Dreaming about smell
Smell is the rarest sense in dream reports by a wide margin, which makes any dream containing one worth recording. Where a smell does appear, dreamers almost always recognise it, and it is almost always connected to a person or a place.
Also searched as: smelling something in a dream, a smell i recognised, a bad smell, perfume in a dream
The rarity is the finding. Smell appears in a small fraction of dream reports, far below sight and sound.
When it does appear it is nearly always familiar rather than novel: a person's perfume, a house, a hospital, cut grass, and dreamers identify it immediately.
That pattern fits what is known about olfactory memory, which is unusually durable and unusually tied to specific episodes.
Smells connected to somebody who has died are reported and are among the more affecting experiences in this database, described as more convincing than any image.
Common associations
- Rarity, which is the headline.
- Recognition rather than novelty.
- A specific person or place.
- The dead, in the most affecting reports.
Positive readings
These are worth writing down precisely because they are rare, and the reports connected to people who have died are described with real value by the dreamers who have them.
Any dream containing a smell is unusual enough to be worth a note.
Difficult readings
Bad smells are reported occasionally and produce the contamination disgust the relevant entries describe.
Otherwise very little.
Psychological perspectives
Why smell is so scarce in dreams is not fully settled. The olfactory system has an unusual anatomy and its relationship to the sleeping brain is different from vision or hearing, and that is the direction the explanations run in.
What is better established is that olfactory memory is durable and episodically anchored, which fits the reports: when a dream does produce a smell, it produces one attached to a specific memory rather than an invented one.
Real smells in the room can be incorporated, which is worth checking.
Cultural and historical
Incense and scent are central to practice in a great many religious traditions and carry specific significance in several.
The scent of the dead, and of sanctity, appears in accounts across a number of traditions and is taken seriously within them.
The database records the reports and does not adjudicate.
What the sleep science says
Well documented: smell is reported in a small minority of dreams, far below sight and sound.
Well established outside dream research: olfactory memory is durable and episodically anchored.
Reasonably supported: real ambient smells can be incorporated.
Your own context
- Did you recognise it?
- What was it attached to?
- Could there have been a real smell?
- Has this happened before?
If this recurs
Record every instance. Smell is rare enough that even a handful over a year is a genuinely unusual personal dataset.
Emotions often reported
- nostalgia
- longing
- tenderness
- disgust
- surprise
- melancholy
Specific smell dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Did I recognise the smell?
- What did it belong to?
- Could it have been real?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
4 references. What these labels mean
- 1.Gender Differences in Dream Recall: A Meta-AnalysisPeer-reviewed research
Michael Schredl and Iris Reinhard (2008) · Journal of Sleep Research
Cited for: Dream-recall frequency as a measurable, individually stable trait, and the factors that move it.
- 2.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
- 3.Dreaming: A Conceptual Framework for Philosophy of Mind and Empirical ResearchAcademic book
Jennifer M. Windt (2015) · MIT Press
Cited for: A modern philosophical treatment of what dreams are, including the immersive-spatiotemporal-hallucination account and the status of dream reports as evidence.
- 4.The Dreams of Blind Men and Women: A Replication and Extension of Previous FindingsPeer-reviewed research
Craig Hurovitz, Steven Dunn, G. William Domhoff and Harry Fiss (1999) · Dreaming
Cited for: That congenitally blind dreamers report no visual imagery but rich non-visual sensory content, while those blinded later may retain visual dreaming.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of smell have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- PersonDead relativeDreams of the dead are extremely common in bereavement, are frequently reported as comforting rather than distressing, and are taken seriously by grief researchers as part of how mourning proceeds. What they are not is evidence of contact.
- PlaceChildhood homeThe most reported dream setting there is. It usually appears altered (extra rooms, wrong layout, doors that were not there) and the alterations are more informative than the house.
- SymbolMilkMilk is reported almost entirely through spoiling, and dreamers describe the discovery rather than the substance: pouring it, and finding it has turned.
- SymbolSaltOne of the few substances where taste is actually reported in dreams, which puts it in a very small group. Where it appears, dreamers usually mention tasting it, and that is unusual enough to be the finding.
- SymbolFaceFaces are the most attended thing in dream content and the least stable. A face that changes, that will not resolve, or that belongs to the wrong person is among the most reported and most unsettling experiences there is.
- SymbolHearing your nameOne of the most widely reported sleep experiences there is, and one of the most reassuring to have explained: hearing your name called as you fall asleep or wake is common, documented, and not a sign of anything.
Records that mention smell
These pages link to smell, either as something reported in the same dream or as a related subject. This page does not point back at all of them, so the list is assembled rather than chosen.