Thank you India

Last night as I was drifting off into sleep but not quite asleep yet, I suddenly smelled India. Which then pulled me out of my almost asleep state. How weird is it to suddenly smell a country hundreds of miles away? Of course, I wasn't really sleeping in a room that smelled like India, my Brain was smelling India. But why would my Brain suddenly pull this smell from the depths of my memories, out of nowhere, at a seemingly random time?

The smell was quite strong, and though it only lasted for maybe 10 seconds, I suddenly felt like I was transported back. I saw the dirty streets at night, and the old men and their tea, and the restaurants we ate at. But I was still not asleep. I only saw these images in my head. Then the smell slowly faded away, and I longed for it to return. So I thought some more about the images in my head, and tried to remember more things. And then the weirdest thing: as I recalled my memories, the smell came back! The stronger a memory was, the stronger the smell became. I made a note to blog about it in the morning, and slowly drifted off to dreamland.

Unfortunately, I did not have any dreams of India. Even now, as I try to recall the images I saw last night...no smell...nothing...just the smell of regular air inside my nose. The curry smell is gone. The foreign new place smell is gone. And it wasn't just the smell of curry, it was intermingled with something else I can't quite put my finger on. Spices, perhaps, as that's what everyone seems to say India smells like. Or maybe it was just a smell my Brain created from my memories of India. (But really, I don't think my Brain is that clever, sorry Brain.) I'm sad it is gone now, but grateful that I was able to have such a wonderful olfactory experience last night.