Have you ever had the experience where a smell or a taste pulls you into a world of memory? One bite of a cookie of a similar kind to those in your old school cafeteria, and suddenly you can practically see the linoleum floors and hear the squeak of plastic chairs. Most people can have these sudden reveries – I can’t.
When I have come across descriptions of this phenomenon – Proust’s madeleine scene, for instance, or the memory bubbles in the movie Inside Out – I’ve always assumed that it was some kind of metaphorical device. I had no idea that most people actually re-experience moments from their pasts in some sensory detail, even if it’s a bit shaky or faint.
