Smell | Why am I crying over a washing machine?
Smell. Whether you are a cat, a tree, a human, or a lobster, you respond to it automatically. To reproduce, find food, or protect yourself from danger. Everything alive spreads and intercepts odors. They do something to us, evoking memories and emotions. The variety of associations, emotions and memories is as great as the variety of smells.
Scent memories
My own smell memories are often long-lasting, strong and sometimes particularly acute. When I was moving to a larger home a while back, I picked up my late grandmother's old washing machine from my uncle's house. The appliance had been marinating in a dark corner of his storage room for three years. Now it was finally coming back into the daylight. The contents were a little digusting: the entire inside, including the soap dish, had grown dense with black mold. After spending hours cleaning it that afternoon, I hopped in the car for the next moving job. Sitting in the passenger seat, I tickled my nose for a moment.
Tears immediately sprang to my eyes. I even got a little nauseous. 'Leftover mold, or a pungent cleaning smell,' you might think. Definitely not. What I smelled was what my hands smelled like when I had washed them at my grandmother's house. The moldy soap still smelled like her detergent, a smell that was attached to the towels in her house. It was a smell that hadn't existed for me for years. The obvious love of being at her house was linked to that smell. No wonder I reacted so heavily to it.
Connections in the brain
The connection between smell, emotion and memory is - dare I say it - contained in our brains. There, the areas responsible for processing smell, emotion and long-term memory are physically very close together. The lines are therefore short, which makes scent associations so strong and persistent.
The importance of smell
Smell is important throughout our lives. For example, newborn babies find their mother's nipple by smell. When our memory deteriorates due to old age, scent can help us refresh memories. In addition, research shows that individuals with strong feelings of nostalgia for certain smells are more confident, optimistic, and socially connected to their environment.
Discover it in ARTIS-Groote Museum
Would you also like to experience what scent does to you? Come sniff around in ARTIS-Groote Museum. Take part in the meeting “Why do smells evoke memories?” or sniff around in the scent tunnel. Something for every nose!
Written by Groote Museum employee Kelly Willersen