Sensorial connectedness
“Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.” - Vladimir Nobokov
In my previous post on the senses, I had a few questions about our sensorial perceptions and experiences, and I took it to Facebook, and Substack Notes, receiving several interesting responses. In this post I will be sharing some of those responses with my comments and reflections. Make sure to subscribe and leave your comments to join the conversation. It is free!
All our senses work together at the same time. You can't really tell your sight to take a break, even when you put a blindfold on. And when something happens, an accident or a procedure that eliminated one of our senses, the others come together to compensate, and they become more acute.
Blind people learn to see the world through a greater sense of touch, hearing, and proprioception, etc. Deaf people learn to hear by seeing, and mute people speak to you through a different kind of movement with no need for sound (because speaking is movement).
At an individual level, our sensory capacity is a marvel. We take it for granted but to be able to see, touch, hear, smell, taste, and move the way we do is what makes us unique, but our senses expand to every other person that surrounds us (and vice versa).
If you can't see, someone else can see and describe things for you, and based on that you create an image in your head. If you have no hands to eat, someone else can feed you, and if you can't listen to the national anthem in the super bowl, there will be someone moving at the pace of sign language for you to hear the music.
In a way, although our senses are marvelous and incredibly important for each one of us, others can become our sensory receptors out of our body, making this topic a little more adventurous and mysterious. This can happen even if our own sensory capacity is well and able.
Furthermore, our senses can be reached, triggered, activated, or influenced by someone else’s account (imaginary or experiential). I can just say a few words in your ears, or write an impactful story, and have your skin react to the touch of my words.
One of the questions I asked in my previous post was: What is your most vivid sensory memory?
A subscriber mentioned that his most vivid sensory memory is when his grandfather used to make organic charcoal in the central mountains of Puerto Rico. This is a case of shared sensory memories, at the same time and space, because this someone is my nephew Angel Yadiel, and I got to meet his grandpa for years (not my dad) who I got to see making charcoal a few times.
mentioned that his most vivid memory is “Lying in the grass under a tree, looking up at the branches and the sky, hearing the bees buzzing and the breeze ruffling the leaves”. This is another example of shared sensory memories, but this time there was no blood connection, nor did the experience occur at the same time (or space).That was a fascinating process to see, and I remember the thick smell of burnt wood that took over the mountain where he lived, and where I had many great meals cooked with that charcoal.
However, reading his response, made me re-feel part of my childhood, under the mango tree at the community graveyard where I grew up (touching the grass and the soil, sensing the wind, listening to the quietness, the smell of fruit, the color of the sky, the birds…).
Happy, and pleasant sensory memories aren't always the ones that can be transmitted through someone else's account. Also, they don't always have to resemble our own, to trigger our senses. On Facebook someone commented about her traumatic experience giving birth to one of her daughters. She mentions that since then, visiting a hospital brings her painful memories that resonate in her abdomen.
Her story resonated in me, triggering a similar sensation I get when I see or hear the ocean roaring under a stormy day. The result of a drowning experience as a child.
“Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.” - Vladimir Nobokov
This may all sound crazy but all of us have experienced sensorial memories from others’ accounts. Remember that movie that got you aroused and heightened your sense of touch? What about that recipe story that took you back to the taste of grandma’s cooking, the smell of childhood, and the sound of happiness cooking in a pot? Or, that book that made you move, or that speech that got you sensing tightness in your heart.
In Substack’s Notes, Fiction Writer Chevanne Scordinsky commented about how considering the senses allows her to immerse herself in the story while writing a scene, with the aim of “immersing the readers as well”. A lot of sensorial consideration goes into making you feel what a character might be living in a story. Through her own sensorial experiences and imagination, she can reach not only yours, but all our senses, across time and space.
I can easily see where some of you may start losing me. What? Sensing through others? Doesn't this sound a little out of reality? How is it possible that someone can write something and get me sensing things in and out of my body? While each one of us perceives the world through interconnected sensory receptors, and while we can also experience the world through our interconnectedness with others (including animals, and even plants), our social structure pushes us to separate every aspect of our functionality, fitness, movement, and life.
We train every sense individually, just like we do with each muscle, each joint, and each motion, hindering our capacity to be one with everything else, and with others, as part of a greater body, which can sense to greater distances and existences.
Each one of us is to the rest of the world what each sense is to each one of us.
Have you ever been told a story so compelling that you can feel it? Your skin gets goosebumps, your breath shortens and your taste changes; and you leave the world from your own sensorial reality, to live in someone else’s past reality.
While you cook up your thoughts and leave your comments, I will be researching about how the human senses were perceived during different ages and in mythology. If you happen to run into any interesting content about this topic, send it my way, down in the comments or to juanbaez@substack.com.
Until next time!
Personally I believe in Jesus and his word. This text remember me when Jesus said everyone of us living in Christ are part of the body of Christ. Meaning that we all need eachother to transcend spiritualy. We all need that complement of the others. That teach us to be humble in spirit.