Do you ever go into a place and all of the sudden, some scent comes rushing at you – and you swear that sometime in your life you've smelled this same smell, but you can't remember when? There are also times when a specific smell can trigger a very detailed memory.
I rarely see pumpkin pie in NZ, but one place I know has it – and just eating a pumpkin pie after so long brings back not only memories of eating pumpkin pie years back, but the exact scene of the making of it. How about that smell that schools have – walking into any school can trigger a waterfall of memories for me. Even sniffing a specific kind of eraser is enough to trigger a memory of myself in math with Mrs. McCann (6th grade), racing up to the chalkboard for arithmetic races.
It even triggers enough memory to remember the exact order of the people in our row – John A—-, Denny B—–, Myself, Jeff C—-, Kathy C——-. We used to win a lot of those races. Smells are weird that way. To this day, I love the smell of Murphy's oil soap because that's what we used for cleaning up crayon in kindergarten.
As a matter of fact, a lot of childhood memories of mine are connected to some very specific smells. My latest experience with this was the last time we went to this Italian deli we like to go to. I went to the bathroom and the smell of the air freshener triggered some memory, but I have no idea what memory. The smell (which was very pleasant), was so familiar and I couldn't place it for the life of me. I'm sure it was from when I was young. I looked everywhere for the name of the air freshener, but it was one of those which are pumped from a device on the ceiling and there was no way of knowing. I went in there one more time that afternoon just to smell the scent again and try to dredge up a memory, but I couldn't. To this day, it bugs me, because it was so familiar – like one of those things you used to smell so often. Where in my past did that smell come from? It's a mystery.
I alway wonder why dogs don't go absolutely crazy, with their super smell. It's an interesting concept though, smell and memory. There are a few studies, but it's not a field fully explored. I find it fascinating.
Paikea Restored 