Genetic memory and instinct

[apocolypse]

Okay, I also posted this at SB, so if you're a member there, then you don't have to read, cause you probably already saw it. But a lot of the people here aren't, and I wanted to get some more thoughts, so here it goes.

A couple years back, I lived in this...not so great old hotel/dorm room building. I was gone over the weekend and came back late Sunday. I walked in and smelled this really sweet smell. BUT, it was more sickly, nauseating sweet kinda smell. The first thing that came to my mind was, it smells like someone died. Which is really odd, because it's not like I had a lot of experience with that. I've been to funerals before, but the people were already cleaned up, emballmed, all that. The smell for some reason just triggered death. It's hard to explain the smell, I guess those that know will understand. Well, I asked around, and as it turns out some woman had ODed and died, and was in her room for a couple days before anyone found out. So, that's the story, and onto the questions.

I've heard about genetic memory, but don't know much about it. Is this an example of it? I've never smelled death firsthand until then, yet I knew someone had died, just from that. Is it more instict, are they one in the same? It's just wierd because I knew what it was, without KNOWING what it was, if that makes any sense.

[Crayz9000]

I would think that most of us have smelled rotting flesh at one point or another...

[apocolypse]

I would think that most of us have smelled rotting flesh at one point or another...

Nah, I'm pretty sure it's not the same. I've smelled bad meat and stuff like that before, and this was definately not the same. As far as I can remember, I hadn't smelled anything like it until then, and I know I haven't smelled anything like it since.

[The Cleric]

From the way he was describing it, it wasn't rotting flesh. Some memories are genetically locked; things that are more basic and animalistic. That could have been it.

[Hyperion]

I have often thought the same thing, since a lot of the things people do are unconscious and on the level of the instincts of regular animals, just on a higher level. Interestingly enough, the scent and feeling of death (without the smell or sight of the dead) is one of those things, in fact as I have noticed, one of the strongest.

That must have been freaky to encounter that.

Btw, not to come across badly, but I have always found the smell of death to be fascinating in a sort of "can't put my finger on what it is like..." putrid sort of odor. Then again I can easially say that many years ago I was absolutely fascinated by watching the roiling mass of maggots in the carcass of the neighbor's dead cow, of course when you have a half ton dead animal in the sun for about a week, it emits a truely unholy odor for a very large distance. Watching the decomposition of the deer head the neighbor gave me in the tree for a year was also interesting. And that reminds me that I really need to get around to making those knife handles out of the legbones and spine of that cow, I have had them for years. (grumbles that he should have kept the tail bones since he could have used them to make a wrap-around kind of thing on the first part of a sword)

Btw, I am convinced that you can identify an animal without even seeing it by the odor it emits once dead for a couple days. (one of those strange things one picks up when one has an hour long commute twice a day, 5 days a week, and drives with the windows down)

[Frank Hipper]

Had you ever heard the smell of decomposition described as being "sickly sweet"?
I feel that a great deal of intuition, and similar experiences, can be chalked up to people being able to deduce things based on very few clues. Sometimes unconcious recollections of information you've come in contact with.

[apocolypse]

Had you ever heard the smell of decomposition described as being "sickly sweet"?
I feel that a great deal of intuition, and similar experiences, can be chalked up to people being able to deduce things based on very few clues. Sometimes unconcious recollections of information you've come in contact with.

See, I honestly can't think of a time when I have heard it described like that. Perhaps I have and can't remember? But I don't think so. However, you do raise a good point.

Hyperion, I can actually relate, it is fascinating in a odd kind of way. It was kinda freaky, and yet kinda interesting. Maybe we're just odd?

[Frank Hipper]

Ever read Steven King's The Stand, apocolypse?

[apocolypse]

Ever read Steven King's The Stand, apocolypse?

Nope, too damn long and I hate to read as it is.

[Frank Hipper]

Ever read Steven King's The Stand, apocolypse?

Nope, too damn long and I hate to read as it is.

Ah. He describes a rotting corpse as a "dark, sweet treat" and a "bon-bon" with some inappropriate adjective...

You hate to read? What's wrong with you!?!

[apocolypse]

Ever read Steven King's The Stand, apocolypse?

Nope, too damn long and I hate to read as it is.

Ah. He describes a rotting corpse as a "dark, sweet treat" and a "bon-bon" with some inappropriate adjective...

You hate to read? What's wrong with you!?!

Huh, interesting, it sounds about like the smell...except I didn't think of it as a bon-bon or anything.

Reading is the sux0r. JK, I used to read some when I was younger, now I have the attention span of a gnat.