This morning i was spraying an air freshener..it wasn't the one we usually use..i didn't get to go grocery shopping yesterday as i was a bit under the weather, and hubby bought a different air freshener..and when i sprayed this new air freshener this morning, i was taken back in time to when we were caring for my father..it was the same air freshener i used back then when dad would have an accident...are there any smells that take you back to a time in the past? it can catch you totally unaware...
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Do certain smells bring back memories?
- Thread starter isabeau
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german
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So true, I have two that I can recall off the top of my head.
The first is the smell of bakeries; like the smell of fresh cookies and cakes doesn't where I am when I smell it, it always reminds me of spending time with my Grandmother while she use to cook her special homemade cookies and treats for me.
The second might sound strange but the smell of fresh air. Every time I am in the country, just away from the smog and that I remember Germany for some reason and the little town outside of Munich where I stayed and have family living.
Great question isabeau, got me thinking now
Kust
The first is the smell of bakeries; like the smell of fresh cookies and cakes doesn't where I am when I smell it, it always reminds me of spending time with my Grandmother while she use to cook her special homemade cookies and treats for me.
The second might sound strange but the smell of fresh air. Every time I am in the country, just away from the smog and that I remember Germany for some reason and the little town outside of Munich where I stayed and have family living.
Great question isabeau, got me thinking now
Kust
Smell is the most evocotave of all the senses, and as you say it can catch you completely off guard and give a barely tangable sense of that something you can't-quite- put- your- finger- on, as well as sending you immediately hurtling towards a time and place you had forgeten that you had ever been.
We've all caught the scent of an old friend / partner / lover's 'smell' in the street and had not just memories but feeling dragged up from the inner -self. That's the wonderful thing about smells, they invoke feelings as well as sense of time and place.
So, people, don't just buy a generic brand of deoderant/scent, as you could end up being forgotten amid the stench of hoi poloi
We've all caught the scent of an old friend / partner / lover's 'smell' in the street and had not just memories but feeling dragged up from the inner -self. That's the wonderful thing about smells, they invoke feelings as well as sense of time and place.
So, people, don't just buy a generic brand of deoderant/scent, as you could end up being forgotten amid the stench of hoi poloi
Knox The Hatter
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Sounds like it brings back memories that are negative.
It turns out that smells are the biggest memory trigger you have. With me, it's usually outdoor smells. The smell of northern pine brings back very early mornings up at my grandmother's vacation place in the Catskills, when it seemed that the trees were singing. There are tree smells that take me back to camp.
There's a Catholic high school here in my town that used to host a Sunday flea market. Walking through the school, there was this mustiness that took me back to the schools of my childhood...and the smell of old urine embedded in the tiled walls of the bathroom only made the memories stronger.
So, Melanie, the answer would be, yes.
It turns out that smells are the biggest memory trigger you have. With me, it's usually outdoor smells. The smell of northern pine brings back very early mornings up at my grandmother's vacation place in the Catskills, when it seemed that the trees were singing. There are tree smells that take me back to camp.
There's a Catholic high school here in my town that used to host a Sunday flea market. Walking through the school, there was this mustiness that took me back to the schools of my childhood...and the smell of old urine embedded in the tiled walls of the bathroom only made the memories stronger.
So, Melanie, the answer would be, yes.
not necessarily sad Knox..just bittersweet..there are also smells that bring back happy memories..such as freshly cut grass..reminds me of my childhood..or pine at Christmas..also reminds me of my childhood..so not all smells are related to sad events...just that this morning i was caught off guard..
well i have a funny memory regarding smells...in highschool i was a majorette..and in my junior year the idiot band director decided for us to twirl fire batons...which meant i had to get a perm..since i used to plaster my hair with hairspray and didn't want it to go up in a fire bomb.. well anyway.. we used lighter fluid to soak the ends of the firebaton...so anytime i'm walking with david and i smell lighter fluid...i immediately begin humming the carpenter's "For all we know" which begins with the lines.."Love look at the two of us" and i twirl an imaginary baton and go into the routine we did back then in highschool..pretty amazing the way i can remember that stupid routine...and it always embarrasses david..hehe..
BLUE_THUNDER
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back in the 90's there was a cruise night almost every night of the week that i would go to , and there was a high octane fuel called "turbo blue" that was , in fact, blue in color, and was rated at 115 octane. a number of the old sixties musclecars, lead sleds, and street rods that had very high compression engines would run this stuff , and the smell is unmistakeable. when somebody was running blue and cruised into the parking lot, you KNEW it. to this day, every time i catch a hint of that stuff in the air at a car show or the dragstrip , i instantly go back in time 15 years... 
Mephistopheles
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A certain type of deodorant reminds me of a very nasty memory
about 10 years ago I was in a hotel, and the toilet of my room clogged, with a load of shit stuck on the surface. The stench was unbearable so I emptied a can of that deodorant on it, and the stench mixed with the stench of too much deodorant.
about 10 years ago I was in a hotel, and the toilet of my room clogged, with a load of shit stuck on the surface. The stench was unbearable so I emptied a can of that deodorant on it, and the stench mixed with the stench of too much deodorant.
Yes. And as an Axe commercial says, "Scent is the strongest sense tied to memory.". And you thought you couldn't learn anything from television. But seriously, scents can trigger so many different memories it's crazy. I get certain memories of ex boyfriends if I smell certain colognes and what not.
maniactickler
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Im going to refrain from posting about the type of smell i enjoy. 
storyteller
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I think one of the reasons I've enjoyed coffee since I was 4 is because of the way it smelled while brewing on the stove at the home of my maternal Grandparents. I would beg to have some, so my Grandmother bought small cups and saucers so that I could. In those days probably a tablespoon or so of coffee and twice that of milk. How the proportions have changed! What hasn't changed is how much I like the smell of coffee.
I have two I can name off the bat.
Bayberry - The scent of bayberry carries a strong association with (of all things) the album Apostrophe, by Frank Zappa. When I was a junior in high school, I'd play that album on our big Magnavox console stereo. My mother had a bayberry scented candle that sat on top of that console stereo. I never noticed it there until about a year later, and always wondered why I'd smell this particular scent while playing that album.
Charcoal burning - when mixed and delivered a certain way, brings back powerful memories of my time in Korea. The homes there are heated by burning charcoal "briquettes" which were roughly about the size and shape of a new roll of toilet paper. Instead of one big hole through the middle there were about five or six little ones. Every now and then I'll catch a wif of something burning that will almost transport me back through time and space to Tong Du Chon, Korea in 1979.
Bayberry - The scent of bayberry carries a strong association with (of all things) the album Apostrophe, by Frank Zappa. When I was a junior in high school, I'd play that album on our big Magnavox console stereo. My mother had a bayberry scented candle that sat on top of that console stereo. I never noticed it there until about a year later, and always wondered why I'd smell this particular scent while playing that album.
Charcoal burning - when mixed and delivered a certain way, brings back powerful memories of my time in Korea. The homes there are heated by burning charcoal "briquettes" which were roughly about the size and shape of a new roll of toilet paper. Instead of one big hole through the middle there were about five or six little ones. Every now and then I'll catch a wif of something burning that will almost transport me back through time and space to Tong Du Chon, Korea in 1979.
tickledgirl
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Scent can be incredibly evocative. There's a *huge* book called "Rememberance of Things Past" by Proust, written about the childhood memories that came flooding back when he smelled a kind of cookie called a madeleine.
A couple that really take me back are my grandpa's cologne, and the smell of wood-working. There's a mix of smells you get when someone who doesn't quite know what they're doing cuts wood. There's the smell of wood shavings and sawdust mixed with a slight burning odor. My kids were trying their hands at woodworking this summer, and the smell took me straight back to summer camp when I was a kid.
P.S. Great post, isabeau!
A couple that really take me back are my grandpa's cologne, and the smell of wood-working. There's a mix of smells you get when someone who doesn't quite know what they're doing cuts wood. There's the smell of wood shavings and sawdust mixed with a slight burning odor. My kids were trying their hands at woodworking this summer, and the smell took me straight back to summer camp when I was a kid.
P.S. Great post, isabeau!
Scents atleast those attached to strong memories trigger memories for me all the time. Two off the top of my head is the smell of cookies baking in an over brings me back to my parents house during the holidays and the smell of certain perfumes always reminds me of a few past lovers i've had.
Thanks tickledgirl..sometimes i do come up with threads that actually make sense..
anyway another smell that brings back memories is my tea bag...if i sniff it before using it, i immediately go back to a fall day in the early eighties when i first decided to try hot tea..it was a cool day, the leaves were falling..and on PBS's Masterpiece Theater was "Love for Lydia" very appropriate..made me feel all British..and i have loved hot strong black tea ever since..
anyway another smell that brings back memories is my tea bag...if i sniff it before using it, i immediately go back to a fall day in the early eighties when i first decided to try hot tea..it was a cool day, the leaves were falling..and on PBS's Masterpiece Theater was "Love for Lydia" very appropriate..made me feel all British..and i have loved hot strong black tea ever since..
steph said:Since I "grew up surfer"I pretty much only wear one scent~coconut, because it reminds me of the beach!
XOXO
o that reminds me..whenever i want to remember my times at the beach, i get out my suntan lotion and sniff it..and i'm suddenly hearing seagulls and the surf..i so love the ocean..can't wait until october to go again..
Mislaffsalot
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The scent that takes me back is the "new car smell" tree you hang from your rearview mirror. My best friend's fiance' had that in his car when we went out to visit him in San Diego, CA, quite a few years ago. Now whenever I smell it, I think of SoCal.
