Have you ever had a smell trigger a memory?

Happens to me sometimes. I was playing with my dog and started wondering if that's what it's like for dogs, only all the time. I remember reading that they only see in shades of brown. But their smell and hearing must compensate for, what I would say, is limited vision. Are smells to dogs what our vision is to us? I'm sure dogs are smarter than we realize, maybe not human-like smarts but just different, dog-like smarts. When I get that memory pop up from just a smell, sometimes it's so much more than just a vague memory. I remember emotions, little details, like reliving that moment again.

If that's what "memory" is for dogs, it almost seems superior to the way we remember.

Sorry, just things I wish I could ask my dog. But you humans will have to do.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Every time I smell cantaloupe I think of a particular day when I was 8 years old in school and sitting on a bench with my friends. I'm not sure what that's all about but I have that memory everytime.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Yep, I have. Roses, reefer(?), machine oil, gardens-tomatoes, corn-peppers etc, Old Spice aftershave.

a reply to: ZeroReady

YES!! Smells and music are powerful triggers for me and many people actually.

Certain songs can take me right back in time to a certain time in my life and make me relieve all those emotions over again. It isn't as intense with smells but recently I got the whiff of some cologne my high school bf wore. It was soooo weird! All of a sudden all these memories came back that i had thought Id' forgotten. It was nice but weird at the same time!

a reply to: LucidLucinda

That's what I'm talking about. So like, when my dog gets in the car and smells the car smells, does he remember a happy feeling or emotion from before? Maybe the best time he's ever had at the park, and the car smell triggers that memory and all the emotion that goes with it. Possibly why he can't contain himself in the car til we get to the park.

Violet sweets remind me of my grandma
as for my dog he always stops to see his doggy friend (who has now moved away) but still sniffs the gate post and wags his tail

I don't know if it's a smell thing or the sight thing but something happens to me everytime I take the lid off of a half gallon of ice cream.

I get thrown back in time for just a brief moment. It's the most amazing feeling(s).

Not sure what it's all about but I'm glad it happens. It's almost like a drug. (or.....what I'm told drugs feel like.....if I was to ever use a drug....I'm er ah ....i assume it would feel like a drug.....i wouldn't.....hmmmm.....)

As an adult, the first time I grew tomatoes, I got a whiff of the plant and instantly, I was transported back to about three years old and I was standing in the garden with my mother and I could feel her dress brush across my face... That was not previously a conscious memory.

I don't think dogs work the same way. Their sense of smell is more like our eyesight - the prominent one.

There is this certain kind of perfume out that takes me back to the hellish time when my bestfriend was dating this crazy chick in 9th grade, she literally bathed in this stuff. Every now and then I will walk by a girl wearing this perfume and I shutter every time I smell it.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Gorgeous dog. Looks like my sasha....except she's a weiner dog.

Some dogs have very acute vision. "Sight hounds" hunt via this acute vision.

RE: the question in the OP....all the time. Got in the elevator at work the other day and smelled my wife. Or, rather, my favorite of her perfumed sprays. Someone who had just gotten off must have been wearing it. But it grabbed my attention, to be sure.

Read 'Jitterbug Perfume' by Tom Robbins. The olfactory sense is key to the story.
You may also want to watch "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer."
Both are excellent.

a reply to: ZeroReady

The sense of smell is the most archaic of our senses, and is heavily tied in with memory. While studying for a test you should chew gum (non-aspartame kind), or have something of a distinctive smell, then chew the same gum or bring the smell with you to the test. It will improve your recall.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Yes, a lot. But that aside, I had kind of a reverse smell memory last night. Was watchin' TV and there were an old pair of warn workboots on the screen. As soon as I saw them, I smelled the old leather of those boots! I had an identical pair, yrs ago, so I instictively(?) smelled them on sight! Trippy Man! LOL!!!

a reply to: ZeroReady

I've had smells make me almost completely relive memories, both good and bad.

But one time, and I will never forget it as I was going thru a divorce and very depressed...

I walked outside my house and I got the smell of spring. Not just any spring, but springtime from my childhood.
I was instantly put back into a memory of sitting in the grass at a very young age and really smelling the world for the first time.

That feeling/smell carried on thru the divorce process.
It was actually the smell that pushed me forward when I didn't think I could take any more because it opened up my senses to what I had been blind to for many years.

Very hard to explain, but it was a very profound memory/smell association.

a reply to: ZeroReady

Now THAT is a snazzy dog, albeit the fact it's probably spoiled.

I will buy a bar of Naptha soap, just to remember both my late aunt, and a time when a motel manager was kind enough to let my family stay at his inn when our camp flooded out.
Naptha has that "clean motel" smell, and my aunt used it on her floors of her lake cabin.

a reply to: ZeroReady

I think dogs have feelings but not sure how good their memory is. I'm sure your dog recalls particular events or thinks about you when they hear a specific noise or smell a particular scent.

There is a kind of psi that relates to scent and when it occurs with me its like I went down to South America on a shaman journey, had some rather profound experiences related to them one ufology and one related to nature and trees and inner worlds. Really surpised me. And at the end it was like racing down spiraling fractal vines as if I was literally on one of those shaman trips which I would never join.

I'm wondering about scents and memories triggering de je vu type experiences as well.

Smell is most strongly tied to memory.

I can recall many memories based on the scent.
The minty scent of kindergarten paste.
Every lover I've ever experienced.
The scent of donuts and coffee while wearing cuffs in a police car.
I could go on forever.
The olfactory sense is a powerful, and often overlooked, property of memory.
I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning.
I am not attracted to women who wear deodorant.

originally posted by: Unity_99


I'm wondering about scents and memories triggering de je vu type experiences as well.

Yes, I actually go into a panic at certain smells, due to traumatic experiences related to those smells.