Posted 8-22-19
It is raining today in the Ozarks. In some seasons it rains quite a bit here, but late summer we are prone to decent stretches without the wet stuff. One thing I find interesting is rain smells and the sometimes lack thereof. Regardless of the science of smell, of which a lot can be learned, there is something about smelling the rain that reminds me of dementia.
In honor of it being the first week of school, first some science. 🙂
According to a very interesting little piece in Gizmodo, there are three causes of that rainy smell:
- ” the “clean” smell, in particular after a heavy thunderstorm, is caused by ozone. Ozone (scientifically known as trioxygen due to the fact that it is comprised of three oxygen atoms) is notably pungent and has a very sharp smell that is often described as similar to that of chlorine. Some people can smell ozone before the storm has even arrived. Before a thunderstorm rolls in, lightning can sometimes rip nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the environment to pieces. This can ultimate result in a small amount of ozone forming, which wind then carries down to ground level.”
- ” (the) earthy smell, which is strongest after a dry spell or particularly heavy rainfall. This smell is the result of a bacteria (geosmin) commonly found in the soil.” Amazingly, we can smell this substance “at concentrations of 5PPT (parts per trillion)!”
- “oils secreted by various plants. These oils collect in the environment and, when it rains, certain chemicals that make up the oils get released into the atmosphere (usually along with geosmin) causing a familiar and inviting scent.”
I suppose, for my purposes here, it really doesn’t matter why rain smells like fish sometimes, salt other times and just that indescrible rainy smell others, just suffice it to say that it does smell and that I find it really groovy. Why I care, for this piece’s sake, is the memory part of rainy smells.
Isn’t it interesting how we tie memories to smells? I mean, I can close my eyes right now (to avoid distraction) and imagine the smell my Grandma’s Apple Pie (I capitalize it out of respect). This pie smelled of Marionville hand-picked apples, a smidge of ginger and nutmeg, maybe some brown sugar, some rainbows, some unicorn glow and some pixie dust. Grandma has been gone for decades now, but the smell of her pie lives on and I pray it never leaves my smell file cabinet.
Similarly, my oldest daughter’s wedding flowers, albeit from only 14 months ago, are filed in my smell cabinet too. Hydrangeas, eucalyptus, and other flowers made a beautiful fragrance that, when combined with the visual beauty of her wedding, made for a wonderful sense experience.
My own beautiful bride’s perfume on our wedding day also triggers emotions and joy in a never-to-forget file folder. The combined perfume and 1980’s staple AquaNet morphed into a powerfully pretty and pleasing potion…a Love Potion Number 11 we could call it. (We were married in 1990, so the 1980’s AquaNet was extra powerful as it aged like a fine wine.)
The flip side, however, are smells that are memorable for the wrong reason. When we were kids, we visited relatives in Oklahoma one hot, summer day and came upon a wreck in which a complete family had been killed (burned to death). The smell (and sight) of that will never leave my smell files no matter how much I try.
Nursing home smells in the 1980’s: This is where my Pie Maestro Grandma was forced to live after her massive stroke on Christmas Day decades ago. I only visited a few times and, to this day, feel terrible for my effort for this precious damsel in distress. But, the smells. Yikes!! This one gets an accordion folder of its own. A zoo stink was more pleasing than that nursing home. Today, with the advent of Febreze’s main formula, it is not bad. It is certainly better than it was in the 80’s. (Fun, but important fact: Febreze doesn’t smell, it kind of overlays the smell and neutralizes it. The fact that it worked but didn’t smell like the strong tropical breeze or vanilla smells that we expected caused it to almost fail. Charles Duhigg, in this piece, discusses it well. (Read his amazing book The Power of Habit) Here is our affiliate Smile.Amazon link: LINK
Other memorable smells (and one or two with corresponding tastes): a baby’s head, pickles/vinegar in general, the Joplin tornado, Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candles, a Squeeze Burger, my wife’s cooking, beans and cornbread, BBQ, others…
At this point, if you haven’t already, think this through with me:
Smells & songs, and to a lesser extent, art & pets are kept safe and secure in the brain’s memory file cabinet. How on Earth do these things stick so well while my name (and who I am) left like an uncaged parakeet over a year ago with mom? I suppose I don’t know what is going on in mom’s brain beyond her remembering the songs that she used to play (and that she still sings even though she is pretty much non-verbal in most visits). She may know me and much more than meets the eye? Besides music, what I do know is that she has mentioned pets a couple times. She mentioned my brother out of the blue yesterday, which was super cool. Maybe she has became non-verbal because formulating sentences is too hard/embarrassing for her where the forever etched song lyrics don’t require effort? She says “Mmmmm” at certain foods too, so she still smells familiarity and likes it. Maybe the memories are all there, they are just trapped like rain in a rain barrel?
In the dementia-damaged mind, it seems to me that the patient is like a mouse running through a maze. Instead of seeking the delicious chunk of cheddar at the end, the patient seeks normalcy. Familiarity. The brain craves this comfort. While I do not subscribe to macro-evolution (changing species over time), I do believe traits are clearly passed generation-to-generation within the same species and are strengthened through genetics by an intra-species “natural selection”, if you will allow me to use this loaded term. Generation-by-generation we pass on desirable traits in increasing amounts (we don’t change species, mind you, or there would be a tremendous fossil evidence stock pile as we evolved from monkey to human…and there are really none.) and are what we are as a result.
A million million fight-or-flight inner battles through the generations have “conditioned” our brains to hold back reserve power, if you will, to prepare to fight to protect ourselves against a snake or a hippo or a really gnarly red wasp or a chupacabra. Therefore we LOVE the familiar. Habits and habit loops are created for brain comfort/rest, not because it is a lazy teenager organ, but because it is a lean, mean, prepared warrior organ. (Read Duhigg…it is excellent. Here is a short video) We crave the peace that comes from not thinking because it makes us more ready to fight. We get dressed in the same order and when we put the wrong sock on first, we go haywire. Heaven help us if we have to wipe with the wrong hand, but I digress… We drive the same route, we eat the same things (sometimes in a rut), we strive for sameness….to allow our brain to rest. We love autopiloting. Maybe that is why we flip through 10,000,000 Netflix options and settle to a familiar Friends rerun that we have consumed 767 times already.
When we have dementia, we fight to the death over routine, especially at the early- to mid- stages. Go back and read me lament change in my mom’s world in some of the early Cornbread. She fought. She tried to escape. She ended up getting exiled, like most of the Sweet 17 at one time or another, to a behavioral health hospital….all largely because of the frustration, maddening sadness and anxiety of seemingly rudderless change. Note: today, unfortunately, mom is in final stages and no longer seems to care. She still likes what she likes, I suppose, but change doesn’t bring obvious, external volcanoes of emotion.
(Mark’s Kooky Theory section) So, what do we do with this information? I wonder….can we simulate smells of the patient’s youth to help them remember the good times and perhaps unlock memories? A kind of Dementia Smell-o-vision? I bet it would work if done right. At the same time, can we show them movies of their youth, if available? I would be interested to see. I went to a training yesterday where a very interesting man from Self Interactive presented on virtual and augmented reality (headsets, Pokemon Go, Snapchat filters, etc…) and he said lots can likely be done with the technology to bring back conditions to try to help a patient with dementia unlock memories stored in the wrong file cabinet drawer (using my earlier analogy). We all know music therapy and using music with dementia patients “works” in some areas to help them with anxiety and memory retrieval. Maybe some form of grandiose immersive experience combining all of the senses would make for some interesting memory restoration therapy? It will NOT cure dementia because, alas, it is a degenerative disease that causes brain loss. However, who knows, maybe we could develop a combined therapy that prolongs some memories and enhances the lives of early- to mid-stage patients combining all of these things? (This has probably been tried 4,600 different ways already… I know my Facebook Friend Billie envisions a healthcare service that involves some of this.)
Thanks for indulging me. 🙂 And, if this is a hair-brained thought, do me a favor and save me the thinking…and just find some cures/more effective treatments! 🙂
#EndALZ
Update: I had a nice visit with mom yesterday. Her sores are getting better and her tremors are not too bad. She smiled with me and we goofed off and sat around and held hands…a typical visit. She hates being wheeled in her wheelchair because she fears falling out (something that happened months ago a time or two), so that ride wasn’t ideal, but all things considered, she is well.
If you are interested, also from the Gizmodo piece: “In 1964, Bear and Thomas set about discovering what caused the distinctive rain smell by drying clay and extracting and analyzing the oils they found therein. They eventually stumbled upon “an oily yellow material” that smelled a bit like it smells after rain. Fun fact, it was Bear and Thomas who coined the term, “petrichor” (The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell) purely so they had a word for it. It comes from the Greek “petros,” meaning “stone,” and “ichor,” the golden blood of the gods in Greek mythology.”
One last link which partially spurred me on early this morning… Oh, how I long for this mess to be over for mom so she can sing in the rain again…