Why Does One Scent Scare Me.

You wouldn’t remember your trauma, but your nose would.

Before all this pandemic was a thing and the public transport systems were still jam packed, I suddenly found myself in panic. My heart was racing, I felt threatened and my 28 year old self was looking for a possible escape. And then I stopped and asked myself,

“From whom am I running away?”

Then my brain asked me, “Don’t you smell him? Don’t you smell fear?”

“Tap, Tap, Tap” the sound of the footsteps on the granite floor was coming closer sending chills down our spine, just like any other morning. We, a bunch of 11–16 year old boys, never knew what doom was to befall us that day.

Would he think my wardrobe was unkempt? Would he think my bed has trampled sheets? Would he find a drop of dirt under my bed which I cleaned and cleaned for an hour? — We were scared to the bones.

Soon the upper wind brings this familiar scent, a fruity death stench, I would call it; a perfume I still don’t know the name of, yet can make my heart race, my adrenaline to pump, and all my sympathetic actions to go on full force.

My body was ready for a fight or a flight reaction but in reality neither fight nor flight were ever in the options for that 11 year old boy. He was trapped in a boarding school with a strict and horrible warden. He had to be ready for punishment. He was stuck.

All the way back to the present, my 28 year old self was still standing in the bus, dumbfounded.

Suddenly my olfactory sensations kicked me in the gut. Someone was wearing that fruity death stench. That particular scent, suddenly transported me to the times when I was still a helpless teenager in a metropolitan boarding school.

The doctor in me suddenly brought me back to my sanity.

“Proust Phenomenon” I mumbled.

Proust Phenomenon — Go back in time with your nose

In late 1920s, the French writer Markus Proust explained in his book Swann’s Way how a bite of madeleine biscuit, dipped in Lime-flower tea suddenly transported him to a long forgotten moment in his childhood.

Although the novel’s situation has several senses entwined rather than just olfaction, however another study mentions that this catchy name has become a commonly used term among researchers of the olfactory cued autobiographical memory.

We all know Olfaction is the sense of smell. We smell things when a chemical called an odorant attaches to the specific protein receptors in the nose which starts a neural signal towards the brain. It is like turning on a switch. The signal first arrives at the brain area called Olfactory Bulb where it is first interpreted and tallied with other brain areas such as the Amygdala and the rest of the Limbic system which mainly controls the mood and the emotions.

This direct connection between the Olfactory bulb and the limbic system is often thought as the reason how a smell can present such a strong emotion of the past, which is called an autobiographical memory.

Autobiographical Memories — Reliving History

By definition [the autobiographical memories are] personally experienced events that may be localized in time and space.

This simply means that these are the memories you have of yourself personally witnessing an event which you can pinpoint to a particular point in your life be it a time or a place.

For an example, I remember the first day of my school. I remember how I traveled there, how I entered that school, what color were the flowers that bloomed in front of my class, and how I felt on the first day. It is one of my autobiographic memories.

These Autobiographical memories can be evoked by oneself by intent, or they can be spontaneously evoked by a cue. This cue can be any of the senses we have namely, the sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. And among these five, the memories evoked by smell, are called Odor cued Autobiographical Memories and the smell is considered to be more effective in triggering those autobiographical memories.

As emotional as these Odor evoked-autobiographical memories could be, they have the propensity to be either pleasant or unpleasant. For example, for some people, a particular scent may remind them of the sweet moments they shared with their long gone partners, or for someone like me, it could remind me the traumatic emotions I had, in fear of a man who never thought twice to verbally abuse and physically punish any child who ‘he thought’ was acting inappropriately.

This unique neuro-anatomical connection between the olfactory bulb and the emotional centers of the brain makes it sure that you will not forget any of your memories that are related with the smells. You will also be nostalgic for quite a long time about them.

While I was standing there in the bus, still feeling my heart race, I knew exactly why I had a panic attack when I smelt the perfume of my childhood oppressor.

“You are silly to be scared of him even after all this time really, Bhathiya!” — I told to myself trying to calm myself down, but the effect an odor cued autobiographical memory can have on a person even after more than a decade of an incident, really surprised me.

Your mind has an amazing ability to move on with the life and make you forget your trauma, but the body, your emotional centers and especially your nose wouldn’t let you forget things that easily.

So the next time you feel an emotion that feels familiar by a scent, a view, a taste, or any other sense, you know you should be mumbling “Proust Phenomenon”.