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First I want to say that I'm not a believer in ghosts, or a soul, or god or anything like that. However, I do believe that there are things that we, as humans, maybe be able to detect but don't quite understand how yet.
A few years ago my mother passed away. We had emptied her house other than the heavy furniture and I had gone over just to check everything one last time and silently say my last goodbyes. I went into the room where she passed, the bed was still there along with the covers and pillow. I was very aware of the quiet in the house. She lived by a busy street so there were almost constant sounds outside, but they were all muffled. It made the quiet in the house seem even more quiet, so perception was pretty high. I have always enjoyed this kind of quiet stillness.
Anyway, I was in the process of kneeling down at the foot of her bed (not even sure exactly why, as I certainly wasn't going to pray), and as I got closer to the bed I got the unmistakable smell of perfume for just a second on the way down, but once I was all the way down there was no smell at all. I guess I had intended to just lay my head on the bed for a few minutes and remember her, but now my thoughts would not leave the perfume.
I instantly reasoned that the smell had to have come from the bedding or the pillow, as it makes perfect sense, but a quick smell of the area, and indeed moving up and down several times as I had just done, trying to recreate the exact circumstances produced no smell at all. I looked around the room, there was nothing, just a chest of drawers, a nightstand, and the bed. No movement, no A/C or heat on, just quiet stillness.
I immediately felt my face flush and felt a bit of fight or flight, so I left. I know her favorite perfume very well, White Shoulders, she had worn it for years, yet I'm not sure that's what it was, it happened so fast. All I know is that it was without a doubt perfume, and there was none around anywhere.
I know that the part of the brain that controls memory and the part of the brain that controls smell are very near to each other, so we can sometimes literally create smells from memory for just an instant when diving deep into a memory, but I wasn't thinking of anything at the time, I was just trying to spend a few more moments there before the house was empty and sold.
I did return a few weeks later, the room was empty, and there was an altogether different feel to the place. It's as if I had felt something more last time, like something else was there, and this last time it clearly was not.
It was probably all in my mind, but it was an experience for sure.
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