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RE: Our sense of smell, a primitive sense

in StemSocial2 years ago

Fantosmia!!! I use to call that olfactory hallucinations. I noticed that during pregnancy my wife sense of smell increased excessively. To an extent where I won't be able to smell anything, while she could I think smell even micro levels of odor. I often often jokingly say, damn there is nothing I could find there, have you been all of a sudden gifted with heightened sense or smell or there is such thing as olfactory hallucinations. Turns out that females tend to have their olfactory senses on alert during pregnancy. So while that is not particularly "fantosmia", what I am keen to know if fantosmia is also commonly seen in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia or bipolar?

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This is a very intelligent comment @sciencieblocks, and one that adds value to the post. Olfactory hallucinations are another way we could call phantosmia, or vice versa, because in the end they are practically the same thing.
The detail is that these olfactory hallucinations can appear in people who do not have any type of psychiatric problem.
But in the case of psychiatric patients, in the more specific case of schizophrenia, where hallucinations of all kinds are normal, it is very common to see olfactory hallucinations, although what predominates are visual and auditory ones.
In bipolar disorder we could find hallucinations, of course, especially in the stage of greater emotional excitement of the patient, in the manic stage.
What you comment on the increase of your wife's sense is normal, women have the tendency to increase sensitivity in all its aspects, and considering that the sense of smell is a rather primitive organ, I must point out that it was very important in our ancestors, to be able to perceive dangers long before having them close, perhaps that particularity is preserved since ancient times, but it is interesting.