08-23-01 @ 2:33 am EDT

Okay, I'm stepping forward to say that I think I have olfactory (smell) hallucinations. This is odd because I have no other sorts of hallucinations that I can think of, and I always thought they belonged to people who are...you know...crazy. And don't know it. They say that a person who thinks they're crazy isn't, and a person who doesn't think they're crazy is. Me? I often think I'm crazy. Smelling things that aren't there is weird.

But anyway, I've recognized two scents I can place my finger on. They come and go. I'm "suffering" through one right now. A long time ago carbon monoxide was leaking into our house and I could smell the soot or something, as there was always this sweet ashy woody smell that gave me headaches. I'm smelling this thing right now and I'll be damned if it's not giving me a headache. I KNOW it is not there. And I KNOW the headache must be psychosomatic, a response to getting headaches before. We had our furnace cleaned and fixed a long time ago; it can't even spring a carbon monoxide leak like that anymore. Plus, our furnace hasn't even been running--it's summer! Yet I've been smelling this all night. It's driving me nuts.

The other scent isn't so unpleasant. I've pinpointed it as a mixture of spearmint and gasoline. No, that's not as awful a combo as you might think. It's actually rather nice and I like that smell...at least, the way that I smell it. In my head. Because there is no spearmint and gasoline lying around the house!!

I don't know when these started but I do know the spearmint/gasoline one started a long long time ago, probably the late Eighties, because I remember it back then. It comes and it goes. It usually stays for a day or a few, then goes away for months. Last time I smelled it was a couple weeks ago. The sooty one isn't as common, and I think it must have started up after the carbon monoxide episode. Because I wouldn't have recognized the scent before then.

Ohhh my head is aching. This smell is awful.

I know, it could be worse and I could smell rotting corpses or something. But this is already weird enough. First I'm smelling things! What next??

Has this happened to anyone else who has no other recognizable problems? All I've been diagnosed with is OCD and ADD, and I'm pretty sure I'm avoidant...but that's it! Where do the hallucinations come from?? If that's even what they are??

I need to find something good to sniff...