This Is What It's Like to Live in a World Without Smell | Short Film Showcase

I wish I had more of these dreams. I had one dream I woke up so happy; it was so real. I remember being in the kitchen, and all of a sudden, I smelled broccoli. I took it out of the fridge. It was just so real, and when I woke up, I was happy. My friends would say things like we'd be near the movie theater, and they would say, "I smell popcorn," and I actually had no idea that what they were saying related to something they were taking in through their senses from the environment.

Bryan, the train to work in the morning, the train's pretty crowded, so you're really close to the person next to you. I see some older woman; her hair was inches from my face; it was touching my face, and I was just grateful that I couldn't smell. I went on believing for so many years that I had a sense of smell that had to learn how to use it. It wasn't till at least midway through elementary school that I said, "Okay, this is a real thing that I can't do." My father can't smell. My father, entomology assumed that I would not have a sense of smell.

My earliest memories are my mother sitting down with me, with scratching sniffs, and I always just remember thinking, "Okay, everything just smells the same." As I was working in the kitchen, everything was about to smell. It was the smell of veal stock bubbling on the stove. It was the smell of butter melting in the pan. Smell gave flavor to all of the different ingredients I was working with. Without a sense of smell, eating for me became like my world had faded from color to black and white.

I understand it's very common for people without a sense of smell to not be able to taste, but that's not the case with me. I have a very vivid sensitive list. I can taste. I have a true case which is bitter, sweet, salty, sour, but I don't taste flavors. So, you know, between two bowls of ice cream, I'm not gonna be able to tell which is vanilla and which is chocolate. If it's a really intense thing right in my nose, like for example going to the dentist and having nitrous oxide, I feel like I smell that—it's like a really yummy thing to eat, like yummy chocolate ice cream—but it sort of fills up the whole head.

So there was one time in Seattle; there was a rose, and I concentrated very, very, very hard, and I got a faint whiff of it, and that was probably the only time in my life that I've ever smelled anything. I went for a jog one morning in August; it was early in the morning, it was raining. They were playing movies in the park; it was the summertime. They were supposed to play Wayne's World that night, but it got rained out. I was on my way home, a few blocks from home, and I was hit by a car. It was nighttime; I had had my lights, everything on my bike. The guy opened his car door without looking; I went flying.

I don't remember when I was flipped up onto the windshield and fractured the back of my skull or when I was flipped out onto the ground. I remember waking up in the hospital, needles in my arms, saying, "So what's going on?" They told me, "You got hit by a car," and I went online, started searching, you know, "lost his smell," "head injury." This is such a thing; I didn't even know it existed. My life is totally different now.

There was a smell always constantly around me; it smelled a little bit like a garden without the flowers. I just figured, you know, based on the shape of my nose and the direction of smell, that it was probably smelling my brain, and I liked it because it was a smell. I would later learn that this was something called a phantom smell, and they're incredibly common with people who lose their sense of smell. You can tell each season with the smell in the air and everything, and I don't get that anymore.

So, I lost my sense of smell, and because of that, I am very thankful that I was able to find that I had an olfactory-glioma meningioma, which is a brain tumor around the olfactory bulb, and was able to get it removed and taken care of. The scent of my leg and my children, you can tell them apart from any other kid, and it's really a bonding thing, and it's like I've had to like—you only touch her, mooring hugger more.

There are things that people just can't describe to you. I'd really love to know what my wife smells like, what my son smells like. I think he smells sweet, and you know, like a kid. I just, I wish I knew; I wish I could smell. And kids pass gas; I don't know what other people are making such a fuss about. Think of it like sort of things; the inside of your nose, there's this new car smell that everyone talks about, and they can't describe it. "My baby, that's my baby," their new babies smell really nice; barbecue.

I think your ass—people come into my room and they'll say, "How that smells just like you in it." I don't really get that. I've heard them say it smells like it's gonna rain; I just don't—I can't understand how it can smell like the weather. Wintertime was always—the fireplaces on my block back home was always a good snow growing up as a kid. I know the summer's gonna come up, and there's gonna be barbecues. That's something I'm gonna miss too—just good times. I linked with certain smells; I realized that I was picking up a smell. Then it clicked, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, it's the exhaust and the gas fumes from the bus."

It was like someone, you know, cracked open the window, and you know, I had that little bit of hope that I was helping my mother to cook dinner because I couldn't stay away from the kitchen. And I had a sprig of fresh rosemary, the herb, and all of a sudden, this hit me out of the blue, this one singular smell. At first, I didn't know what it was because it was so strong and so potent, and it felt like it completely took over my brain. I forgot that smell could be that strong.

Even if I take a shower, and I put cream on, perfume, and I want to smell like a woman, it's just missing. I do isolate a lot more now because I feel safer just being with myself. People get angry; you should be really upset that you can't smell, you should work on this and rehabilitate it. But for me, it's a non-issue; it's something that I've been curious about, and now he's kind of wondering, just because it is attached to memories so much, that I'm wondering what I'm missing out on.

It's like, let's say on the bus something smells bad 'cause some kids had something bad at lunch, and everybody's like gagging, and I'm just sitting back. So, it makes me feel kind of special. There's been research done 10,000 flavors that I will never know, and that's, you know, 10,000 conversations I'll never have. There's this old guy at work, and he was a close talker, and I thought, "Who's try to avoid him whenever I could?" He's a nice guy, you know; his breath now doesn't bother anyone; we're cool.

Smell is linked to some of the most important parts of our lives. It's linked to our memories, it's linked to our childhood, it's linked to our past. It says a lot about what we eat, how we choose to eat, where we like to go, what we like to put on our skin. It brings us closer to people; it makes us recognize people that we love. It's complicated, and it's not completely understood by the scientific community, but we do know that it begins with a molecule, and there are many different stops and signals along the way.