Is it possible to hallucinate smells and tastes that don't actually exist?

Question

I usually only see, hear, and feel things that aren't really there, so have you ever tasted or smelled something that wasn't there? Is it possible? What kinds of smells or tastes?

Answer 1

Yes, that's generally caused by drug usage, however.

Answer 2

How do you know they don't exist? You should have been more thorough in your question.

Answer 3

You can only hallucinate what can possibly exist. It does not necessarily have to be known or seen before.

Answer 4

Definitely, whenever I take LSD, new tastes and smells are the most distinct hallucinations.

Answer 5

Yes, it is possible to hallucinate smells and tastes, although much rarer - possibly because they are the weaker senses or have less neurological underpinning. Often bad smells/tastes. But like all hallucinations it depends on the individual.

Answer 6

I don't know if it is an hallucination or what, but for the past 3 weeks, I have been smelling smoke very frequently, where there isn't any. I think it's stress related. (either that or I have a brain tumor!)

Answer 7

I thought I killed 65 people on a train with a wooden stick once, I freaked out till I realized it was a hallucination

Answer 8

What kind of drugs were you on at the time?

Answer 9

I have had a hallucination of a smell, but it only lasted a second.

I was thinking of a memory, and a distinctive smell that I smelled at the time I was thinking of kind of "flashed" in my nose. It was great vanilla-ish scent.. I can only imagine what it would be like to hallucinate a taste. What if, you could just THINK of a familiar taste, and actually taste it? That would be fantastic!

Answer 10

yes. anything really. everything we feel and smell and see is just electric impulses in our brain. havent you seen the matrix? our brain can get tricked and there are probably lots of things our brain cant interpret-like how we cant see all colors like ultraviolet and stuff.

Answer 11

Yeah, but it isn't hallucination. It's just a warped interpretation of the information your brain gets. I don't know because it's never happened to me, however yes, you can smell something acrid where there is only something sour and such.  

Answer 12

NO to tasting, but

YES to smelling!

My current apartment contains a ghost that I nicknamed "Perfume" because she used to occasionally flood the place with the scent of it.

Now she has moved on to other tricks - like waking my boyfriend up by tapping him on the shoulder if he goes back to sleep after I've gone to work in the mornings.

ALSO,

My paternal grandmother used to complain about smelling second-hand cigar smoke after her husband (a cigar smoker, of course) died.  Not having any inklings about spiritual matters, she just complained of it as being a nuissance.  My mother, though, who was more familiar with spiritual concepts, knew what was happening and told me that Grandpa was coming back to visit Grandma, but she just wasn't aware of it.

However, "wasn't there" and "halucinating" sort of describe what I feel to be a misleading concept.  According to my own beliefs, what we think "isn't there" really IS "there", but in a different bandwidth or frequency range from the one we live in.  They all DO exist, but in an energy range beyond our perceptive spectrum.

So it is not HALUCINATING, but rather, "crossing signals" with another frequency range.  Of course, it is highly possible that this is what most of the experiences we call "halucinating" really ARE - perceiving something in a usually imperceptable section of the energy spectrum.

Answer 13

YES it is very possible the human mind is very complex and what you taste may be different to what other people percieve. the same goes for smell and sight. how ever what you hear depends on how good your hearing some people can hear higher od lower decibles of sound then others they are sensitive to what others are not.