Powerful sense of smell?

[Warmheart]

Just wondering if anyone else here has this trait. I've always had an extremely keen sense of smell.

When riding speedily along in a car with windows closed, I can smell when the suburban houses we drive by are doing laundry. I guess I'm smelling dryers venting into the air, when people use dryer sheets.

If someone has stepped in dog mess, i can tell if it's from my dog or a different dog.

I can smell when a specific persons has been in a house, hours long after they've left.

Sometimes I can smell when an argument has happened in a room. Perhaps I'm smelling adrenaline? It's a sharp, cold, damp, warning/panic/emergency smell. (Best I can explain.)

Anyone else have super-strong sense of smell?

 

[Bolletje]

Quite a strong sense of smell, although yours sounds a lot more powerful than mine. I can smell when a thunderstorm is coming, and I love the smell that different seasons have. The smell of a crisp winter day or a balmy summer night are bliss, to me.

Other than that I feel I'm just more aware of scents than other people are. Mostly strong chemical smells. Comes in handy sometimes (gas leaks, for instance) other times not so much, such as when someone is wearing perfume that assaults my nostrils to such a degree that I feel like someone's holding a bottle of acetone under my nose.
Not as much fun when the neighbours are painting their houses either because even with all windows closed I still feel like the house is full of toxic paint fumes.

 

[wight]

yes, though not quite as keen as yours, and far more attuned to chemicals than biology. For instance, I can tell the difference between grades of gasoline, the difference between kerosene, diesel, and jet fuel, etc. If I don't know whats in a bottle under the sink, I open it and smell it, then I know whether it's cleaning agent or air freshener.

 

[xDominiel]

I have close to none. I can't differentiate between smells and I can barely even notice most.

 

[xudo]

Yes, but not as powerful as yours. I find it more annoying than anything, because there are a lot of smells that I really hate.

I do have ridiculously good hearing though. Quite annoying when you have noisy neighbours

 

[Suzanne]

This is pretty amazing to me, your thread, because just last night, as usual my husband is upset, because I couldn't take the strength of his toothpaste and poor man, feels that he cannot eat anything, without me not being able to want to be near him, due to the smell!

I lost my sense of smell and taste and although have come back a bit, not completely and I wish that I could lose my sense of smell completely, because it causes much distress to me.

We are out driving and I can smell the fumes of older cars and honestly, I have to put my hand to my nose, because it is REVOLTING.

 

[Mia]

That sounds incredible Warmheart, and that might have something to do with you being female. My sense of smell is not as fine as yours, but I can eat food or smell food, and detect traces of almost everything used in the making of it.

Women are more likely than men to suffer from ‘cacosmia’ – feeling ill from the smell of common environmental chemicals such as paint and perfume. But I think it also might have something to do with neurology as well, as Aspies tend to be better at this in general.

... researchers discovered that women, on average, have 43 percent more cells in their olfactory bulbs than men. Counting each neuron specifically, the discrepancy in numbers between men and women was almost 50 percent.

..Apparently this is somewhat related to giving birth to children, and recognizing their scent.
..Women in a study who didn't have children, held an infant for one hour, afterwards they could by scent, determine which child they had held from other infants. The study didn't test men though, so it's inconclusive.

This might also have something to do with hunter-gatherer societies, where females were often the gatherers. It's been suggested that some women could smell poisonous plants and used this as a basis to teach others which ones to avoid.

Women possess superior sense of smell, more olfactory cells than men
Women's finer sense of smell may be due to more brain cells

 

[toothless]

i grew up around a heavy smoker [my mum] and i think this damaged my sense of smell,i have incredibly major issues with perfumes and strong smells like poo or sick but other than that i dont really have a strong sense of smell.

 

[OkRad]

Just wondering if anyone else here has this trait. I've always had an extremely keen sense of smell.

When riding speedily along in a car with windows closed, I can smell when the suburban houses we drive by are doing laundry. I guess I'm smelling dryers venting into the air, when people use dryer sheets.

If someone has stepped in dog mess, i can tell if it's from my dog or a different dog.

I can smell when a specific persons has been in a house, hours long after they've left.

Sometimes I can smell when an argument has happened in a room. Perhaps I'm smelling adrenaline? It's a sharp, cold, damp, warning/panic/emergency smell. (Best I can explain.)

Anyone else have super-strong sense of smell?

*&(&!&@ YES YES YES. It is so bad that I can tell if someone has been in the house and who. My family hates this. They can't use any cleaners or anything. I can hardly be in a car. It is like Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. It drives me insane. I cannot be out places because I can pick up an odour and can't get it off. Welcome to Hell, really.
And that on top of the the other sensory issues? Like noise and sound and canned music everywhere I ca'nt get out of my head?
It is hard.

 

[OkRad]

This is pretty amazing to me, your thread, because just last night, as usual my husband is upset, because I couldn't take the strength of his toothpaste and poor man, feels that he cannot eat anything, without me not being able to want to be near him, due to the smell!

I lost my sense of smell and taste and although have come back a bit, not completely and I wish that I could lose my sense of smell completely, because itcauses much distress to me.

We are out driving and I can smell the fumes of older cars and honestly, I have to put my hand to my nose, because it is REVOLTING.

How did you lost your sense of smell? And how did you get it back?

 

[Judge]

Guilty as charged. It's a lifelong trait that seems more like a curse to me.

Existing with three distinct tiers of my olfactory senses. Good smelling things, bad smelling things and those that are unbearable, causing a fight or flight response.

Though interesting that unbearable smells didn't happen to me until I reached my early teens.

A recent discovery for me has been that phantom smells sometimes accompany my very infrequent hypnopompic hallucinations. Waking up from a dream and coming out of a REM state where I detect acrid smells like cigarette smoke that isn't really there. After all, certain smells are so pervasive that they can't simply up and vanish so quickly.

An interesting thing for me to debunk. Though my unwanted heightened sense of smell prevails to this day.

 

[Suzanne]

How did you lost your sense of smell? And how did you get it back?

Well, hubby and I think that it was due to coughing asthma, that after a week in bed, due to severe weakness caused by non stop coughing, finally I was persuaded by hubs to go and see the dr and he declared coughing asthma and put me on a special puffer and it did work wonders, but after that, noticed with horror that I could not smell ANYTHING or taste. I just tasted the 4 senses I think. At first, nearly had a breakdown, but after that, realised that actually it was a blessing to not smell and I could change disgusting smelling rubbish bins and even go up close in the chicken pen and clean it out ( terrible smell usually).

They came back really briefly and went just as briefly and just gradually came back, but certainly not as before.