma of incense would prompt pangs of hunger.

[Gromit]

Yes there is a smell memory.
A smell can also invoke memories associated with it, often from childhood when you first encounted the smell.

[Khandro]

Gromit; Yes, but that is a memory triggered by a smell, like the smell of privet flowers always makes me involuntary think of being a child playing hide and seek and hiding among privet hedges. I'm really asking if it's possible to actually smell something without its presence.