Smells and Bells

“We are all, secretly, nocturnally gifted. We just live in the day, oblivious to our own secret stars” - Kripal Before this class, I didn't take much time to really think about the senses. I knew the five basic senses of touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste. At the beginning of the semester, I was assigned to be a part of the group assigned to present about the sixth sense. I had no idea what to expect. Thankfully, I got into something incredibly intriguing that would peak my interest for some time even after our work was presented. With looking into the sixth sense, I became much more interested in how this research pertained to me personally. I read so much about how this sense can be interpreted in a number of ways. Which leads me to believe it may be different but also the same for everyone. Many different sources, as well as those given in Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and The Sacred , present the sixth sense as an extraordinary connection to the spiritua...

In my last post, I talked about color and colorblindness, and how color was such a personal experience. That statement got me thinking, because, when it really comes down to it, everything we experience is a personal experience. No one ever feels the same way. We may use the same general terms to attempt to describe our experiences, but in the end only we really know how we feel. Our senses and emotions have a deep connection. Another blog I found from Tufts University states that "what we sense triggers a feeling" which becomes a conceptual association. This could be anything- the blog goes into how seeing a cup of coffee, tasting coffee, hearing a coffee maker, smelling coffee beans can make us feel energized or happy. This happens all around us, though we may not know it. The sun after a long winter, for example. I feel refreshed and excited and energized on that first beautiful morning of spring, and that conceptual association leads me into my day happy. Most of the time...