Clairolfaction is the ability to smell what is not there.

Clairolfaction is one of the psychic senses. For example, you may have had the sensation of walking into a room and smelling something that isn’t there. It likely reminds you of someone who has passed. For example, you may smell cigar or pipe smoke, and it remind you of your grandfather. You may smell perfume, and it reminds you of someone you know, like an aunt or grandmother.

Psychic smells aren’t always ghostly.

You may think that clairolfaction is the ability to smell ghostly scents. However, those with this gift can also smell things that are simply not present at the time. The associated person need not be dead. For example, a man I knew had an affair with a woman in Hawaii. At the time, both were on vacation by themselves, and both were in the middle of divorces. He always associated the smell of plumeria with walking with her. One day, he smelled plumeria everywhere. Of course, all he did was think about the woman he knew. He found her on Facebook and friended her. At the time he was smelling plumeria, she was busy looking for him online!

Another instance happened to a woman who kept smelling wood burning. She lived in New York City at the time, and it was not likely that anything was burning wood. Sure, fires had a smell in New York, but usually  not a woods-burning type. Still, she couldn’t get it out of her mind. However, as she walked to work one morning, she was thinking about what it could be she smelled. She thought maybe it was a memory or a psychic impression. She was almost at her desk when she remembered her best friend from college who lived in Santa Barbara. Her best friend thought she was crazy, but she headed the warning, and she was safely evacuated before a wildfire took out her cul-de-sac.

Can you “smell” auras?

Clairolfaction actually allows some people to smell a person’s soul. I had a friend in Lily Dale who could smell whether a client was good or bad. A very kind soul may smell like roses. A very dark, bad soul may smell like rotten meat. As a young woman, she couldn’t stand being in singles’ bars, but her friends appreciated her ability to literally sniff out a creep.

It can also not be psychic at all, however.

Psychic smells, however, may not always be an extrasensory perception. Those who have sinusitis may have a bad smell in their nose because of the infection. For example, sometimes, people who are about to have migraines (experiencing the “aura”) may smell things that aren’t there. For example, they may smell burning food. Sometimes, they may smell something, but their brain confuses it with something else. I know a woman who will smell chocolate everywhere, and the stronger the origin of the scent, the stronger the smell. For example, if she is about to have a migraine, she could walk past a pile of garbage in the hot sun, knowing it smells horrible. However, her brain registers it strongly as chocolate.

Speaking of chocolate: A favorite tale is how people who first come to Chicago experience the “psychic” smell of chocolate. Suddenly, they’re in the Loop, and they smell chocolate very strongly, like freshly baked brownies. However, no one else around them is reacting to the strong smell.

That’s because locals all know about the Blommer Chocolate Factory in the West Loop, the largest cocoa processing plant in the country. It literally smells like chocolate for a few square miles, and it’s very real.

Have you ever experienced clairolfaction?

Think back – you probably have experienced it. If you have, let me know in the comments. I’m always interested in stories from my readers.