Olefactory hallucinations

[cybermule]

I get smell hallucinations, random and pure nostalgia. This morning, I was making tea in the work kitchen, and I remembered the smell of the plum jam that I had once in a hotel in Soain, when I was about 6. There was nothing to remind me of the smell, just a purely random smell-memory.

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Is that a hallucination or synaesthesia? (I've always wanted to have synaesthesia) Does it just happen, or does some non-smell kick it off? Do you read Proust, then start smelling madeleines?

I don't think I've ever hallucinated a smell, but they're incredibly strong at retrieving old memories. I was walking in the countryside a while back and walked past a farm yard with a couple of trucks in it - the mixture of paraffin and diesel smoke (my favourite) took me right back to being a kid. I spent most Sunday mornings with my Dad, down at his garage fixing wagons. Dismantled engines were washed in a bucket of paraffin and starting them up inside the garage always left that sooty smell of a slowly idling diesel engine.

[cybermule.livejournal.com]

It's a hallucination - synasthesia would be where I was smelling smells when I heard e.g. particular musical notes. It seems quite fascinating - I was watching a programme on the TV where a woman saw colours for musical notes, and a man smelled different smells according to his friends names. The latter seemed annoying - it often made him queasy.

Nothing seems to prompt the hallucinations, or at least, not consciously. Usually they are smells associated with strong memories - it's surprising how evocative they are.

[jo-kat.livejournal.com]

I get those sometimes too. Come to think of it, if I think of a particular smell while breathing in through my nose, the memory is usually enough to spark the actual experience of smelling a faint whiff of it. Interesting...