Does a Sound or Smell Illicit a Certain Feeling or Emotion for You Every Time?

LILACS

when i was little lilac bushes lined our alley. i loved to hide in the lilac bushes when anything bad was going on, like my parents fighting. i would bring my mom bunches of lilacs to make her happy. the smell of lilacs always stops me in my tracks. I get overcome with a meloncholy, wistful mixture of sadness and fondness all at the same time. I start to miss my mom and then i feel sadness over the hard times and a tinge of joy over the good times. All with a whif of lilacs.

4 moms found this helpful

There are things that so much remind me of my parents. For my mom it's the smell of Coty loose face powder. She always wore kind of light powder scents and coty face powder.

For my dad it was more being someplace. He was an ordained minister and I grew up in the church. I still hear old hymns or walk into a traditional looking church with pews and an alter and a pulpit and it's like I'm there with him. It's this overwhelming feeling of comfort and protection that doesn't have anything to do with the religious aspect. It's what I strongly identify with him.

Both of these things give me great comfort and make me sad at the same time because I miss them everyday. I was blessed, however, because people don't leave a big hole in your life if they don't have a great presence there to begin with.

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Pine trees, growing up in the woods I didn't notice the smell that was constant in our lives, now I do when I'm around the same kind of trees. I haven't heard it in awhile, but a percolator (coffee maker) in the morning. I LOVED that sound. I have a cuckoo clock, I got it because it reminds me of my Grandmothers house and how it was an event when one of the little kids first saw the cuckoo clock pop out. That little bird is fast.

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The smell of Jergens Lotion...my mom always used it!

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Things that transport me back in time.....

The taste of baby aspirin.
The smell of the inside of a school bus.
Certain songs will trigger memories of where I was & what I was doing when I heard the particular song.
The smell of oregano (reminds me of my Gram's kitchen--her cupboards just "had" the oregano smell).
Loud noises/phone ringing in the middle of the night (bad childhood experiences)
Loud yelling (see above)
The smell of Chantilly powder (again--my grandma)
The taste of REAL Mayo on ham (other grandma--sandwich pusher!)
Salad dressing of vinegar/oil/sugar (holiday dinners from childhood)
The smell of coconut sunscreen -- beach trips
Sooooo many things!

Sounds like your memory is a good one for you...so enjoy!

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mine is with smells. nothing as strong as what you are describing though. certain smells remind me of people, places or things. Like with Dial hand soap....reminds me of my dad and his old house. he always had Dial soap, as did my grandpa. Soft Soap hand soap reminds me of an ex boyfriend. and the list goes on and on. certain perfumes remind me of certain people or experiences.

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Yes, it is because the part of our brain that stores our memories is the same part of our brain that processes our sense of smell.

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Yep! The smell of original chapstick always makes me think of my Daddy. He still wears it and my husband is not allowed! ha!

Updated

Yep! The smell of original chapstick always makes me think of my Daddy. He still wears it and my husband is not allowed! ha!

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Reminder of home....Anytime I hear something frying. Or the smell of turkey cooking. My mom made the BEST fried chicken...anytime I hear something snapping in a pan I think of her. and her turkey was to die for...and since we only got to eat it once a year growing up....I savored the smell it left the house with for the next day or so:)

Of just my mom....Shalamar perfume.......against her faux fur coat at Christmas time. Every year for Christmas she would wear her white faux fur coat and the smell of her normal perfume would just be magnified.

My dad...anything smelling of Black Licorice. He LOVES it. So do I. He carries a tin of Altoids in his pocket that are that flavor....so he always smells of it:)

the smell of clean skin on my kids reminds me of when I would bathe them in the baby tub....Every once in a while one of them will use some of the baby body wash that I still have and then when they come to me to get dressed it is like floating down memory lane with them:)

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you are sooo not nuts!!! I too would be irritated if my day dream or trance is broken before I want it to be!!

Mine is the smell of the ocean and fried chicken...we lived in Hawaii for 7 years...and every Sunday after church we would go to the beach and have my mamas wonderful fried chicken! YUM!!! We would laugh, run, play all this stuff and just BE....even when my dad was off in Vietnam...we still went to the beach....Barbers Point, Waikiki..Ford Island (before there was a bridge to get you there we had to take the ferry!!)

There are other smells that get me. It's RARE that I can smell the ocean and fried chicken...

THANK YOU!!! For the memory!!

1 mom found this helpful

Shalimar perfume brings me back to my mom getting ready to go out. She only wore perfume on special occasions. It brings back an intense feeling of being in between my parents and a babysitter, wondering what we'd do, if the babysitter would be nice or stern, how late she'd let us stay up. I remember the feeling of excitement/anxiety as my parents slipped out and the babysitter took over. Wishing they'd leave already and nervous for them to do so.

The smell of Subway bread baking is another one. My brother was in a bad accident and was in the hospital for a long time. Right inside the doors there was a Subway and you could always smell the bread whether you ate there or not. It seemed to creep into the vents or something. For a very long time I couldn't walk into a Subway because the smell brought me back to those visits and everything we went through as a family when he was in the hospital. It's been almost 20 years now and I still get weird inside every time we go to Subway.

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I can remember smells when I remember certain memories.