Smells and Bells

The sixth sense is a difficult sense for a biologist to make sense of because it is incapable of being proven. The five other senses display a cause and effect relationship with wavelengths and receptors. There usually is some sort of physicality to our ability to sense the world around us. The sixth sense lacks this physicality; we cannot prove the presence of a ghost, we cannot prove that God is present in the Eucharist, and we cannot fully express certain realizations and new beginnings brought upon by mystical experiences.   When I come to think about the sixth sense I think of it a couple different ways. I understand how some believe that the sixth sense is the sense that manifests our subconscious and  I also understand how others believe it to be glimpses of a supernatural dimension. I can even see how others just view it as coincidence. While I believe each opinion has valid points, I believe that one of the most sound explanations of the sixths sense i...

Touch is a sense that is constantly being experienced in Catholicism.  Those that truly practice the faith in addition to those that might just go through the motions experience the sense in a communal way. Beginning with the sacrament of Baptism and ending with the Anointing of the Sick, touch is utilized during each ceremony of each sacrament. In Baptism, the godparents of the child hold the baby in their hands and the priest pours holy water on the child's head. During the sacrament of Reconciliation, the priest absolves the one receiving the sacrament by putting his hands on the person's head and praying. In addition to sound, touch is one of the most utilized senses during the Mass. As one enters the church, it is common for Catholics to dip their fingers in holy water and making the sign of the cross. Another common gesture in Catholicism is the genuflection. When someone genuflects they touch their right knee to the floor while bending their left knee. This genuf...

When I think about taste and my personal experience with the sense, the first thing that comes to mind is how long it had been since the last time I had a croqueta. The difference in the food I eat here at Wheaton as opposed to back home in Miami is pretty significant. Food and the sense of taste are two of life's assets that contribute a lot more than just sensory awareness. From personal experience, i know that taste has the ability to contribute to one's identity-- particularly one's social identity. Before Wheaton, I had never had a philly cheesesteak or even heard of chicken and waffles. Back home, a philly cheesesteak isn't a big deal and most people do not know what an order of chicken and waffles is. We are not some alien city that doesn't enjoy philly cheesteaks but, in my opinion, my taste and certain food combinations are driven by the Latino culture in Miami. Croquetas Paella Every country has their own little kick to certain foods. Diff...

Tuesday's class was both interactive and refreshing. I really enjoyed Ms. Robinson's company and energy and think she did a great job of engaging the class in what could be an awkward subject for college students. Though she is the owner of a massage spa and practices a number of set techniques at her spa, she also talked to the class about practices and forms that she does not necessarily use but that are also known to have positive effects on the body. I thought the idea of the massage chamber to be intriguing. Both Ms. Robinson and Graham described the sensation after the chamber as "no sensation," and this made me think about touch a different way. People enter these chambers and receive massages to relieve ailments and stress. And many times, feeling must be lost in order to recuperate both physically and mentally.  I think of it as a "re-set" of neurons, circulation and touch. When I volunteered to get a massage on Tuesday, I really did not know w...

I played a little trick on one of my roommates on Easter Sunday. The scheming began early Sunday morning as my roommate, her mother and I began gathering all the pots and pans we would eventually need to prepare our Easter meal. With her head still in the cupboard, my roommates mother started laughing and called her daughter, Tracy, to see what she had found. It was a plastic impression of the Virgin Mary-- one that was meant to press into toast and leave an image. My roommate's mother had bought this piece of plastic years ago after the "Virgin Mary" toast went viral over a decade ago. In 2004, a woman named Diane Duyser says she was about to take a bit out of her grilled cheese sandwich when she saw the image below imprinted on the bread. The toast has been preserved since 2004 and the image is still very clear. The trick was played on another one of my roommates, Farah. While Farah was busy upstairs, my roommate whose house I visited, her mother, and I decided ...

Wheaton Words was an extremely emotional, stimulating and sensual event. Each performer's experience was portrayed in either a poetic or prose manner and utilized the senses to convey the extent of each experience. The details and realism of each account has made Wheaton Words my favorite Wheaton event yet. While each performer expressed a deep, rooted, and maybe even hidden story about themselves, each account was unique in regards to the emotions it evoked in the audience, the feelings in which it manifested in the performer, and in the senses the actual performances utilized. The senses I believe received the most stimulation Saturday night were: sight, hearing, and touch. Aside from the popcorn and candy provided during the intermission, I also thought that the sense of taste secondarily contributed to the audience's experience. As Professor JBK began the first performance of the night, he poured himself a nice cold beer. He then proceeded to pour his personal thoug...

On Sunday evening, I attended the St. Joh Passion, Emmanuel music concert. While I admit that I was a bit hesitant about attending considering I had a huge exam the following morning, I will follow up by tell you that I enjoyed the concert so much that I decided to stay and experience the concert in its entirety. As a Catholic, I could not have thought of a better way to reflect on the Passion of Christ during Lent. Before attending college and thus moving away from home, my parents would make my sisters and I attend several masses during Holy Week as a sign of reverence for Jesus dying on the cross of us. While I would get annoyed at times, I look back now and realize how much I truly miss the experiences of Holy Week and Lent in general. Sunday's event spiritually enveloped me and reminded me of my faith. In my opinion, the experience was much more intimate than any other concert I have ever attended. Beginning with the orchestra's first note, the ambiance in the chapel...

While talking to my roommate, Farah, who lives in Jordan about today's discussion, she mentioned how important reciting the Qur'an was in high school. There would be a weekly competition in school, where girls and boys would compete against each other for a prize. The prize was monetary (about $250) and was the ultimate motivator for all the students. While she never participated because she is Christian, many of her friends took part in the contest. In order for the participants to do well in the contest, they had to memorize and truly understand the vocabulary of each word in the Surah they were reciting. I thought that each participant would recite a unique Surah; one that they would write on their own. But after talking with Farah, I came to realize that it is not the wording that is unique to each student but the melody of each prayer. Each student projects their own style, passion, and interpretation as a sign of respect for Muslim religion. Below are links to two Qu...

Enduring God through food is a multi-sensory experience that brings near what is sensed from afar. Specifically, eating, in a religious context, involves internalizing God, a being whose home is heaven, an entity that surrounds us and extends into the universe. When speaking of this class, it may be easy to wrongly associate good tasting food with good, positive experiences. While there is a sort of network association between eating something delicious and feeling good, there could also be positive effects of bitter flavors. There could be some sweets, like the cuban, "pastelito de guayaba y queso," that are not appealing to all people. The desire or aversion to the flavor is unique to each individual-- as is each person's positive and negative life experiences. Sometimes life is bitter and other times life is sweet. "Hillel's Sandwich," served each Passover Seder, sends us a simple religious message: approach all hardships in life with positi...

In class on Thursday, Dr. Herz talked about the unique connection between olfaction and emotion. We spoke about the ways certain smells remind us of past events and make us feel certain ways. The connection between emotion and olfaction is formed and expressed differently than with any other sense. Because of the interconnectedness of the olfactory bulb and the limbic system, smell can call upon memory and emotions almost immediately. A New York Times article describes olfaction as both our slow sense and our quick sense. I think this is an interesting observation, especially since we have been looking at the senses from both a biological and experiential point of view. Unlike vision and audition that receive strong signals very quickly, our sense of smell is based off of the molecules that travel through the air and into our nose. While the physiology behind smell is relatively slow compared to the physiology of the other senses, the connection between smell and any emotion is n...

Certain individuals are born with or develop at some point in their lives synesthesia, the condition we mentioned in class in which stimulation from one sense produces experiences in a totally different sense. In 2013, NPR posted an interesting article titled Some People Can Really Taste the Rainbow describing the rarity of the condition. Although a 1 to 27 ratio for those with synesthesia seems pretty rare, the author of the article describes an even bigger peculiarity-- having sensory crossovers that affect ones sense of taste. In fact, experiencing this type of synesthesia can be attributed to only one percent of synesthetes. The author, a synesthete herself, mentions eye-opening accounts of a few synesthetes that comprise this one percent. Their experiences are truly staggering and may seem a bit hallucinatory but considering the psychological research performed on this condition, I believe that this is one of the most direct connections between the physical and the immaterial. J...