Thread: What does being lucid SMELL LIKE for you?

I haven't done this yet but I've had the intention to for a long time, it just never comes to mind when I'm lucid. I'm looking forward to see what other people have to say, though. X3

Originally Posted by Alyzarin

I haven't done this yet but I've had the intention to for a long time, it just never comes to mind when I'm lucid. I'm looking forward to see what other people have to say, though. X3

Same here. It's a very interesting topic, and I imagine there aren't too many people out there that have taken the time to do something like this.

Results should be really neat.

Devoping all you senses is a great thing for LDing. We first react to sight, hearing, ans touch because they are vivid ones. I decided that I was going to calmy in a devoped way, test my lucid nose.
Smell has been the last one, because it is hard. I would love if anyone has ideas to help. Yes. smell and taste can be very real in LD, but its only a background thing. I have tasted many foods, but almost never can smell food.
I have had tiny luck in being able to smeel, but the smalls are very weak

Okay, I'll bite...

Lucid dreams don't smell like anything, any more than the room in which you're sitting smells like anything. Yes, you can invent a smell, just like you can invent any image, in a dream, and with some effort it will likely smell exactly as you expected. I've done this more than a few times, and have had results that were pretty much as expected. But there is one large hurdle with smell in dreams:

See, smell is one of those senses that doesn't really get shut off when you're asleep (caveman survival programming, I'm sure -- you need to be able to smell the tiger approaching your sleeping body as well as hear it). So nine times out of ten the smells you smell in a dream are simply the smells surrounding your sleeping body, with some incorrect re-definition. That's why you need to take an extra second or two to get a rose to smell like a rose, instead of dusty blanket. It might also be why smell is one of the last things people try in LD's, in spite of its importance in waking life -- it's simply too hard, or distracting, to try to catch a whiff of a DC's perfume when your physical nose is still sending all-too familiar signals to you from the waking world. And, unlike hearing (which is also left turned on for the same primordial reasons), you can't sleep in a smell-free room, so outside input is always there.

Or at least that's what I think; I could be wrong.

Curious topic, Mzzkc; I hope it wasn't presented with your tongue too tightly implanted in your cheek...

That just makes me want to force my mind to create smells for me even more.

Interesting point, Sageous.

It really brings into question the subjective nature of sensation and reality as a whole. After all, if what you say is true, and the olfactory system really does remain active when dreaming, then how do we account for experiences where specific smells really do occur?

For certain, that could shake up certain aspects of sensory deprivation theories.

I think I know what research I'll be looking into next. XP

Thanks for looking past the obvious and humoring me, guys. I knew this thread was capable of producing some thoughtful, intriguing responses. =)

Originally Posted by Sageous

Okay, I'll bite...

That's why you need to take an extra second or two to get a rose to smell like a rose, instead of dusty blanket. It might also be why smell is one of the last things people try in LD's, in spite of its importance in waking life -- it's simply too hard, or distracting, to try to catch a whiff of a DC's perfume when your physical nose is still sending all-too familiar signals to you from the waking world. And, unlike hearing (which is also left turned on for the same primordial reasons), you can't sleep in a smell-free room, so outside input is always there.

Or at least that's what I think; I could be wrong.

It is pretty cool. Your take on this is a new one for me. I have found smell a hard thing to develop. Im not there yet. I can now smell things I focus on, but it is mixed with the smell of the bed. The smells I would like to be able to experiance some vivid smells. In one dream about a month ago I even summond a big skunk. I had the skunk spray a wall and tried to get a skunk smell to form. Didn't work, I even physically carried the skunk into the next dream scene.
Thanks for this info. I'm not sure how were suppossed overide such a primal issue. Time and practice, of course, but I understand it better now, Thanks again.

^^ Time and practice, Sivason, and maybe an expectation that your smells from your sleeping body's environment will be part of whatever you create on your on. Figure out a way to incorporate them, with memory, into the "atmosphere" that's carrying the smell you seek, and that the smells you're conjuring must exist in addition to what's already out there, and you might have some luck.

I do this with taste as well, because for years it seemed like everything had the flavor of "morning breath" until I could regularly remember the source of that "flavor," and accept it as a given. After that, it was less difficult to layer the new tastes I was looking for on top of the existing waking-life flavor contribution. And again. time and practice will definitely get you there... it is, after all, just a wrestling match with your own nature!

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

It really brings into question the subjective nature of sensation and reality as a whole. After all, if what you say is true, and the olfactory system really does remain active when dreaming, then how do we account for experiences where specific smells really do occur?

Good question. Maybe sometimes expectation trumps reality? We can do that in waking life (how else do morticians put up with the stink, for instance?), why not in dreams?

For certain, that could shake up certain aspects of sensory deprivation theories.

Or not. After all, the sensory dep stuff would still work, as I would imagine that it would be much easier to conjure an odor in a dream if your physical nose wasn't already delivering information.

The activation-synthesis theory of dreaming states that the olfactory neurons for smell and taste don't fire at all in dreams, but I've definitely eaten tasty food in lucid and non-lucid dreams, are just the memories of how it tasted/smelt used? It's worth investigating.

I've never smelt the dream before I'll try integrating it into my stabilisation

I've never smelt the dream itself before- but before taking a bite out of a fruit, it smelt really sweet.
Edit: Whoop- in my lucid last night, i was outside and stabilizing. It smelt fresh.