A surprising but yet so familiar smell.
Have you ever experienced the aroma of a former lover or partner lingering in the air, even though they are nowhere to be found?
You haven’t seen your ex-partner in weeks, months, or even years, yet the smell of their cologne can still unexpectedly reappear and “haunt” you occasionally.
However, you’re not alone when it comes to this peculiar phenomenon. Many people have been sharing their encounters with this strange sensation on TikTok.
The first video I stumbled upon tickled my curiosity and I proceeded to delve into the comments section and the internet. For what felt like hours, I tried to figure out the what’s and why’s.
User @rylie_rae_ posted a TikTok with the caption “Plz tell me I’m not the only one this happens to #ismellu.”
And it seems like she wasn’t the only one. Users were flooding the comments to share their own similar experiences.
One user commented: “YEAH LIKE I COULD LITERALLY BE IN MY ROOM AND BE LIKE 😳 the fawk.”
Another user said the “serotonin boost I get from it is amazing.”. A third user commented: “But WHY does it happen?”. Desperate, I was scrolling for more videos on the topic, looking for an answer to the latter.
On my hunt for the “why”, I came across creator @__lilliyy. She posted a similar video, captioned: “I’m not the only one right”. In the video, she said: “Me randomly minding my own business and smells his scent out of nowhere.”
In the comments on her video, one user commented: “The receptor in your brain that senses smell also overlaps with the emotional receptors.
“So when you have a close attachment to a person and feel stronger about whoever. Your brain can either confuse or trick you into smelling them.”
I decided to delve further into this theory. Yet, you can imagine my disappointment when the first thing that popped up on my Google search was “phantom smells” hallucination and the illnesses related to this condition…
However, you can put your hypochondriac self at ease. Upon further inspection, there is a whole different explanation for this particular phenomenon. One that does not involve physical or mental illness.
According to The Harvard Gazette, smell and memory are closely linked because of the brain’s anatomy. Meaning that smell and emotion can be stored as one memory.
On top of that, a study from 2018 by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology instructed female participants to smell three different scents – their partners, a strangers’, and a neutral smell. The results showed that women were more attracted to their partner’s scent – which they found to be safe and familiar.
Unless the scent which randomly appears from time to time is Dior Sauvage, it can be likely that it is your brain reminiscing a memory with a particular person and proceeds to either confuse or trick you into smelling it – rather than thinking about it.