Olfactory Hallucinations?

[one]

I will only ramble. You can add with welcoming arms.

Sometimes I smell an electronic smell. Outdoors at certain places.

Indoors, it is more like a burnt motor smell.


Am I a nut?

[Kryptyk]

Certain medications have weird side effects. Do you take medication? If so, perhaps this might explain the hallucinatory smells.

[one]

No meds. But I think my monitor is emitting the burning smell indoors, so I turned it way down. Still can't explain the occasional outdoor (ozone?) smell though. Reminds me of ... vacuum tubes. I probably should be on medications ;(

[casualtxtr]

I experience hallucinatory smells (phantosmia). Burning oil, stale urine, and also cat sh*t.

It can be very disconcerting being in the supermarket or going down on a woman and suddenly smelling catsh*t, or chatting up a woman in a club and suddenly the room smells like a preschool classroom permeated by the smell of stale urine.

I also experience selective hyperosmia (hypersensitivity to some smells). Some smells such as laundry detergents, air fresheners, varnish, paint thinners, fiberglass resins, and some fragrances cause me to have severe headaches. I once lost consciousness when I opened the door to a shop, I just saw a bright flash of light and was out cold. It transpired that in a part of the shop new carpet tiles were being glued to the floor.

I have had various tests including scans to no avail. It is believed that the most likely cause is that over the years I have had a number of incidences of head trauma including several where I have lost consciousness. The phantosmia seems to be triggered by stress (both good and bad). Sadly, it and the hyperosmia has in turn caused me to now feel stressed in many public and intimate situations and over the years I have become more and more of a recluse.

I hope your phantosmia is temporary.

[Lumos]

Truly - 'tis a strange world we inhabit nowadays One !!

A personal thing upon the subject of odours:
I have been referred to as a 'super-smeller', meaning that the tiniest hint of something is detected by me.

For example there is a neighbor in the house next door, separated by 50-75 feet, and he goes out back to smoke...our place is closed up tightly as a norm, but I pick up a bit of that stink when he is smoking there.

Also, when out and about, driving past a gas station that fuel odour gets into my car clearly enough for me to pick it up - but my partner, in either case - smells nothing.

My take on your query is that you may be very sensitively picking up small, ACTUAL things or even things which are out of sight completely.

Here is a related query:
When at a large store with many others around - do you sense their individual odours, both nice and not so nice ??
If so, it may be that you are blessed with a very powerfully well developed sense of smell and nothing more.

Best Wishes Always.

Lumos