Wow.

[feuervogel]

So, with the 90-minute commute I've had the last month or so, I've been going through my CDs and listening to ones I haven't in ages, or just don't listen to enough in general.

Yesterday it was Pretty Hate Machine, which I played the hell out of in high school (that and the Downward Spiral.)

Sitting in my car with Nine Inch Nails blasting out the speakers, it was almost like I was 16 again. I could see why the younger me was so drawn to it, and look at that little bit of history like an interesting rock I picked up off the ground. I mean, damn but Trent Reznor spoke to my teen angst. (What? I had angst as a teen! I just never really thought I did at the time, I guess.)

Is that what people who associate X with Y feel when they experience X again? It's a completely new thing for me.

Comments

[tsubasa.livejournal.com]

This happens to me with smells. I have some old bottles of lotion that are almost empty and a half-emtpy thing of lipgloss that I used in high school. Open them up and take a whiff, and I am 17 again. So I sort of know what you mean.

[feuervogel]

Yes, just like that! I've never been particularly introspective or had anything resembling associational memories before. It's very weird.

[anacoluthon.livejournal.com]

YES. Oil of Olay has this body wash that smells like my first boyfriend. I don't really want to smell him, and I don't buy their stuff really, but sometimes I'll be visiting someone and will smell it and it's like I'm being hit in the head with a memory of Matt Kelley.

I have many many music/scent triggers like that. I could probably list several dozen.

[tsubasa.livejournal.com]

Black Cherry lipgloss from the Body Shop smells like winterguard practice to me. In the lower gym at my high school.

Diesel exhaust from buses smells like band trips. I actually *like* the smell of diesel exhaust because of this fact.

I have an ancient tube of Mary Kay eye makeup remover that smells like both winterguard but moreso Rocky Horror. That scary changing room up behind the screen where I would descend from in my Frank heels during the Time Warp...

I am trying to think of more but failing at the moment. Music reminds me of things, but it doesn't really transport me in time/place the way smells do.