Smells bypass the thalamus. Smells go straight to the olfactory bulb, or the brain’s smell processing center. This bulb is directly linked to the amygdala (responsible for emotion) and hippocampus (responsible for memory). The olfactory bulb’s proximity to the brain’s emotion and memory centers might explain why scent can immediately trigger a vivid memory or strong emotion. The sense of smell is specific, which helps to explain how our smell memories can be so precise. (source.)
Have you ever been surprised by a scent out of the blue that takes you back to a memory from your past? I have one memory that does that immediately and that is the smell of wood that has been soaked in water and soap for a long time. It takes me back to a summer spent at my grandparent Smiths home in Ottumwa Iowa in the 1940s.
Writers and storytellers have long discovered that describing the smells in a story can carry the listener into the story from their own memories.
I recently had the opportunity to tell one of my short stories from my repertoire, “Peach Pie”, it elicited several remarks that I expected.” Your story made my mouth water, I could smell the spices, it made me hungry.” At the very beginning of my storytelling career this was the story whose seeds were planted in a class. When I finally developed it into a full-blown story, I knew I had to incorporate these descriptions of smells into the story so that the audience could become a part of the story and understand why my characters intensely wanted to eat that pie. Most audiences have a memory of the pleasant smells of cinnamon and nutmeg.
We don't have to have the actual items to bring back those memories, we just need to describe them well. So, when we're telling a story we might consider describing the smells involved to carry the listener into the story. I think of Mark Goldman’s story “The Smell of Money”, where he describes the smells of the bakery where the fragrance of baking bread helps a hungry person feel full. When we’re hearing that story, we can smell that fragrance wafting out of the bakery as well and we can imagine it helping the hungry beggar feel better. Recently, there was a storytelling concert at the Tempe Center for the Arts and several of the tellers told stories of preparing food for the holidays. I'm sure that most of the audience was taken back to Thanksgivings in their past by memories of the smell of turkey gravy lovingly described by Liz Warren.
I'm also imagining that a scary story could be made even more scary if the teller describes some unpleasant smells, such as the smell of smoke, or of walking through a damp forest at night, maybe even the smell of a wet dog, or the putrid smell of a sewer. Any of these smells described in detail could help bring your listener into the story with you by way of their own memories.
I know that retelling a familiar story has motivated me to see how I can enhance other stories I tell and bring my audience in closer by adding more smelly memory clues to my stories.
The image at the top of the post can be found here.
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