So I was having a talk one day with my wife, telling her about a dream I had in which I got shot. I mentioned that I felt no pain from the wound, and she replied that she would have been in agony.

It was in that moment I realized that I have never felt pain in my dreams. I would certainly act as if I was, but I wouldn’t feel it. Upon my wife’s reply, I asked her if she felt pain in her dreams, and she said yes.

I then asked her if imagining a needle going into the tip of her finger would—

“Aie!” she said squeamishly, clutching her fingers.

I was fascinated. She was able to imagine the pain so well that she physically felt it.

This is something I cannot do. I cannot create a sensation of pain with my mind, not by imagining an injury, nor by remembering an injury that I actually suffered. Although I can describe the pain I had in the weeks after I had my wisdom teeth removed, and I can remember the difficulties in breathing and sleeping when I had broken ribs, what I absolutely lack is the ability to imagine or remember the pain itself.

Very quickly, I realized pain was not the only sensation that I was unable to mentally recreate. I asked my wife if she was able to smell or taste in her dreams, and she replied that she could do both. I have had dreams where I am eating something, but I never recalled tasting anything. Even when I am awake, I do not have the ability to imagine a smell or taste! This hit me like a train, because my wife did have the ability.

If I asked her to imagine a slice of orange hovering in front of her nose, she could imagine the tangy smell. If I asked her to remember the taste of her favourite sweet, her expression would turn into one of bliss as if she were having the sweet that very moment.

I ran further tests. I noted her disgust and pleas for me to stop when I started listing horrible stenches. Professional jealousy.

All this prompted a question: was she the weirdo, or was I? Was I sensorially handicapped, or was she sensorially gifted?

Before I answer that question, I want to briefly mention the other senses we tested:

Sight. Both of us can picture things in our head, as we imagine most people can.

Hearing. Both of us can imagine the shatter of glass against stone, or a verbal conversation. We can both remember and play music in our heads, and create sounds that we don’t usually hear in our day to day lives.

Temperature. Both of us can imagine heat and cold (although I cannot imagine the extremes that lead to pain, such as touching boiling water).

Touch. Both of us can imagine the rough surface of tree bark, or the softness of a cotton ball. This is actually an interesting one to me, because although I cannot imagine the taste of a slice of orange, I can easily imagine the feel of it in my mouth, the velvety surface, the burst of cold juices upon a bite, and the chew of tough fibery husks.

We decided to ask family and friends.

With our sensory memories detailed, we decided it was time to ask friends and family. Would one of us turn out to be special?

What an interesting enterprise. Oh, how satisfying it was to see everyone we ask learn about this, as if they too were only realizing these things for the first time.

The answer became apparent: my wife is not gifted, and I am not handicapped. We noted that a full spectrum of ranges was surfacing with every person we quizzed. There were certainly more common patterns appearing, but also several unique ones.

By far the most common senses people had mental access to were sight and hearing; it was no surprise. However, there were a couple of interesting outliers:

JM described the ability to hear sounds in his head, but only if they were from memory. That meant that he was unable to imagine a friend saying something if it wasn’t from a recollection. He could play music in his mind, but could not alter its pitch, rhythm, or lyrics in any way. JM was the first person apart from me who also had a hard time imagining the sensation of pain.

MC is by far the most unique person interviewed. She is unable to imagine any of the aforementioned senses, including sight and sound. She cannot picture a flower in her head, nor its colours, nor recall music. To draw a lion she would require a model. To draw a shape, for example a triangle, she works off of the knowledge that a triangle has three sides. She does dream though, but the dreams are pure ‘emotion’, as she would describe them.

This prompted a question: can we imagine emotion? It turns out that my wife and I, as well as JM can. This could be an additional sense to add to our little quiz.

To my relief, I was not alone in my inability to imagine smell and taste. My best friend was the same, and he certainly made clear his anguish when he realized this ‘handicap’. He would have preferred to live his life blissfully unaware of the fact that he was, as he put it, ‘missing out’.

I apologize in advance to any reader of this blog who might feel the same way…

Several of our family members had some mixture or the other of sensorial memory. Some unable to recall taste, but able to recall smell, or vice versa, and others able to do both or neither. The other senses varied among the responses as well. One friend vividly described his dream of being mauled by wolves, and feeling the pain. He looked at me resentfully as I described that I wouldn’t know what it felt like. 

Want to join the fun?

Perhaps you would be interested in contributing to my research (mad scientist giggle in the background). I have a survey prepared for anyone who would like to share their sensory range, here:

It’s a simple quiz that can be filled out in 60 seconds. I bet that you’ll find it fun, so be sure to share it with family and friends! The results will be posted on both my blog and Sciathlon’s.

Sciathlon: “When we have a gathered data from a statistically significant number of participants.”

Me, sighing: “Yeah, yeah…”

This topic affected my writing.

Upon discovering all this, I realized something important about my writing. Since I cannot easily imagine tastes or smells, I had a tendency to leave out those senses from my prose.

I mean, it makes sense doesn’t it? You write what’s in your head, and I didn’t have two senses available to draw imagination from.

I realized that those people, like my wife, who are capable of imagining those sensations so vividly, would be missing out on a feast of feelings due to my writing. What a sobering thought… and it drove me to action.

I began to make mental notes of every smell and taste I could. Every sip of champagne, I made effort to commit it to memory. Though I could enjoy the taste and smell in the moment, I would soon after be unable to recall them, but I would have the notes of my experience.

It helped to expand my vocabulary, for example reading reviews of professional tasters, or browsing lists of words used to describe various scents and tastes.

So, with these new strategies, I wrote a scene where a character is sipping champagne and was able to describe the sight of amber, the whisper of effervescence, and a toasty scent, the crispy taste of apples.

And though reading my own written words wont always give me the pleasure of enjoying a scent or taste, at least I can rest easy knowing that my readers will be able to benefit from it…