Article
Culture
Psychology
Weirdness
5 min read

Why smell jumps the queue when it comes to memories

Smells hardwire deep into the brain, writes Henna Cundill, as she explores why they jump-start such vivid memories.
An autumnal scene of a church yard and church framed by leafless trees.
'The smell of dust and damp stone will always cry “safety!”'
Jakub Pabis on Unsplash.

When I was a 22-year-old undergraduate my mother died quite suddenly. I can't remember the name of the undertakers we used, nor the chaplain who took her funeral. I can no longer visualise what any of their faces looked like. I know I visited the chaplain’s house to plan the funeral, but I can't remember exactly where that house was. What sticks is that the day of the funeral was a sultry summer's day, and both the chaplain and the undertakers smelt of perspiration. To this day there are moments where I catch that same whiff of man-sweat in some other location, and for a fleeting second, I am a bewildered 22-year-old once more. 

Here is another memory. I attended a tiny, rural Church of England primary school in the middle of England. At the end of each school year, all of us donned our little Wellington boots, which smelt faintly of slurry (since this was dairy-farming country) and sweaty feet. Then we lined up in a crocodile and trudged through the bluebell-wood (damp leaves) and skirted the edge of fields (silage, which stings the nose) covering the mile or so between our school building and the village church. 

We would enter the church grounds through the back field, hurrying through an eerily muffled graveyard with tombstones towering far above our heads and the grass disturbingly lumpy beneath our little feet. To the chidings of “Quickly!” and “Quietly!” we children scurried down a gravel path, away from this unsettling place of death, to reach the cool sanctuary of a little church, and the comforting smells (for me, at least) of damp stone and dusty hymnbooks. 

Others may not have the same associations, but for me the smell of dust and damp stone will always cry “safety!” and the reassurance that “there are no ghosts in here!” in contrast to that troubling graveyard. From death to life. Yet, at the same time, getting stuck with my nose close to some man’s whiffy armpit on the Tube will forever insinuate that I am just a child pretending to be a grown-up, out of my depth, overwhelmed with one thousand decisions to make (“What flowers do you want for her coffin?”) and no-one to advise. In the midst of life, death again.  

On reflection I will know that my emotions are being manipulated by my nose, in ways which are more or less than helpful depending on the circumstances.

Of course, I am not 22 years old and lost anymore, no matter what that man’s armpit tries to tell me. My rational mind knows better, but my rational mind doesn’t get a say – or doesn’t get the first say anyway. This is because smell is the only one of our senses that bypasses the thalamus (the brain’s ‘filtering gate’ that decides which part of the brain needs to respond to sensory input) and goes straight to the limbic system, where emotional memory is stored.  

Sometimes it is very obvious that this is taking place, such as in the examples given above. On reflection I will know that my emotions are being manipulated by my nose, in ways which are more or less than helpful depending on the circumstances. But it can happen in more subtle ways too. Supermarkets infamously pump out smells to influence our buying choices, and we’re trying to sell our house right now, so we’ve been brewing a whole lot more coffee than we ever usually would.   

Intriguingly, scientists don’t really know why the human sense of smell jumps the queue when it comes to cognitive processing. There are biological theories, such as that the smell of predator could wake up our ancestors while they were sleeping and/or could allow them to follow a scent trail quickly when fleeing danger or seeking food. There are social theories too, such as that we don’t have a lot of good words to describe smells, so the brain just doesn’t bother trying to analyse them. Whatever the truth of the matter, the reality is that (whether we like it or not) our noses are an emotional trip-hazard.  

When I walk through those great oak doors there is a moment, a glitch in the matrix, when the unmistakable smell of church hits my nose. Dust, damp… a little hint of mouse. 

I can’t help wondering what this tells me about my religious practice. Do I go to church because I have made a cognitive decision to worship God each Sunday? Or do I go to church because I am following my nose, getting away from a world full of armpits and responsibilities to a place where I am a seven-year-old girl, all gingham dress and wellies, feeling safe. If so, does it matter?    

Truth is, my mind can give me a dozen reasons not to go to church every single week. In fact, two dozen reasons. More. It has always been a busy week; I’m always behind on work. The house always needs a sort out and the car is never washed. But because certain congregation members are normally counting on me for certain things, and because I’m still pretending to be a grown up, I typically drag myself out the door, and off to church I go.  

And week on week, without fail, when I walk through those great oak doors there is a moment, a glitch in the matrix, when the unmistakable smell of church hits my nose. Dust, damp… a little hint of mouse. My body registers this before my mind; my shoulders drop a little of their tension. Even if it’s just for a fleeting moment, I start to feel that I know for sure what is absolutely real in my life and what is just pretend.  

Is this knowledge irrational – since it doesn’t come from the cognitive part of my mind? Or is there a God who knows that the cognitive part of my mind sometimes tells me all sorts of untrue and unhelpful things. Is there a God who is choosing to reach out to me in more subtle, more ancient ways?  

I can only wonder if I have been following my nose all this time, without even noticing. Drawn along by an ancient scent trail that leads me time and time again…this way…and that way…until I reach a place where there is safety, and bread. 

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Review
Culture
Film & TV
Romance
4 min read

Growing up with no hard feelings

Jennifer Lawrence’s latest eyebrow-raising romcom brings the sexual-awakening story back from the 90s movie graveyard. Lauren Windle explores what it really means to grow up.

Lauren Windle

Lauren Windle is an author, journalist, presenter and public speaker.

A young couple sit next to each other on a beach sharing a towel.
Andrew Barth Feldman and Jennifer Lawrence.
Sony Pictures.

I hate to sound like your moany Uncle Raymond, but they just don’t make romcoms like they used to. The likes of 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless and She’s All That have never been replicated in recent times and attempts to recreate the 90s nostalgia have always fallen flat on their face.  

It’s for this reason, I was excited when I saw No Hard Feelings hit the cinemas. The latest Jennifer Lawrence movie was pitched as a hilarious coming-of-age tale for the modern era. The story sees strapped-for-cash millennial Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) hired by the parents of an introverted gen-z lad Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman), to help him into blossom into maturity – via the medium of sex. The meddling helicopter mum and dad were concerned their talented 19-year-old was more interested in computer games than socialising and fornication. 

The film is silly. If you’re reading this to establish whether you should go and see it, I would say sure – if you want a low-emotional-investment flick that you’ll watch once but not twice. But the question it raised for me was: How do we know when we’ve grown up?  

I felt I was most grown-up when tackling things alone. I wanted to be open to all experiences on the spectrum of sensible to reckless. 

If the initial premise of the film is anything to go by, growing up means embracing partying, reckless behaviour, drinking and losing your virginity. This is, probably word for word, how 14-year-old me would have described maturity. In my adolescence, I believed that increased maturity meant more independence. I felt I was most grown-up when tackling things alone. I wanted to be open to all experiences on the spectrum of sensible to reckless. I formed opinions hastily and defended them resolutely. I was desperate to be trusted and to be “my own person”. My parents were a humiliating presence in my life who crowded my decisions with their own, old-fashioned logic. From my perspective; the less they were allowed influence, the better. To me, being an adult involved doing “adult things”, those that came with a legal minimum age requirement.  

This is the kind of “maturing” that Percy is encouraged to do in the film. Maddie orders him a strong alcoholic drink, attempts to lure him into casual sex and persuades him to skinny dip. She instructs him to consider himself an adult and to distance himself from his parents (in fairness they did have a tracker on the 19-year-old’s phone and had hired a woman to take his virginity, so she probably wasn’t wrong in this instance). By all accounts, it seemed Maddie considered maturity to involve the same things as I did at age 14. 

But I’ve come to realise that these milestones are often just touchpoints in a maturing process that is entirely circular. Stay with me on this one; ideally, we start life reliant on those who care for us, ensuring we eat well and get enough sleep, we spend time developing and learning, backing away from things that are likely to cause us pain. Then many of us ‘grow-up' and break free from those who raised us. We are no longer so careful about what we eat or how long we sleep, we begrudgingly continue learning or some shun education altogether. We are enticed by things which may or may not provide a short-term amusement but will definitely harm us in the long term. But the loop closes up.  

We come to the realisation that true maturity is acknowledging that life is designed to be lived in community, reliant on those around us. 

As we move away from the excitement and poorly judged choices we associated with maturity, we realise that we do, in fact, want to spend time with those who care and cared for us. We seek their wise counsel rather than avoiding it. We come to the realisation that true maturity is acknowledging that life is designed to be lived in community, reliant on those around us. And most crucially – asking for help isn’t childish but the most mature thing of all. 

We start to want to care for our bodies. The idea of a hangover is repulsive and to be avoided at all costs, rather than a necessary penance for a fun night with friends. We want to invest in our growth and development in all the ways; emotional, mental, academic and spiritual. We start to self-impose the restrictions that we railed against in our youth. The idea of a 10pm bedtime is absolute bliss and events that start at 9pm are abhorrent. 

By Maddie’s metrics, I grew up at 15, but by mine, I was 25. It wasn’t until then that I started asking myself questions about the person I wanted to be – not the one I thought others wanted of me. This is when I walked into a church and when I decided that really understanding what I believed was important. It’s also when I started letting thoughtful people speak into my life rather than being convinced that I knew better. 

Despite being a decade on from that period of inviting in development and support, I still can’t be certain I’m done growing up, but I wonder if acknowledging that truth is its own form of maturity. From time to time, I get behind the wheel of a car from time to time and think: “Does anyone know I’m doing this unsupervised?” And when I babysit young children, I half expect a real grown up to come over and relieve me of the responsibility, telling me I’ve done a good job but they’ll take it from here. I asked a woman in her 70s when she finally knew she was an adult, she replied:  

“I don’t know if anyone truly considers themselves grown up.” 

The film perfectly illustrates our rush to mature, our societies’ obsession with collecting milestones and experiences and our warped idea of what adulthood should look like. But when I reflect on the maturing process, all I can conclude is that the more we grow in childlike awe, wonder and accepting of our limitations – the more mature we become. 

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