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Smell and Taste in Dreams

Just writing that title is mildly controversial, since current sleep research says that the parts of the brain active in REM sleep make dreams highly visual, emotional, and kinetic, but lacking smell or taste, for those senses are processed in older modules passive in sleep. Of course much current sleep research also concludes that dream-contents are largely irrelevant, being just memories getting fixed, or garbage getting deleted, or associations getting linked (take your pick), so dreams have no inherent meaning--we just see patterns in noise. Since this is demonstrably false (your dreams couldn't respond with meaningful answers to specific questions if this were true, and they do; and lucidity couldn't be real; and it is) it shouldn't surprise you that dreams can not just contain smells and tastes, but hinge on them, as in The Train On Time Cafe, Tuccotine, or Yum Yum!

A few dreams here hinge on scents or flavors not sensed by the dreamer but by others, like the Sweet Wall. All in all, it seems to me that taste and smell are like any other dream topics. If a dream wants to engage them, it will.

Why aren't all dreams smelly/tasty, then? Here's a thought-experiment. Imagine if films added scent. Picture yourself in a theater watching a short about a fire. The scent of smoke fills the room. Is it story-smoke or is the place on fire? Do you sit trusting it's fiction as a real fire cuts off escape, or panic and stampede over a movie illusion? Confusion either way could be fatal. Now, isn't the same true of dream-smoke? Might be a subliminal warning of a real fire--so wake up!

This might explain why so few of my taste-and-smell dreams involve smoke, gas, or other hazards (and the few that did woke me promptly, or, in the case of The Lost Dutchman, when I worried the smoke-scent might be real, the dream removed it!) How about you?

RELATED TOPICS: More impossible dreams: incubation (dreams answering a question) - lucid dreams - psychic dreams - dreams about dreaming - cledonic dreams (dreams bearing messages for others than the dreamer) - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

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ACORN AND PELT: by Wayan; 1983/7/19, a simple sex dream growing to a mystical extravaganza
I fall in love, defying dwarf-tossers and Toulouse-Lautrec, till I become a time-traveling bunny...
CAUTION: SEX, SIZE DISCRIMINATION AND SLANDER
ADORABLE CYBORGS: by Wayan; dreamed 2016/10/5, a dream-poem on inner teamwork
A child dreamer and two different kinds of cyborg must cooperate
to free the hostages imprisoned under San Francisco Bay...
THE B SIDE OF THE PENIS: by Wayan; 1996/8/26, a sex dream about reprogramming.
I erase my sexual tape, and start over. Am I male, female, gay, straight? Uh-oh! What SPECIES?
CAUTION: MESSY SEXUAL BOOBOOS
BATTERED, WITH SYRUP: by Wayan; 1998/11/6 & 11/21, two healing dreams.
I'm a battered girl who sings in a mall. The Dictator (of all people) helps me start healing and learn to fly...
CAUTION: BATTERING AND ITS CONSEQUENT DAMAGE
THE BLACK CURRENT: by Wayan; 1985/6/16, a slice-of-life dreamtale.
A dream-voyage round the world on the Black Current, only to wake up back in my animal village...
CAUTION: GORILLA MARRIAGE
THE BORIS BADENOV SOLUTION: by Wayan; 1989/2/10, a dream of puns.
My evil twin, Boris Badenov, wants $8000 or else. I ask my dreams for a solution, and get one...
BROWNIE: by Wayan; 1984/9/26, a sexy dreamtale.
At last my girlfriend and I manage to peel off the Brown Dress of Shame, and ...
CAUTION: SEXUAL HEALING
CARRIED UP: by Wayne Miller, 1972/3/3, epic nightmare turning transcendent
I'm in a huge colonnade. An army of blood-painted men sacrifice the dove of peace. Their masked leader drinks its blood.
But then I'm carried upstairs to meet... the prophet Daniel! I'm amid the angels, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...
CAUTION: BLOOD-DRINKING THUGS
A CAT AND HER GIRL: by Wayan; 1979/5/15, a deep little dream.
I'm a doctor in the future, trying to heal the neurolink between a girl and her cat...
CAT REPELS DINOSAURS: by Wayan, 1984/8/12, a film-inspired surreal dream
DAY: I thorn-puncture my hands while gardening, and write stupid poetry about it...
EVE: I watch Little Darlings, a teen sex farce that turns weirdly serious...
DREAM: a Mysterious Pussy guards us librarians from stinky alien dinosaurs...
CAUTION: SEXUAL INNUENDO???
COW PUNS: by Wayan; 1983/5/14, an ethological dreamlet.
The pecking order (goring order?) of cows explains why our leaders stink...
CRESTED DEER: by Wayan; 2022/7/8, two shamanic little dreams
In endangered woods I meet deer with bold black-and white feather crests.
Higher up, it's barren--a hard winter. But I taste a medicinal blue-black fruit...
THE CULT OF DIRTY LAUNDRY: by Wayan; 1993/10/2, a political dream
I find the feminist principle "the personal is political" leads to some alarming consequences for privacy...
CAUTION: POLITICS
CURSING ISABELLA: by Wayan; 1992/8/19, a thoughtful dream of sorcery.
How I cursed Isabella the sofa sorceress, cursed her with a blueberry. And why that stinks...
CAUTION: UNDER THE MAGIC, IDEAS
DAWN'S TOILET: by Dawn Z and Wayan; 1999/1/6, two strongly parallel dreams
Wayan dreams of surprising Dawn on the toilet while she dreams that flushing away evidence of Foul Play won’t work...
DEAD OR ALIVE? by Nancy Price; 1948, a surreal, poetic dream from the borderzone
Troutmet the moon-pigeon, Burtra the blackbird, a talking acacia,
my dead father and my dead gardener all give me afterlife-advice...
DOG IN A CASSOCK: by Wayan, 1972/2/3, a comically surreal dream-poem
A master criminal is tracked down by a hound in a monk's robe
who's introduced to me as... the President of the United States?
EATING SOIL SAMPLES: by Vladimir Nabokov, 1964/10/17, a possible predictive dream.
In a museum, I absent-mindedly eat crumbly bricks I think are pastry; they really are rare soil-samples...
Three days later, I see a TV show I thought was on children. Wrong; it's on soil samples--that turn into eatables...
FACULTY WIFE: by Wayan; 1998/1/6, a sexy but disorienting dream.
I'm a faculty wife bored out of my mind until two students have sex in my yard. I ignore HIM and jump HER...
CAUTION: SEX
FISHERGIRLS: by Wayan; 2.6M, 42 illus.; 1996/7/15; a sexy dream epic.
I had an epic dream lasting subjective weeks--a true other life. It wasn't Earth and we weren't human.
I was a teenage lemur, sailing with two friends into unknown waters--a rite of passage. One night,
my friends curled round me, I saw I didn't WANT to pass the test, be declared a woman, marry, and have pups.
I loved my girl friends. In a world lacking the very word, I was groping toward queerdom.
Sailing into unknown waters! "Here be dragons," the old maps say. And they were right...
2600K loads slowly? Try it in parts: 1: HOME, 650K, 2: VOYAGE, 1200K, 3: BACK 750K.
CAUTION: NUDITY, SEX, QUEER TEEN ANGST, ANTI-FUNDAMENTALISM
FIVE ELVISH DREAMS: by Dolores J. Nurss; 2005/6/10-2005/6/19, an incubated lucid-dream sequence
1: I visit Elrond and Bilbo in Elvenhome, but overthinking traps me in a timeloop;
2: Elrond says he renounces seriousness for joy, and plans a great, inclusive party;
3: I feel unworthy, but set out on a desert quest with Elrond's young apprentice;
4: I meet joyful, drunken, singing elves but hide in a tree, too shy to join in;
5: I meet a nervous elven singer and a dolphin trapped in a tiny pool in my bedroom...
FLIER MISJUDGES REEFWORLD: by Wayan; 2018/12/16, an otherworldly dream on... social media?
A girl from a low-gravity, dense-air world, where you strap on wings and fly, tours a
world of tropical atolls with me. I love sailing, but flight's spoiled her for it--too slow...
FOINBREK THE MOOSE: by Wayan; 1993/12/4, a dreamtale on love and work.
My lesbian twin, who lives in the unemployment line, falls in love with a pushy moose from Brooklyn...
CAUTION: INEPT SEX
FOX-MOTHER: by Wayan; 2008/8/12, a dream poem; Dreamverse #2.
The goddess of the Cult of Clutter catches a little thief, and tastes her to see if she’s worthy...
FREUD'S UNDERWORLD: by Wayan; 2024/1/4; a comic book-review nightmare
DAY: I reread Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. His own dreams feel petty, devious, status-obsessed... dull.
DREAM: I find Freud's bought my childhood home! I spelunk the Freudian underworld--a dark complex of tunnels,
sewers and rats. Cross the rivers of muck on stepping stones. Emerge into sun at last, swearing "Never again..."
HAIL AND FAREWELL by Nancy Price; 1947/6/6, a revenant dream-message
A dying colleague haunts me all night. He says "crossings are often unpleasant" but death's not bad...
HAVE YOUR COCK AND EAT IT TOO: by Wayan; 2007/4/14, a dream of happy autocannibalism
I grew extra penises which bud off me like fruit. So I fry them up like sausages, and...
CAUTION: GENITALIA FOR LUNCH
THE HERBIVORE'S EXCEPTION: by Wayan; 1999/12/6, a dream of snapping.
A beautiful herbivore suddenly eats one of its friends! Bloody. Who or what is this warning me about?...
CAUTION: YUCK, MEAT REALLY IS MURDER
THE HOLLOW HILL (PART 6): by Kathleen Raine, 1940; a dream elegy to a mentor
In Ireland, in Yeats's stone tower, he leads me up the spiral stair toward a thyme-scented portal...
IN A REHEARSAL ROOM: by Wayan; 1982/10/20, a sexy dreamlet on shyness.
I dreamed my fears faded like ghosts, as we made love in the rehearsal room. But invisible is not gone...
CAUTION: UNDERAGE SEX
IN EL RIO: by Wayan; 1994/5/14, a singles nightmare.
My family runs a bar. I walk through, after hours. Who are all these silent figures?
CAUTION: UNHEALTHY READING FOR SINGLES
INTRUDER: by Georges Perec; Feb. 1971, a dream unsure if it's warning, erotic, subliminal or psychic. Dream #50
Someone's broken in, prowling my apartment. Man or woman? The scent gives her away.
I wake, calling aloud "What is it?" Moments later, C. knocks on my door...
IRISES: by Frederic Mistral; 1834, a four-year-old's ecstatic dream
That day Frederic, craving irises, fell in the water three times. At night he swam through an iris paradise...
IT STINKS: by Aleksanteri Nevalainen; 2011/8/19, an accidental dream-incubation
Can dreams have taste and smell, I wonder? That night my dreams set out to show me...
LEARNING SCALES: by Wayan; 1985/6/26, an epic dream of Chinese dragons.
I find myself in astral China. The Empress is banished, the Jester rules. Wisdom is lost.
We need an Imperial Dragon...
LION-GIRL TRIANGLE: by Wayan; 2000/12/11, an uncomfortable sex-dilemma dream, possibly predictive
I'm a betrothed teenager having to choose between mates, in an alternate Africa where
lions are another tribe of people--and occasionally adopt humans...
CAUTION: NUDITY
THE LOST DUTCHMAN BURNS: by Wayan; 2011/11/17, a smelly dream censoring itself for safety reasons!
I smell smoke. I know I'm dreaming; did my sleeping body scent smoke in my home, and insert it in my dream to warn me?
But the dream sees my worry, and erases the scent to clarify it's symbolic smoke! Now I can finish my nightmare in peace...
LUNCH-SNIFFER, or, THE PRIVATE NOSE by Wayan, 2022/11/7; a silly predictive dream
DREAM: a weird-looking guy says he's a Private Nose, who can read my
life history by sniffing my lunch. He gets a lot right--but just as much wrong.
NEXT DAY: My sister takes me to lunch & orders tea-leaf salad. Our waiter is...
MAGIC SCHOOL: by Wayan, 1982/1/26: a waking event and replying dream.
Phyllis Schlafly, killer of the Equal Rights Amendment, provokes a dream of being Captain Kirk
trapped in a magic school with no way out but the graduate exam. Can I learn the lesson of the tree?
CAUTION: POLITICAL JOURNALISM BEFORE THE DREAM. OH NO!
MMM, GOOD!: by Sarah, as told to Gayle Delaney, late 1976 or early '77, a predictive dream
Should I subscribe to Sundance Community Dream Journal? I dream I find a letter--yellowish paper, cryptic blue
lettering, a red margin. I eat it! Best thing I ever tasted. I wake and order that journal. It arrives--and the cover is...
MY GATE: by Wayan; 1996/5/29; a bizarre, joyful dream; 4-page comic (or ill. text version)
The full moon rises: I become Weregirl, do the Moondance, and gnaw open the lock on my heart...
CAUTION: MOONING
NUCLEAR NIGHTMARES: by Erica DeMane, Michael, Joanne and Scott; c.1984, four creepy dreams
Erica dreams that during a protest she's caught in a radioactive flood...
Michael dreams a nuclear forcefield makes his fingertips explode and congeal into weird knobs...
Joanne dreams she meets nuclear mutants with curling black nails great for peeling potatoes...
Scott dreams the world goes silent and white, bleaching out. His hands dissolve...
OLYMPUS UNMASKED: by Wayan; 2022/8/10, a far-future dream
On terraformed Mars, we set out to climb Mt Olympus without
oxygen masks. The first miles are OK, but the air thins until...
CAUTION: ANTICIPATED DEATH?
ONE FRUIT REMAINS UNEATEN: by Catshall; November 1983, a journal dotted with dreams
My day life as an artist and explorer of the San Francisco underground scene
gets regularly commented on by my dreamlife...
CAUTION: SEX, BONDAGE
PERFUMES: by Hervey de Saint-Denys, early 1860s? Experiments in scent-triggered dreams
I trained myself to associate one scent with the mountains, one with an art studio. On a random
night my servant applied both secretly, and I dreamt artist & model burst into a mountain scene...
RAGS TO RICHES: A FIGHT FOR LOVE: by Hyal; October 2006, a dream of courage.
I was just a street rat, but I danced with the princess at a ball, and fell in love. Three rich suitors pulled their blades...
RED-SPATTERED DANCERS: by Wayan, 2023/2/15, a surreal predictive dream
DREAM: I climb a stair to a surreal space where kids dance in tights spattered with wet red paint.
NEXT DAY: I watch Wednesday--Wednesday Addams dances & gets spattered with wet red paint...
CAUTION: NUDITY, ESP SPECULATION
REVELATION: by Roz Chast, 2023 or before, a smelly space dream
Turns out you can float in deep space without a helmet.
But there's this weird disturbing smell, like an electrical fire...
RIB-CRUSHER: by Robert Southey; 1823/10/5, a nightmare leaving traces
I was in the grave. Worse, a living skeleton was trying to crush my ribs. Though terrified, I fought back, and...
SCORCH: by a California woman; 1944, a lifesaving olfactory hallucination (clairsniffance?)
I smelled scorching paint; my heater was about to burn the house. But I'd moved--my old house was six blocks away...
SCROLLS: by Chris Wayan 1989/2/17, & Mark Varitz 1989/2/18; parallel dreamlets
CHRIS: I find what may be a magic potion, if it has a scroll hidden in the liquid...
MARK: I'm underwater. Spirits dance around me, on top of sunken scrolls...
SENTENCED TO CHEESE: by a Birmingham physician; early 1850s? a classic subliminal nightmare
One night as I slept over a cheese shop, I dreamt I was trapped in a huge cheese, as a rat-horde gnawed...
CAUTION: YOU ARE LUNCH
SIT ON A CLOUD: by William S. Burroughs, 1990?, a big-city flying dream
A thousand feet above New York. I meet two naked angels who say it's their first flight, but I
got no fear of falling anymore; got no body to fall. Sit on a cloud. Just me and my shadow...
SKUNK? SWALLOW!: by Wayan; 1981/5/7, a dream-joke with a point.
When I see two scary men on the trail, naturally, I swallow my skunk! I really don't recommend...
FLAYED COLUMN: by Antoine Lavalette, fall 1815; a time-compressed nightmare
In prison, the midnight bell chimed. I dreamt I saw a cavalry column of men and horses skinned, gory, still marching.
Wagons of the dead passed for hours. As the guard changed, the gate crashed, waking me--just minutes after midnight!
CAUTION: PROVES NOT ALL DREAMS ARE REALTIME
SULFUR GROTTO: by Wayan; dreamed 1988/8/30, a psychic genderbent rescue-dream
I'm a teenage girl diving for treasure. In an eerie coral grotto reeking of sulfur,
I spot a diver in trouble... and wake to find the grotto is real..
THE SWEET WALL: by Wayan; 2011/5/8, a charming but mysterious dream vignette
A lonely little girl plays on a swing in her yard. A shy young faun or satyr
who has a crush on her conjures up a strange gift: a translucent wall of candy...
TASTEBUDS AND LIARS: by Wayan; 1993/8/7, a dreamtale.
I was warned Wolf-Cats turn on people, but I still befriended one. Now I'm looking down its throat...
"TELL HIM I SAW HIS HEAD IN A BOX": by James Quinn; Jan/Feb 2003; peculiar ghost dream
Inside a Renaissance reliquary, I see a dried-up head--but is it St. Sixtus really? Weeks later...
I dream I'm in a cafe joking with my mom's ghost. I say "If you meet a guy called St. Sixtus, tell him..."
CAUTION: READ THE TITLE
THEY DON'T BELIEVE ME: by Wayan; 1989/10/4, an unbelievable dream with 15 illus.
My dog and I are abducted by aliens who turn us into cats. We escape & go feral to survive.
How we got back, and what happened along the way, even my own shrink refuses to believe...
CAUTION: LEWD SQUID AND KLEPTOMANIAC BUGS
THIS CAN'T BE REM!: by Wayan; 1981/8/18, a predictive stinky dream.
An article claimed smell is rare to absent in dreams. My dreams felt insulted and sent me a stinky one!
But why THAT stink? Well... next morning on my way to work...
THUMBSUCKER!: by a patient of William Hammond, c.1868, an epic comic taste dream
I paint my thumb with bitter aloes to break my habit of sucking it at night. I dream of
wormwood, ox gall, mineral salts. I consult Dr. Save Me and even the Pope, but...
TITANIA: by Wayan; 1981/12/7, 83/1/7 & 2/13 and 84/10/2, a dream-epic in installments
Clarence the sappy angel from It's A Wonderful Life and Milton's Lucifer land on Earth, offering treaties.
Who to sign with? Clarence thinks we're fine as is, but the Devil's a tinkerer, learning from failures. Failures
like me and my girlfriend Titania, the first android with a full palette of feelings. Like the feeling she's fake...
TOWER OF THE MARTIAN DEAD: by Wayan, 1983/7/7; a dream-poem of an exo-Valhalla
Climbing a mountain on Mars, I reach a hall where I'm transformed into a cryophilic being.
Then I feast on methane soup with the heroic Martian dead...
THE TRAIN ON TIME CAFE: by Wayan, 1981/12/20, an epic political dream.
Silicon Valley goes enthusiastically fascist. I hide in a berry patch. They build a shining world, and then...
TRISKELION: by Kristopher Saknussemm, c.1986, a surreal false-waking dream
Only up close do I see that the map of these mysterious continents is made of moths. I wake
in Polynesia. By the bed, in a jar, floats one of my hands. For no reason, I begin to cry...
TUCCOTINE: by William Archer; 1917/1/14, a tasteful dream.
The innkeeper insisted I try a strange-looking liqueur, a house specialty called "Tuccotine"...
TURNER'S RECURRING DREAMS: by Jack Turner, 1991-2, a set of genderbent grief dreams
After my mother died, I dreamed I was a girl living after the Apocalypse. I rode my elk
past cars full of corpses, saw friends die, and never could find a single fertile mate...
TWO PLANES: by Wayan, 1994/9/6, a multistaged psychic dream.
An assassination plot using two planes triggers an invasion of our kingdom. Flee? Fight?
I'm a peaceful hobbit who'd rather be playing Frisbee with the dryads...
THE VAT MESSIAH: by Wayan; 1985/2/27, an epic dream of magic, flight, and sex
In our cult, we lie in vats of goo till we grow wings. But we’re feared more than we knew...
CAUTION: SPECIST LYNCH MOB, NUDE IN SCHOOL, LESBIAN FEELINGS, OBSCENE CARROT
VERY FUNNY, MR. MOSLEY: by Wayan; 2009/10/8, a comic nightmare poem; Dreamverse #58
Trapped in a blend of Joan of Arcadia and The Tempest Tales, I'm tired of being the pratfall sidekick...
THE VIDEOGRAPHER'S APPRENTICE: by Wayan; 1994/7/29, a predictive/warning dream.
Blondie Wiggle builds a Video Igloo. But I'm allergic--TV kills me! A BAD omen for our video project...
CAUTION: TV KILLS (BUT YOU KNEW THAT)
VONNEGUT: by Alan Vaughan, 1970/3/12; a psychic dreamlet
VAUGHAN'S DREAM: I visit Kurt Vonnegut. Kids all over. He's going on a trip soon. Mentions of 'Jerome' and an island...
VONNEGUT REPLIES: "That night, childrens' author Jerome B visited; we discussed my upcoming trip to England..."
VULTURE PEOPLE: by Jack Kerouac, 1962, a gross-out nightmare--and a warning?
The vulture people are fucking in the city dump. I end up their guest, given putrid food
in their cold stinking house of rancid grease. I'll become a vulture too...
CAUTION: UGH!
THE WHITE DEER'S EXPERIMENT, or, FAWN OF A LESSER GOD
by Wayan; 2013/4/13, an epic shamanic epiphany dream with tinges of ESP
I meet my Creator--a were-deer. No wonder I'm a shy, horny herbivore
so unlike these naked apes! She tells me my divine purpose...
CAUTION: MONOTHEISTIC BLASPHEMY; E.S.P. FLASH; NUDE DEER
WILD W.I.L.D.: by Dream Junkee; 2008/1/19, an epic lucid frustration dream?
I'm lucid but paralyzed. A weird child spies on me; is she controlling me?
Then I'm having sex--but if I come, I'll wake up! Then some thugs jump me.
I make sure they won't bother me again, but... is everyone in this dream out to distract me?
CAUTION: SEX, MUGGER-STOMPING
THE WIZARD'S HORSE: by Wayan; 2018/9/3, a magical dream about... toxic waste?
I'm a wizard's horse, trying to warn him about a toxic spell on a roadside corpse...
Wake into a second dream, but try to return to being a dream-mare and warn my rider...
And then wake to realize my Nightmare was warning about a home-renovation project!
WOLVES EVOLVE: by Wayan, 1983/11/11, a Darwinian dream.
After seeing 'Rear Window', Grace Kelly and I are wolf children in a pack that's quickly evolving into...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, CHILD SEXUALITY, WOLF-SLANDER
YUM YUM!: by Wayan; 1985/1/31, a smelly dream.
DAY: a toxic potluck. Not the first! But this time I say no...
DREAM: I'm a scent-oriented alien, tossing stinkbombs back...
ZOMBIE RUSH-HOUR: by Wayan; 1993/12/14, a predictive nightmare.
I'm in an apartment co-op in Silicon Valley where people share their skills--till rush hour begins...


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