Our Sense Of Smell

It has been proven that our sense of smell, (our olfactory sense) is the oldest sense and the most developed of our five recognized senses.  Perhaps a little more with me, as my sight was so bad for the first 10 years of my life.
The smell of Old Spice is good for me, although I dislike perfume of any kind.  My first step father used it all the time.  The smell of bacon frying makes me happy, not sure why but I have a couple of ideas.  The smell of Ponds Cold Cream (do they make that anymore?) reminds me of my mother, and strangely not in a bad way.  The smell of fresh cut lumber is a good smell to me. my last step father and my son worked together for some time in his carpentry business, so it reminds of them and happy times.  The smell of lifeboy soap scares me, in fact it used to terrify me.  I looked after a couples children once and was in their laundry room whe I smelt it and I started to shake and had to leave that room quicky.  I later discussed it with my therapist and with a little regression therapy realized that was what my step brother used, so the smell was on him.  The smell of baby powder makes me smile, it reminds me of my children as babies.  I love everything about libraries especially the smell, to me books actually have a smell, a good one.  The smell of cabbage cooking makes me nausous, my mother cooked with cabbage a lot.  I do like cabbage raw, but the smell of it cooking makes me ill.
People have their own smell and I don't mean added perfumes or deodorants, but there own smell.  I researched it and people who love each other can recognize the tee shirts worn by their loved one.  There was an actual study done where 10 men were asked to wear a tee shirt for one day, with no deodorant or perfume of any kind, the tee shirts were all exactly the same, plain white shirts.  At the end of the day their wives or signifigant others were asked to pick out their partners tee shirts by smell alone and all 10 were able to do so, not so unusal as animals recognize their young through smell.  I think I could have recognized my babies through smell.  The smell of laundry fresh off of the clothesline is a delightful smell to me.  I remember hanging out my babies diapers, (definately pre dryer days) and just hugging them close to me, I really remember that smell.  There are so many other examples but that is it for now.
After Midnight Thoughts...............Friday, March 11, 2011.........12:31a.m.