Can Ofactory (smell) cross the life/death/OBE/ and timelines

[beemaster]

Here is an interesting question that I have pondered lately. First, a little background.

I had a severe infection called Mastoiditis (an infection of the bone in your skull) which CAN breach the brain if untreated - luckily, it never got to that point.

A symptom of the infection is a change of the ofactory sense, sometimes permanent and in my case it has been reoccuring ALTHOUGH the infection itself has been at bay.

Interestingly, the way it works is that the infected fluids that fill the air pockets of the skull (yes, your skull is basically like a sponge which adds structural strength to it) and these infected fluids drip via gravity to the sinuses - which (if you have ever seen a drawing of them) are practically as big as your fist and of course they are on both sides of your face, behind your cheeks, eyes and you sinus sufferers know how painfull they can be: causing anything from tooth ache, nasal drip, sore jaw, light sensitivity and migraine like symptoms.

Back to the smell issue.

I have for three years now dealth with this reaccuring problem, my sinuses get impacted with fluids and I use Flonase and Clairatin to lessen the pressures. A big side effect of Flonase though is it can change or even delete your ability to smell things. In my case, it causes everything to smell like exhaust fumes from a car - so I tend to use the Clairatin and hope for the best, because the fume smell can stick around for days and I AM A BOILERMAN, I cannot work safely if I can not smell poor combustion, I could literally not smell a gas leak, not know if air induction fans (for proper combustion in furnaces and boilers were tripped, etc.) so I keep away from the Flonase unless I can no longer stand take the pain of severly clogged sinuses - which I like to describe as ballons pumping up behind my eyes trying to pop my eye from my head while I suffer something like a midiun ear infection like pain.

Back to smell (lol - sorry I'm not brief, I don't have that feature)

So lately, I have had this unique smell, although I have not used either product in weeks. It isn't an unpleasant smell, not exactly flowers either, but tolerable and definitly present much of the time.

Eerily, I know what the smell is (or so in my mind I do) it is the smell of the Cirque Du Soliel Circus (French Circus of the Suns) which I have tickets for in July in Philadelphia. I have NEVER been to the their circus before, never had anyone I know who has and obviously, NOT had the smell of the circus described to me by anyone whether in person, or online. BUT..... I know that when I go in July, as soon as I walk in, I will smell the same smell that has been haunting me.

Now, that leads to my question - we've always been told that our sense of smell is the most BRAIN TRIGGERING SENSE we have - it can bring back memories, trigger emotions, do many strange things including cause healing and declining health (this isn't my theories, I have heard many experts talk about smell and they all seem to agree that ofactory can promote healing if it triggers positive memories in the patients mind - and adversely cause slow healing if it recalls bad or horrific memories.

But I'm smelling something that I know I will smell months ahead of time, I feel it and can't explain it other than I'm getting this either as a warning or a message or some other reason that I'm to incapable to grasp.

So I think to myself, what other things can smell do? does it have the ability to travel through time (obviously to a person who recalls events when a smell triggers memory is "in a way" traveling time, if only in there mind) and isn't reality just a preception that EACH of us have, a preception that can be changed by medications (legal or street) or emotional events that cause us to ACT rather than REACT? It goes back to WHAT is REAL.

Many years ago, both my wife and I smelled what we both described as cherry pipe tobacco coming from the room below our bedroom - it could be smelled at the floor, was set aloft when the base-board heating kicked in, but was NOT smellable when we went into the room below the bedroom. Common sense then leaves us with to conclusions, whatever the smell was was either in the floor below the bedroom or possibly in the wall.

We smelled this for sever months, it then went away over night and strangely reappeared again about a year later for a few weeks and we have never smelled it since.

My point I guess, if I had to put into a sentence or two, can smells live on as entities, just as memories can or as spirits can to those who believe in those.

If you have read any of my stuff, you know I believe that we are Conscience Creatures living in a Physical body - I can only speculate why, but tend to think it is a gift from a higher power to allow us to experience the differences between the real us (the conscience creature) and the physical being that we walk around in for the life of our body. I could write volumes on what could happen to the conscience being after death (and my OBE Stuff) surely gives you a glimps of at least a few possibilities.

So, could smell be a conscience entity? It surely is thought to be the most primal of all senses and also the strongest. I wonder, when I walk into the Giant big-top at Cirque Du Soliel in July, what will I smell - will I be amazed that I nailed the smell, surprized that I did not get it, not even close - is it a warning that I'm not heeding and maybe I'll never make it to or back from the circus?

Just wondering what you Darkside Readers think.

[latebee]

John,
        I have been told by trauma counselors that smell can trigger an episode of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder quicker than any other stimulus. So it must logically follow that smell would be a MAJOR component in the brain's processing of memory data. And like you say --it may be possible in transforming this "sense" over from the physical to the spiritual entity,or vice versa, in some fashion beyond our scope of consciuos comprehension.

[ayyon2157]

Hi John:

     I used to live in the same farmhouse whereI was born, and sitting on the porch could sometimes "feel" the happiness of my parents who had sat at the same spot before I was born.

     One late afternoon, whike sitting there I smelled the rather unmistakable odor of sweating horses.  Strong, clear, and lasting for several seconds, at least long enough to get up and look down the road for a horse.  No horse within miles.

     The spot was downwind from the end of the barn where the horses had been kept 50 years or so before, and where the sweat would have been wiped off  before putting them away.  (these were workhorses)

     I have no explnation for this.

     Another strange situation involving smell occured when I was sitting at a bingo hall waiting for the game to start.  It was a hot day and I was almost dosing off when a young woman passed my line of vision who was wearing a dress such as made out of print chicken feed sacks by farm women in the 1940s, and with a hair style to match.

     The next instance my consiousness was concentrated into an invisible spot of energy, AND I WAS UNDER HER DRESS.  I could see light through the weave of the cloth, and was uneffected by gravity.  I don't remember any sense of touch, but I could hear, and smell.  I could smell her bath oil, soap, and perfume, along with other faint odors such as would be found in such a place on a hot day.  Immediately I was back in my body wondering what happened and feeling quite embarassed although I couldn't see how any of it was my fault.

     She left the concession line, and walked within 8 feet of me and absolutely GLARED at me.  Later talking to my wife, she had not seen the only woman with a dress in the place, and I watched for her to leave and scanned the place (maybe 40 or 50 people) and in spite of the fact that she couldn't have left the room without crossing my line of vision, she wasn't there.

     The smell of her bath oil stayed with me a long time, and I could have recognized it if given samples for years.  In other words, her smell was more memorable than she was.

ayyon2157

[Jerrymac]

Back in 1985 I had a motorcycle accident that caused brain hemorrhage  at the back of my head. I lost the sense of smell and taste. Never really fully got it all back. I do however have this extra sensitivity to petroleum products. Gasoline, burning oil, propane, natural gas, fingernail polish, junk like that. I can tell when a vehicle needs a tune up. I know when they are putting tar on a roof or oil on a near by parking lot. Oil fields really smell bad. Worse than they did before the accident.

I got some new boots for Christmas that smells to me like someone spilled gasoline on them.

Now get this. I have an all electric house, as does everyone within a mile of me. I sometimes smell a gas leak in my house. There is no gas with in a mile of me.

Sometimes when I have colds and I'm all plugged up I start smelling strange smells.

Did you know it is normal to have very small strokes? Some times it affects different things in your body. A sudden twitch of the eyelid. An unexpected jerk of the hand. And perhaps affects the smeller.

[latebee]

 Interesting,as I didn't know we had small strokes,though it does make sense. Can you imagine having the sense of smell our great-great ancestors had when the survival of our species depended on this.As we became lords over our dominion,our "super sniffer" was geatly diminished partly because we were not as threatened by other predators on a regular basis,and likely because we made the transition from hunter -gatherer shifting to an agricultuiral lifestyle.

[Jerrymac]

Did you know it is normal to have very small strokes?

I might not have put that exactly correct. There are chances of having this small strokes. It is just little blood vessels (the little tiny ones) that can break and depending on where in your brain is what is affected. They are not a health issue. I will have to try to find something on it as it has been so long ago that I heard this. 

I found this, "Trouble identifying odors points to Alzheimer's"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070123/hl_nm/odors_alzheimers_dc;_ylt=An4FysTFyWblNadnbulo8nTVJRIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-

[latebee]

  Thanks for the info Jerrymac. I found this    ]]http://toddkelley.net/archives/2006/02/stroke_remember.phphttp://
   to be very informative about identifying stroke symptoms.

[Kev]

But I'm smelling something that I know I will smell months ahead of time, I feel it and can't explain it other than I'm getting this either as a warning or a message or some other reason that I'm to incapable to grasp.

Many years ago, both my wife and I smelled what we both described as cherry pipe tobacco coming from the room below our bedroom

My point I guess, if I had to put into a sentence or two, can smells live on as entities, just as memories can or as spirits can to those who believe in those.

lots of ghost stories (of the it really happened to me variety, not the Edgar Allen Poe variety) mention smells. Now, I don't really subscribe to that, but occasionally I have a smell I can't explain or that reminds me of something else.

Our nervous system is so interconnected that there's just no way to tell what's going on.

Do I think you're smell the circus ahead of time? Nope.

BTW, did they diagnose your mastoiditis with a CT scan or MRI?

[beemaster]

Great Insight Everyone:

I rarely reread my own posts, a choice (not of time, although I do get long) but to keep my perspective relative to the way a post is going. This one is interesting. The first time I really had reoccurring or controlling odor issues was after my brain infection in 2001 which I know seeped yucky infection smells into my sinuses. But I can remember the very moment that it all started - changing from a smell like Body Odor, to a lingering smell issue for me.

At the dentist office a man grabbed the clipboard to fill out his personal info and he sat next to me. I thought the man stunk badly, not the dead smell of a homeless guy in a subway car, but a case of he hadn't washed in days and had worked hard making that sweaty smell.

I came home, not thinking about anything until the next day when I had a nasty odor around me like I smelled bad, or my clothes did. I really thought that my wife had bought a new detergent that seriously clashed with my body chemistry (like different perfumes and under-arm deodorant won't work on certain people and not others) and I told her strongly to stop using whatever she was using, it made me smell like I stunk.

It wasn't until I buried my head into a pillow I took from the closet which I knew was clean but had a different detergent did I realize that the issue was in my sinuses, not in my clothes. I was smelling everything filtered through the infection smell - this lasted months as I battled the infection with antibiotic shots.

Since then, I have had MANY TRIGGER SMELLS that set off a three or four day smell problem, a classic example a coworker over cooked a sesame seed bagel in the microwave and the oils from the burnt seeds triggered everything to smell like the oil for days. I too Jerry get a petrol smell occasionally from things that do not have any reason to smell that way.

The latest was a new restaurant that has a coffee house theme with eclectic foods, lots of vinegars, oils, burnt coffee smells, etc. We ate there, I thought the place reeked and my wife said to her it mostly smelled of coffee - for 3 days everything smelled of vinegars and over-roasted coffee beans. I can never go back there, because I know their smell is just part of their menu and will not change.

I have read many times olfactory is the most ancient connection we share with primal man. As said above, part of the survival instinct of man rarely needed in today's world, but paramount in early man. I do believe that smell could trigger OBE or self-hypnosis and other events in us. The examples everyone wrote are solid in that thinking.

Imagine someday a scented candle that will trigger OBE by smell while staring at the flame. I think we all share the same primal olfactory stuff since we are all somehow related, heck me and cousin Jerry there might have fallen from the same tree and that petrol smell surely could be connective.

I know in the original post I mentioned "Is smell a conscious entity" meaning if I thought it out, is it something (even if molecular in nature) exists and passes on as a flu germ might. Everything (without exception) is here to procreate - from the simplest of life forms, whether through cell division or reproduction, has no long term goals other than to complete the life cycle and pass on genes. Imagine a minute' little olfactory critter which can ONLY procreate if an OBE like experience is triggered in humans. Sort of the chemical make-up of the human brain releases a needed endorphin to complete the olfactory's reproduction cycle.

I don't understand much of this, I doubt anyone truly does yet - but someday in the near to distant future we will all be experiencing the conscious existence - whether before or after we are dead is the only question. I can imagine though that if a chemical was not allowed to be pharmaceutically sold, then the black market street demand for such a drug would create a supply and demand issue like never before. Imagine a SAFE and 100% OBE drug, a drug that proves to us all that we are more than skin, flesh, blood, bones and organs - what would such a drug go for - wow.

And... to a God-Fearing world of many religions, would using a drug to prove a spirit/conscious world be counter to religious belief where FAITH is now the only primmer? Wouldn't knowing for certain there was an after-life, or as I tend to think of it a coexistent world which we are rarely given the "keys to enter" INCREASE one's belief in a God rather than challenge it? Why is it necessary for Religion to be FAITH BASED any ways? I would imagine many people would argue that most religions are NOT faith based, but Hear-say based: meaning that we TAKE THE WORD of people who lived long ago as fact, it seems most religions accept the fact that people before them were at the right places and at the right time to experience God's Glory. There is nothing wrong with that, but wouldn't PROOF in your own life (at the very least) co-oberate, if not exceed the written words of ancient text?

I've said this before, but if you took a giant pot and stirred into it theology, science, numerology, astronomy and astrology, what you come up with IF YOU ARE SMART ENOUGH TO UNDERSTAND IT ALL is the truth and the light to ever-lasting existence. Maybe we are not allowed to know all the answers, or not smart enough to ever figure out the LAW OF EVERYTHING as it is called, but I do believe at times we are given a taste of truth and eventually in the natural chain of humanly events, upon death will be given the formula. I think everyone will fall into a positive or negative place in the Universal energy pool, all of us buzzing or zapping our way through-out eternity like neurons charging and unloading in our brains. The Universe is always growing, so is the number of people who die and enter the collective pool.

I've heard that there are now MORE people alive today on Earth THAN all the people to have lived before us added together. We are at 6.5 billion people and should see 10 billion in less than 10 years. I'm stunned that Earth supports this much life - if this were a mouse cage experiment, we would have killed each other off by now OR all died from disease, doesn't THAT sound familiar - ugh. Good luck to mankind, in a world where we think we rule, someday (as Stephan King put it) Captain Tripps will come and separate the wheat from the chaff. Leaving the world with a select few to restart a civilization that eventually will need cleansing again. I wonder HOW MANY TIMES has the Earth purged itself of man only for us to regroup and repopulated like roaches after a nuke attack? Even if this is the first time man has been on this planet, I doubt it will be his last attempt. At some point we will all die off like the dinosaur and with some luck come back better than we are this go-around.