Conference rdvax::grateful

  I like how little sensory "keys", like the smell of a bush you just happen
  to walk by, or a snatch of melody, can unlock vivid pictoral memories of
  entire afternoons from your childhood.  Things you had forgotten to
  remember to forget, as the song goes.

  It's amazing how the human brain indexes sensory information.  - JayC.

    didn't Proust write a lot of pages about that?
    
    /b

    
    I agree.  Love them keys.

    re: Proust  "Remembrance of Things Past".  Started by the 
    taste of a cookie, a madeleine.  Just a few several hundred page volumes...
    
    PeterT
    
    

    
    the smell of oats does that to me

I've  noted a number of olfactory triggers - not just 
the smell of a familiar perfume, although that is a major one.
The scent of certain places, like schools, hospitals, 
churches and the smells of certain seasons, especially
autumn.  Major flashbacks, sometimes going all the way
back to my childhood.  They're usually pleasant, but not
always.

There are also musical triggers, too, of course.  One of
the reasons I'm so partial to dancing at Slipknot gigs...
Someday I'd like to do the same out west if I can ever
get to the 'Springs when Shakedown is there...  Dancing
to the Dead brings back all sorts of memories -- of things
I've never done, sometimes...;-)

tim

	I have had amazingly strong memories triggered by a smell.

	some, that have to do with my grandmother - the smell of
	onions frying (my mom never cooked with onions), brushing
	past a tomato plant in the garden (my family never had 
	a vegetable garden), a gardenia in blossom (she had such
	a green thumb), and then just lately I bought some Dove soap 
	for the first time I guess, and when I used it and smelled it, 
	it brought me right back to that old clawfooted tub with the
	rubber stopper hanging from the faucet by a little chain, in the 
	bathroom down the end of the looong dark hallway at my grandparents' 
	house, sitting in a tubfull of bubbles I was creating and spilling 
	them and the water all over the floor.  Don't know how old I was,
	but younger than 10.  I had to ask my mom - what kind of soap did
	Nanny use?  Sure enough - Dove.

    ....sometimes places do this for me....for example, I used to date this
    wonderful woman back in 1977 (she's gone now, unfortunately)...if anyone
    remembers "parking", well, let's just say we added a few chapters to
    that book....there was this one place, next to an old bridge in
    Lancaster, Ma that we fequented many a moon...one time a Powlice-type
    person pulled up behind my car, shone the search light into the car,
    I pops my head outta the back window (which was steamed-over real
    nice), and the Powlice-type-person just says "Oh, OK....just don't
    leave a mess..."
    
    now that's a COOL Powlice-type-person.....
    
    now that road is closed, and every time I go by that spot, I get all
    fuzzy.....ahhhhh...memories, Stipmy.....memories....
    
    
    macky

    grate topic and some grate notes so far...makes me smile...
    
    Wild animals always trigger memories for me, mainly cause I've been an
    outdoors type-o-guy all my life and have seen alot of animals in the
    wild. When I see a certain type of animal now-a-dazes, it usually makes
    me remember some past experiance with that same animal. The Golden
    Eagles last Monday triggered memories of a really nasty winter in South
    PArk when the Goldens as well as the Bald eagles were all over the
    place scavinging the bunnies and such that didn't make it thru the
    storm.... A deer at timberline will trigger a different memory than a deer
    in South Park... A coyote running will trigger a different memory than a
    coyote standing still or hunting.
    
    Everytime I go fishing, that trip brings up nice memories of past
    fishing trips...be they with my dad (we went fishing every weekend
    before his first tour of Viet-NAm) or with friends, both deadheads and not.
    
    Every hunting trip brings back fond memories from childhood to what i
    call my "middle hunting years", with friends that some are no longer
    with us on this plane of existence, to "todays" hunting trips. 
    
    And of course, certain deadsongs always make me turn and ask those
    around.."Remember the X shows and when they played this song?". 
    
    Then there's the subtle little things that make me think of those
    friends that have passed on...often a joke makes me think of
    Hoot...often a piece of art makes me think of Pat...there's more...
    
    rfb
      

    Whenever I think about th past, it brings back a lot of memories...

    
    	-1	Ouch.  (the last few)
    
    		g

    
    	duh.... should be more specific.   That was aimed at rfb
    
    		g

    
    re- macky
    
    funny. I get that same feeling whenever there's a hurricane!!! :-)

Among other things, meteors do it for me (ok, now WHO is surprised at
that! ;-)

From long time ago general memories:  Riding in the back of the station
wagon on the way home, lying down looking through the windows at
the stars and seeing these streaks across the sky.

Boy Scout summer camp learning the constellations from Fred Miska
down in the archery field which was a walk down the dirt
road from our campsite.  We always seemed to camp the 2nd or
3rd week in August, which I now realize is primetime for 
the Perseids.

Camping with the family during a school vacation in the old tent
trailer my father had bought.  Somewhere south of New Jersey perhaps,
don't remember what I was doing but I remember the meteor that flashed
down through Orion a bit right of the sword in the twilight.
Thinking about that today, driving in, I was thinking, what the hell
time of year was that!  Orion is pretty much setting in the twilight
about now.  Must have been an early Easter vacation...

Sitting with Carl and Dave on Dave's back porch, doing the weekly 
Saturday night German beer thing.  Me and Carl with our backs to Dave's
house and Dave facing us.  Carl and I going "Holy Shit!" as this bright
sucker just climbed down the sky almost all the way to the horizon,
and Dave going "What? What?"  ;-)

Going out on my back porch one frigid December night during the 
Geminid shower.  Seeing about a meteor every minute or less.
"There's one, and another, and another and...."  Couldn't take the
cold for more than 15 minutes or so, but saw 15 or 20 in that span.

Another time with Carl out in the backyard of my house during the 
Perseids.  Saw a bunch that night, but one beautiful one that 
just went out with a brilliant flash that light up the yard!

And yet another time with Carl and his brother Craig, who had come up
for an evening of telescope viewing and to catch the recently released
Star Trek movie (I think Trek VI, with the Klingon moon exploding,
and Iman as the shape-shifter...) This was the time I DIDN'T see
the meteors!  But, as I was setting up the scope and finding 
interesting objects, I kept hearing Carl and Craig going, "Oh wow,
look at that!"  "There's another one!"  "Did you see that one?"
Ah, no I didn't, and I was starting to get a bit annoyed...  ;-)

And lots of others...

PeterT

when ever i see an '80 or '81 Z28 i think of my college
daze.  those were the best days of my life... just massive
amounts of freedom and very little responsibility compared
with the life i have now.  since i was one of very few in my
friendship circle at college lucky enough to have a car, 
we did a LOT of roadtrips in that camaro.  NYC. NJ. Mass, NH,
VT, all over the freakin' place.  i could spend hours
telling you about the good ones but i won't bore you.

interesting how life changes
and just keeps on going.

any one have a mint '80 or '81 Z28 for sale?
I want to attempt to relive my youthful years :-)

re       <<< Note 574.15 by 16.11.160.127::JC "Solar garlic starts to rot" >>>

>any one have a mint '80 or '81 Z28 for sale?
>I want to attempt to relive my youthful years :-)

Awright!  JC's about to start having his midlife crisis!  :-))))


 - Josh

    no he's not....he's not old enough....wait 10 more years and I can
    coach him...
    
    rfb

    
    
    
               What a memory that rfb has....such detail....:^).
    
    

    
    	Sittin' here listening to disk 3 of Dozin'..... starts w/space
    into The Wheel.....   Brought me right back to my 1st show, '85 or
    '86 at CCCC in Portland, Me.  Very close to what they did that nite,
    in fact close enuf, that shivers (me timbers) went up and down my
    back.....
    
    	glen(n) the old but late bloomer......
    

    
    The smell of anti-bacterial soap reminds me of when my
    daughter was born. my wife had a fever and they transferred
    Danielle to the neo-natal unit to get anti-biotics as a
    precaution (even though she weighed 7+ lbs. we had to scrub up
    just to see/hold her for 7 days
    
    
    Toby