For a few days last week, everywhere I went I had a distinct and very strong smell/taste sensation.
It was the smell/taste of that extremely fine powdery sugar that they dust onto very cheap bubble gum, like the cardboardy kind of gum that used to–still does?–come with baseball cards. Also the kind they used to put in the candy cigarettes (I’m showing my age) that you could blow out and it looked a little like smoke.
A year or so ago, I had the same experience, only that time it was the smell (not taste) of Parmesan cheese, which is not, to me, a particularly pleasant smell.
What reminded me of this is that just now, as I was sitting here in my apartment, I suddenly got the incredibly strong smell of a woman’s hair after it’s just been shampooed. While this is an extremely pleasant smell, it’s a smell that hasn’t been smelled in my apartment in a regrettably long time, so I assume I hallucinated it. (It’s gone now.)
Similar experiences? Better yet, is this the first sign of some horrible disease? Am I occasionally channelling the smell sense of Barry Manilow or someone?
I get that sometimes… usually it’s that I’m wandering down the road outide and all of a sudden I get this smell of sand… specifically beach sand, all salty and such. The type that gets in the bottom of your bag when you go to the beach and stays in there for months after you’ve left the beach.
The thing is… I live in the middle of the prairies… not a salt water beach in sight. The nearest is in BC, but this smells exactly like the beaches out in NS. Memories of going out to visit Nanna and Granddad and going to their cottage. Hanging out at St James beach (I think it was called) most of the day before stumbling back to the cottage all salty with my towel and sandals full of sand… that’s what comes to mind when I smell this. But I never see any sand anywhere and as I said nearest salt water beach is far far away…
When I get them I just always thought it was cuz they were spreading sand around to make a house foundation or something… cuz I have noticed I usually smell sand when around construction…
I used to get them too. I smelled banana splits-whipped cream, cut bananas, and vanilla ice cream-or sometimes just banan smell-real banana scent not the artifical. The phantom “BS” have ceased since my sinus operation and new AC filter at work-hmmmm.
Howsomever, I can still detect smells better than anyone else I know. I think it is my estrogen level and my odd sinuses. I am “Bionic Nose Woman” in my small circle of F&F.
I was going to be all upbeat about this, and mention how the anti-allergy inhaler Beconase causes me to perceive all kinds of smells that never existed anywhere, and which have no “meaning”, but jjimm actually has a more important point.
Abnormal smell perception, if you’re not on a medication that causes it, can be an indication of health problems. I’m no doctor – I’m sure there are lots of other reasons. But it might be time to check out some medical Internet sites, jackelope.
The link said “Olfactory hallucinations are occasionally a symptom of a brain tumor, so you need to bring this problem to the attention of a neurologist immediately.”
Funny you should mention smelling the scent of a woman’s hair just after being shampooed, jackelope. A while ago, I was sitting here in my apartment and suddenly smelled the fairly strong smell of shampoo. No, I did not just wash my hair. No, they aren’t cleaning the carpets outside in the hallway at 10:30 or 11 PM. (at least, I’d hope not… and I know what that smells like, anyhow) Pleasant experience, to be sure. Beats smelling cigarette smoke and such, which is what these halls sometimes overpoweringly smell like.
As for getting it checked out by a neurologist, it’s a good thing my friend Joe is a neuropsychiatrist. If I have any concerns about this, I’ll just ask him to see what’s up.
EEK! Now you’re all scaring me. I often smell things that aren’t there. A lot of times it’s a pleasant smell that I somehow link to childhood, but I just can’t place it. Or I’ll smell marijuana when there is no way anyone is smoking near me. Then there’s the smell of these gingerbread/chocolate cookies that I only ate once when I was really little. I’m not epilectic. I’m really hoping I don’t have a brain tumor. But that article said injury and occasionally psychiatric problems can be the cause. I get sinus infections all the time, and have a history of mental health problems. I hope that is the cause. But I suppose I’ll have to go get it checked out just to be sure.
