I’m 35 and my sense of smell is terrible now compared to when I was a kid. I can vividly remember all sorts of smells from back then - how different rooms smelled differently, how opening a closet, cupboard, book, bag or whatever would flood my mind with different sensations.
Today I have to stick my nose directly down to things to smell them properly.
Then once in a while, some days my sense of smell magically works a lot better. I then go around smelling everything almost like a crazy person and I get extremely nostalgic with all the memories that comes flooding back. Then the next day it’s gone. Doctors at a loss and I’ve found no connection to what I eat. It’s infuriating.
On the flipside my mental imaging skills have always been very good. I’m quite good at following maps and it’s like I always mentally knows which way is north/south/east/west. I can mentally “fly through” entire 3D scenes (between cities, through 3D maps in computer games) and I visualize most algorithms I program in some abstract 3D space. If asked to recite a license plate I have to bring up a mental image of the plate and then read it off of that. For things I know by heart I don’t have to of course. I used to (badly) remember birthdays as an arrow pointing on a date on some circular disk representing the year. Because I had so little interest in remembering birthdays when I was younger, my sisters made a disc for me with the birthdays on it - but my sisters mental view of the year wasn’t the same (rotated) so it confused me even more than it helped.
During preschool we were introduced to the various ways people learn (visual, aural, verbal, physical, logical, social, solitary). It is probably not a very accurate representation of how we actually learn but it was an eye opener to me that not everyone saw the way that I did.
Then once in a while, some days my sense of smell magically works a lot better. I then go around smelling everything almost like a crazy person and I get extremely nostalgic with all the memories that comes flooding back. Then the next day it’s gone. Doctors at a loss and I’ve found no connection to what I eat. It’s infuriating.
On the flipside my mental imaging skills have always been very good. I’m quite good at following maps and it’s like I always mentally knows which way is north/south/east/west. I can mentally “fly through” entire 3D scenes (between cities, through 3D maps in computer games) and I visualize most algorithms I program in some abstract 3D space. If asked to recite a license plate I have to bring up a mental image of the plate and then read it off of that. For things I know by heart I don’t have to of course. I used to (badly) remember birthdays as an arrow pointing on a date on some circular disk representing the year. Because I had so little interest in remembering birthdays when I was younger, my sisters made a disc for me with the birthdays on it - but my sisters mental view of the year wasn’t the same (rotated) so it confused me even more than it helped.
During preschool we were introduced to the various ways people learn (visual, aural, verbal, physical, logical, social, solitary). It is probably not a very accurate representation of how we actually learn but it was an eye opener to me that not everyone saw the way that I did.