Scents

My seventh grade Core teacher Mrs. Busch (the one that frequently rubbed off her penciled on eyebrows in frustration) told us that certain scents bring up different memories. She proceeded to pour a bag of recently fallen fall leaves on the table and has us smell them and see what memories we remembered. I remember having this instant flashback to Boston in the Fall. I think it had been about two years since Dad, Mom, Kendall, and I had traveled to B-town and walking around in the leaves wasn't a memory that I ever consciously remembered storing. It was a very weird experience.

So here I am, almost eight years later, still fascinated with the idea that my brain can store memories without any conscious effort on my part. Since I'm now one of those weird kids that is obsessed with the human body, I decided to look up the science between memory and scent. This is what Discover Health taught me...

"A smell can bring on a flood of memories, influence people's moods and even affect their work performance. Because the olfactory bulb is part of the brain's limbic system, an area so closely associated with memory and feeling it's sometimes called the "emotional brain," smell can call up memories and powerful responses almost instantaneously.
The olfactory bulb has intimate access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning. Despite the tight wiring, however, smells would not trigger memories if it weren't for conditioned responses. When you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment."

So I've been thinking about this for a while and started compiling a list of the scents I associate with certain memories or people.


Hot Tamales or Cinnamon Bears (really any cinnamon candy) - Natalie
Fresh wall paint- Mom and Dad
Recently cut grass- Dad
Lavender- Mom
Any indoor pool- G+G's Salt Lake pool
Coconut Lime Verbena Lotion- Kendall
Pink Lemonade- Joshua
Gasoline- Mexico (this one always makes me laugh)
The smell of any doctors office- The West Linn Women's Clinic
School smell- Aunt Cheri and when Kendall, Rachel, and I would "help" her set up the classroom for the Fall.
Wet/muddy shoes- Rugby

And of course there are the harder ones that you don't really know how to define the scent. Like Alaina's house. I can definitely tell when something comes from Alaina's. I almost certain that if someone gave me something from the Backus home I could tell. I haven't been there in more than four years, but even now I'm positive I could recognize it. Also, the smell of G+G's Salt Lake apartment always gives me strong flashbacks to coming there as a child.

Are there any scents that you associate with certain memories/people?