Wouldn’t you call this a “smellucination?”
Hey, I’m glad you brought this up. I’ve had this occur all my life. It occurs maybe 3-4 times a year.
The smells I get most often are oranges, ammonia, marijuana and ‘stink’. About a month ago, I had ‘stink’ which lasted about 4 days.
Around that time, I was joking around with a friendly neurologist and asked him “If a person thought the whole world actually stunk, would you recommend and ENT, a psychiatrist or a neurologist?” He looked thoughtful for a moment, but then I told him he didn’t have to answer the question. (Because so many nurses ask medical favors from Docs and I didn’t want him to feel like I wanted him to treat me or that I was asking for a favor, and because I don’t know him all that well. I was just chatting him up and entertaining him while we waited for a report to come up to the floor.) He said it was a great question.
I also had one auditory hallucination once about 5-6 years ago.
I never thought to worry about it since it’s happened all my life. I have a lot of sinus troubles, so I think that’s the cause.
After my mom died of lung cancer, I smelled cigarette smoke, usually on my clothes or other cloth belongings. I figured that it really did smell of smoke, so I was annoyed but not worried about my health. Until my husband smelled one of the things I thought was smokey, and he didn’t smell it (he has a much better sense of smell than I do). Yes, I did see a doctor about it; it was most likely in my head, and not in a strokey kind of way. I haven’t smelled phantom smoke for ~6 months.
i found this post after googling ‘smell hallucinations…’ i just got back from berlin where i spent the last few days in a notorious club called the berghain. anyone who has been will tell you what with the 3000 capacity, lax rules about doing pretty much anything and the fact thats its open for nearly three days straight, it has a somewhat distinctive odour. anyway, i got back home yesterday afternoon after going straight from the club to the airport and since i got back to the flat anytime anyone smokes a cigarette, i smell the berghain, and not a whiff of smoke. i hadn’t slept or eaten for three days until last night and was a bit ‘twitchy’ in my sleep… genuine medical concern or comedown paranoia?
And sometimes you really did smell something. Look at the dog to check.
Migraines, I get auras of a fruity citrusy smell indicating one is coming on. Lets me know to take my meds.
I get the ‘reminder so strong you can almost actually smell it’ all the time. In my case, it’s because I’m cross-wired in a lot of weird directions and apparently mildly synaesthetic. It’s tied reliably to other specific sensory input. Over-caffeination, for example, gives me the impression that there’s a kind of a overheated, rubbery smell hanging around the back of my sinus cavities that I’ve always described as ‘burnt neuron’.
And sometimes it’s just because something has lodged itself in your nose and won’t go away. I have a friend who hates all things banana because she’s been through chemistry courses, and informs me that isoamyl acetate (artificial banana flavoring) lingers for days. She can’t stand it anymore.
I smell zombies…
& yeah, that weird banana flavor/smell I get every once in awhile too.