I always thought when people talked about “smelling fear” it was just a poetic way of saying it was obvious that someone was afraid. I’ve certainly never been aware of picking up on a person’s emotions via scent or heard someone say that they’ve done that.
Can you smell it on yourself? Like, do you find that your sweaty clothes smell the same after a run and, say, a presentation (or something else that gives you anxiety/scares you)? I think it’s most noticeable with my own sweat, but fear/anxiety sweat smells bad to me in a way that normal body odor or exercise sweat don’t.
Sex sweat also smells very different, but that’s normally more pleasant to me than the others. I haven’t noticed a specific smell of aggression or any other kind of sweat though.
Edit: I think you’re right that “smelling fear” is metaphoric, but I did not realize that until I started talking about it.
Maybe check it out next time, if you have a good sense of smell. Apparently it’s something people react to subconsciously, so I wonder if it can be trained.
That’s crazy to me. I’m just learning all this. I barely have a sense of smell so distinguishing between different kinds of sweats is probably entirely out of my reach. I’ll try and train it still
I always thought when people talked about “smelling fear” it was just a poetic way of saying it was obvious that someone was afraid. I’ve certainly never been aware of picking up on a person’s emotions via scent or heard someone say that they’ve done that.
Can you smell it on yourself? Like, do you find that your sweaty clothes smell the same after a run and, say, a presentation (or something else that gives you anxiety/scares you)? I think it’s most noticeable with my own sweat, but fear/anxiety sweat smells bad to me in a way that normal body odor or exercise sweat don’t.
Sex sweat also smells very different, but that’s normally more pleasant to me than the others. I haven’t noticed a specific smell of aggression or any other kind of sweat though.
Edit: I think you’re right that “smelling fear” is metaphoric, but I did not realize that until I started talking about it.
No, I can’t say I’ve ever noticed a particular scent of anxiety on myself.
Maybe check it out next time, if you have a good sense of smell. Apparently it’s something people react to subconsciously, so I wonder if it can be trained.
That’s crazy to me. I’m just learning all this. I barely have a sense of smell so distinguishing between different kinds of sweats is probably entirely out of my reach. I’ll try and train it still
It’s the only sense of mine that’s at all good, so that probably has something to do with it