There’s nothing quite like smelling something nobody else can smell. I remember the first time this happened to me. I was working in an HR department at a university, and my desk was out in the open (I didn’t have a walled cubicle, I worked in a very large hallway) and the smell of Doral cigarettes attacked me out of nowhere. This was super strange to me because smoking is no longer allowed in public spaces and the only person I knew who smoke Doral cigarettes was my grandfather who had passed several years prior to this experience. I must’ve looked like a crazy person because I started looking around the office for a person smoking in a building they weren’t supposed to. It took me a few minutes to realize there wasn’t anybody actually smoking, it was just my grandfather making his presence know. This was the first time I received a sent as a sign from a past loved one. It would a few more years before I knew this ability had a real name, clairolfaction.
Clairolfaction is the ability to smell scents or odors that are not in the current physical surroundings. These scents or odors are usually associated with a specific person, place or object, and usually have an emotion or memory attached to them.
Clairolfacation is consider the "phantom smell" barrier because in everyday life, unexplained smells are often quickly dismissed as hallucinations or a medical condition like phantosmia. This makes it difficult for individuals to recognize and cultivate the ability as a psychic gift rather than a pathology.
When we connect with our clairolfacation abilities our sense of smell is activated, and our sense of smell can be very tangible. This means we reconnect with a person, place or situation by physically smelling the foods, drinks and other items connect to these people, places and situation that aren’t physically present. Clairolfaction is rarely experienced casually and is considered a rare gift because we naturally rely heavily on sight and sound.
Smell is deeply tied to memory and the subconscious, filtering out everyday, physical scents to tune into unexplained or "spiritual" aromas requires intense sensory development. If you’re interested in learning more about clairolfaction and how to make sense of this unusual ability, register for Meet the Clairs: An Introduction to Tapping Into Your Intuition where I teach you how to recognize and connect with all eight of your clair senses. I look forward to seeing you in class!
