The first time I came home from college, the house I grew up in seemed so different.

I couldn’t figure out how…

But it’s the same thing that happens after a long holiday away or having just spent the summer at camp. It all seems so foreign. From the outer façade, to the windows, to the walls, till the sweat drips down my balls because where the fork and knife am I, even? Is this the place in which I grew into the enchanting young specimen I am who now has a whole year full of smarter-than-you under my belt? Is that really the couch on which I puked violently during the first party I had while my parents were away? Did we always have these kitchen tiles?

But – most importantly – what’s that strange and unidentifiable ambient scent?

Certainly not me…

Mmmyes – and no. The answer, as you might guess, is that it was all always there. But much the way you’ll hear an Brit or Aussie tell you, “I ain’t got the accent, mate – you do!” or the kids from Wayside school (a childhood favorite tale) couldn’t taste their own “ice cream flavor”, we get used to the peripheral stimuli surrounding us until we’re taken away from it and return – in a phenomena called “sensory threshold”. After the smells bounce around into our olfactory bulb and interact with the limbic system (which drives instinct and mood), a sort of “shut off” mechanism happens when a certain chemical threshold gets met. So regardless of whether the scent’s like Yankee candle or more like toxic mold, you acclimate.

And you probably smell like it too.

Why, though? I mean – why doesn’t it happen with some of our other senses?

I never went blind during that phase of my life when I spent hours watching NetFlix-athons of everything from Dexter to The L Word. I also never stopped feeling the prodding pointer finger of that brat behind me in Kindergarten (although she may have lost permanent feeling in her right eye from the reaction it elicited from me). However, I do kind of stop being as delighted about the amazing dinner I just made after about bite ten or twenty. So, is it a kind of resourcefulness? Threshold time depends on sensory organ priority? Whichever ones are best at detecting the possible onset of danger turn off last?

Scientists did an interesting study on this as it relates to smell by using perfume and placebo effect: They fed the same smell into the nose holes of volunteers and told each group a different back story about it: For the first group – they said it was natural. For the second – they said it was a standard scent created to be used in a perfume. And for the third, they said it was an industrial solvent – like something you’d use to clean your house. The results? The last group was reported to have adapted less quickly while the others acclimated easily to the perceived natural, non-threat.

Did they really acclimate, though? Or did they just say they did?

My dad taught me about “power of suggestion” early on and the vocabulary manipulation is strong with this survey. If you tell me “rainforest”, I’mma think “natural, pretty, and pleasing”. That’s the control group. If you tell me “standard”, I’m going to think – status quo; non-threatening. If you tell me “industrial” or “solvent”, I’m going to harken back to my mother’s cautionary screams at me learning how to Lysol for the first time: “DON’T INHALE THOSE FUMES!” And sure, that’s the point of the trickery part. But short of shoving these folk under an MRI and showing me these scent-acclimations as a series of lights popping off that look any different from the rest of the class, I dunno if this proves “they adapted slower”. They might have. Maybe power of suggestion is enough to actually prolong threshold – but from what I saw, they were going off reports from subjects alone. What I do believe, however, is that because smell itself is linked to the limbic system (which includes memory info and emotional response) they remember it better based on the emotional response of fear linked to it. And that created link makes our brains capable of letting smell and the fear response wake one another other up – even to the point where we “think” we smell, for instance, smoke if someone says, “Is something burning?”

Yeah… as interesting as this study on ambient scent and our brains betraying us is, I feel like the psychological element of power of suggestion plays a larger part than is being given credit. But my true gripe is that it fails miserably at addressing a life long mystery I’d hoped science would finally answer as I was trolled into reading the article on this topic in the first place:

Why my dog sits tirelessly like an Ouroboros, inhaling her own farts, sans “acclimation”.

Your move, science.

I’ll hold my breath waiting for an answer (and stench theshold) to arrive.