My bout of flu has brought with it a return of phantosmia. This is a condition that I have had for some years now. It is an olfactory illusion: I smell odours that are not physically present. I tend to get this in a very mild form, usually lasting a few days or weeks at a time. My version is mild on two counts. Firstly, the odour that I smell is usually not unpleasant, whereas for many other sufferers the odours are typically revolting (usually organic in nature, such as rotting flesh or excrement). Secondly, the smell resides in the background of my consciousness and is only seldom front stage. An analogy with vision might be to think of it as similar to a mild distortion at the periphery of the visual field, not a major upsetting of the focal area.
In the past, I have had wood smoke. I had to learn to be especially vigilant in terms of looking for signs of fire other than smell when that occurred. I remember, for example, once burning some toast in the kitchen and not realising that I had done this until I saw a blue haze in the air. When I broke my nose a couple of years ago, I got a rather sickly disinfectant smell. The smell that I am currently experiencing I have no name for. It is not like anything that I have ever smelt before. There is an element of sweetness in it, yet it somehow fails to be entirely pleasant. I think it belongs to the disinfectant family, rather than to the wood smoke group. It could even be related to deodorants, but I would draw the line at perfumes. Furthermore, it is very mild. When I try to concentrate on it, it goes away. When I get an episode like this I know that my normal sense of smell and taste will be disrupted. So far, with me, this has always been a temporary occurrence of reasonably short duration (weeks rather than months) but with others the condition can persist for years at a time.
I am hoping that my phantosmia will clear up well before Xmas. In the meantime, my dear blogophiles, I remain….
Your Very Own,
Enigmatic Pencil
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