Have you ever noticed how a smell or a taste can transport us to another time or place? This is not an exaggeration, but a scientifically proven fact. It even has a name - the 'Proust syndrome'.
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) was a famous French writer.
In his autobiographical novel, Remembrance Of Times Past, the narrator ate a piece of madeleine cake - a rich cookie-like pastry - with lime flower tea. Then wonderful memories of his childhood came flooding back. He used to get a small piece of cake from his aunt before going out to church on Sunday mornings when he was a child.
When the book was published in volumes between 1913 and 1927, this key scene was taken as literary imagination.
Now scientists have found that the senses of smell and taste do play a major role in triggering memories.
The sensory input that evokes a memory is called a trigger.
Our identity therefore comes through touching, seeing, feeling, telling and experiencing. But it is believed that taste and smell are the most powerful of all triggers.