This page contains all the readers’ comments on the “Smelling and tasting images” article, received between 2024 and 2026.
Comment by: Eve. September 8, 2024 at 4:51 AM
Hi! I am not sure if this one is even synethesia, since I
haven't quite seen it anywhere on the website. Certain objects I see in real
life have a consistent taste to me, rather than images or pictures. For
example, the desks in my middle school were caramel candies, the desk I am at
currently is dark chocolate with almonds, and the shiny bald head of an
assistant principal at school was very unfortunately unseasoned, plain chicken.
I don't necessarily need to touch the object, I just look at it and it tastes
like something. My forearms are pancakes, as another example. I find the tastes
are consistent over time. Is this something that could be considered
synesthesia? For extra context about myself, I know for sure I have the type of
synesthesia where you taste words.
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). September
18, 2024 at 9:45 PM
Hello! It’s interesting you say you also have
lexical-gustatory synesthesia because as I read your description of your object
tastes it was certainly reminding me of it! The phenomena considered
synesthesia that have a taste concurrent are series- or sequence-based, and the
types would be lexical-gustatory with words, as you mention, certain sounds or
aspects of music (notes, chords, songs, etc.), colours, time units, emotions,
graphemes, people/personalities… well all the typical inducers really. Whether
“tasting objects” is synesthesia is more difficult to say. If the objects you
automatically and consistently taste form part of some kind of (possibly
abstract) sequence or series, then it certainly could be, so for example if all
or most desks have their own particular taste, then that could be. Or the
planets would be a good example, or there’s a person on the concept-taste page
who has it for different writing instruments, for instance. On the other hand,
if the objects you taste are just one-off objects that don’t form part of any
series or sequence, and also if the taste seems quite clearly to be what the
object would actually taste like if you tried to eat it (or what a
similar-looking food would taste like, so a red glycerine soap might “taste” of
red berries, for example), then that wouldn’t be considered synesthesia. So you
could think about the kind of objects you taste and see if they fit into any of
those categories, to decide whether it would be more synesthesia or more a
phenomenon like vivid associations or like gustatory hyperphantasia (realistic
mental taste recreation, which some people can do and others can’t). Perhaps
your desk tastes are related and maybe the other ones aren’t, but you’d have to
think about, for example, if you "tasted" different parts of the body
too and not just forearms.) I love the idea of your assistant principal’s bald
head tasting like chicken though!
There are some examples on this page, in case you hadn’t
seen it:
Concept-taste and concept-smell synesthesia
Comment by: Anonymous. October 26, 2024 at 5:42 AM
I’ve notice things occurring in the last four months. I look
at a picture say bacon and I can smell the bacon so strong. Yet I walk around
my house and I smell toast. When I ask if anyone made toast today everyone says
no. Yet sometimes it’s so strong I become nauseous . Flowers I smell. No
presence of them. I smell so many different things it’s overwhelming! I don’t
go outside much overload. I do lose my balance and dizzy. So I don’t know if
that’s part of it . Flavors have changed for me , Coke and Pepsi taste like
fuel oil.Foods such as anything to do with mint. I think I like it and taste it
nope no more. It’s really frustrating.
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). November 1,
2024 at 11:39 AM
Hi! The smells that just appear from nowhere and seem very
real is called phantosmia. It can happen for various different reasons but as
you're experiencing so many of them and so strong and it's been lasting for
months, I personally think it would be a good idea to see a doctor, to check if
it might be related to a health issue in your case.
Comment by: Anonymous. July 15, 2025 at 10:25 AM
The other day I thought about my first wedding in 1991. I
was thinking about my wedding dress when I suddenly had a vivid ‘taste memory’
of one of the canapés we had there - spanakopita. I haven’t had them since that
date but could taste it so clearly! Occasionally I can taste things that I’m
only thinking about, or looking at on social media, for example, but I didn’t
see this one at all, it was just like a taste association with that day.
Comment by: Purrple. December 16, 2025 at 10:46 AM
I'm not entirely sure if what I experience is synesthesia,
because I do hallucinate in relation to all my senses from time to time. But
there is some images, concepts related to images, and written visual
descriptions that make me smell such a sudden and intense scent. One example is
when I found a specific picture of Santa Claus that smelled VERY strongly of
eggnog and mint (which are christmas-y things but not shown in the image
itself) and when I looked away from the image the scent would go away, but everytime
I looked back it would hit my senses very intensely again. I ended up closing
the image and reopening it a few times just to get the sensation of being 'hit'
by that scent again and again because it was so pleasant lol. Another example
is when I saw a detailed description of a dark cave with supernatural monsters
inside, it was devoid of any mentions of scents but when I pictured the scene I
suddenly smelled such an intense scent of a disgusting shipyard, like
waterlogged wood and rotted fish. The rotting scent lingered for a while even
after I stopped trying to think about that scene. Another thing that tripped up
my mom when I was a kid was that I would say 'being sick smells like peanut
butter' because every time I have a sickness affecting my sinuses I can only
smell peanut butter and looking at some visuals makes the 'peanut butter' scent
more intense. Not all images/imagery smells like anything intense or
describable, but these times very much stood out.
Reply by: Pau (The Synesthesia Tree author). January 5,
2026 at 8:40 PM
Hi!
I think what you're describing here isn't actually
synesthesia, because the smells you get (I absolutely love the Santa Claus one
by the way, I would love to be able to smell that picture!) seem to be one-off
occurrences and not a case of several specific smells that are always linked to
some kind of series or sequence of abstract concepts. And also because, as you
mention, your smell perceptions do bear a vague relationship to what's depicted
in the image: even if it isn't the main theme of the picture, the scene
represented seems to be transporting you to a certain atmosphere and you're
smelling that atmosphere. A synesthetic reaction would be more likely to take
the form of, for example, "classical paintings smell of x, medieval
paintings of y, impressionist paintings of z and different types of abstract
paintings consistently smell of various other things", and those smells
wouldn't really be traceable to the scenes represented in the pictures. Another
example: paintings of large birds might smell of mint, small birds of liquorice
and ducks/geese of strawberry. I think your ability would be more along the
lines of a kind of an automatic olfactory hyperphantasia or
"olfactorisation". Which is a cool thing to have, of course.
I don't think the peanut butter and feeling sick phenomenon
is synesthesia either.
Perhaps you do have more automatic smells associated with
different series of concepts when you see or think of them, though, as I don't
know if the examples you've described are the only ones. If you do, you could
think about what those series might be, and it could possibly be synesthesia,
although if you had no other types of synesthesia it would be less likely of
course.
Comment by: Anonymous. February 18, 2026 at 5:25 PM
If I see a picture of roses or a match striking on tv, I
smell them.
Comment by: Anonymous. February 27, 2026 at 11:01 AM
Back in my early twenties I did a lot of traveling and I
visited many places in the world. Now 20+ years later, when I see an image of
an area that looks similar to one I have visited back then, not only do I
remember what it looked like, but I get the smells of the landscape too. Even
without looking at an image, I can bring up memories that aren't only very
clear images in my head (eyes open or closed) but the smells can be quite
overwhelming depending on the memory. When I was a student my room mates threw
me a surprise party and led me (blindfolded) around the block, taking several
false turns and when we crossed the threshold I knew exactly where I was from
how it smelled, I can remember this smell now too while I write this - so this
remembering and picturing smells isn't new. It doesn't tick any of the boxes
that I can find?
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