the parkie Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 (edited) What have you personally hallucinated Drew, out of interest? Also, I hope you're not confusing misperception with hallucination. Edited February 6, 2015 by the parkie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMBigfoot Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Other possible explanations for the BF odor are, maybe a BF has IBS or gas? Possibly from all the fruit and junkfood some people leave out as gifts? I'm pretty sure during one of my encounters a BF had the walking farts. And that was the only time I've ever smelled a foul odor when a BF was around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew Posted February 6, 2015 Author Share Posted February 6, 2015 What have you personally hallucinated Drew, out of interest? Also, I hope you're not confusing misperception with hallucination. Bigfoot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Thats brilliant, Flash! B y transforming the crazy imagery into a psycho-medical condition that is diagnosible , Pfizer finally found a way to profit off the bigfoot phenomena while maintaining the stigma of insanity! Sheer genius! Soon, we'll see ads "Do your suffer occaisional overwhelming clouds of stinkiness? Do you sense the presence of large hairy creatures, without visual confirmation? Or have anxiety when driving down desolate country roads? If so, ask your doctor if Sasquatol might work for your symptoms, and for you!" Side effects may include camping, ridicule from friends, and unsubstantiated internet posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Bigfoot. Yah, about that, why do you think it took a trip to an area reputed to contain bigfoot, before you saw a bigfoot, why didn't he just join you in the shower or something? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Drew, I like your out side the box thinking but I doubt that would explain more than a few reports of foul smells in the forest. Most would be naturally occurring methane or H2S and dead animals rotting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guyzonthropus Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Makes one wonder what someone with visio-olfactory aphasia would see when they smell a sasquatch.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JiggyPotamus Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 There are many conditions that are "possible," and which have been used to explain certain tendencies in the sighting record, my personal favorite being hallucinations. Yet I have never known anyone that suffered from random hallucinations, and I imagine that most other people haven't either- aside from prevalent psychological conditions like schizophrenia, which would have other accompanying symptoms and would be more obvious and not so localized most of the time. You wouldn't expect someone who never hallucinates to suddenly hallucinate when they happen to be in the woods, and then think it was a bigfoot of all things. I am using this example because I have never experienced phantom smells, and I have never known anyone who experienced such things either. If they have it was never an awful or overpowering odor or anything like that, considering that it was apparently not worth mentioning. I can recall times when someone has asked me if I smell something, and then they go on to describe the smell, which never seems to last very long and which is never as strong or bad as the odor of a skunk or anything like that. Perhaps these instances are indicative of phantosmia, but if this is the case such instances seem relatively mundane as opposed to important unexplained events that leave one scratching their head, which would be more likely to happen if the smell was horrible and overpowering, and nobody else could smell it. Personally I have a good sense of smell for some reason. I am usually the first to smell certain odors. For instance, out here in the woods where I live I can catch the smell of a skunk while I'm inside the house, before it even really smells like a skunk, and before anyone else smells anything. I suppose it is just a very small quantity of the odor that finds its way into the house, and because of this small quantity it does not smell quite like a skunk, so I will always go walk outside and sure enough it is a skunk. I don't really have a point with this paragraph, just wanted to brag on my sense of smell, lol. The point that I wanted to make is that certain conditions are not widespread. Sure they occur in a certain number of individuals. How long does the smell last? It varies I suppose. A person would know something was wrong if nobody else smelled anything, and the phantom smell lasted a considerable amount of time. The chances would likely be small for any one person to have this condition, but even if they did there are 1440 minutes in a day and the condition could strike at any time. And why aren't there numerous reports of bigfoot smelling like lavender? It is possible for the phantom smell to originate during what is interpreted as a sasquatch encounter, but why in the world would this be experienced by a meaningful percentage of the already small percentage of individuals who suffer from this condition, at the exact moment of a bigfoot encounter? I cannot believe that a perceived sasquatch encounter, or even a genuine sasquatch encounter, would trigger an unlikely condition when nothing suggests that it is triggered by an emotional response to begin with. If we were strictly using known scientific phenomena, with known scientific mechanisms of action, then the idea that stress triggers this condition is not supported. I suppose it is possible, but we would essentially be tailoring a known scientific phenomenon to make it applicable to bigfoot, and thus explain an ongoing phenomenon among certain eyewitnesses. Now if this condition were known to be triggered by certain types of stress or external causes not related to an infection or something like that, then I think it would be a much more viable explanation. It is something to consider at the very least, but I just don't think it fits with what we currently know. (I just know what I read like 5 minutes ago where phantosmia is concerned however.) And if the condition were triggered by such factors, then we would have to explain why it is so prevalent where bigfoot is concerned, because there are all kinds of stress in life, and people respond to these stresses in different ways. We would also have to explain why this odor is picked up by people during what we would perceive to be a possible bigfoot encounter, but that they would not, considering they never saw the animal; they only experienced trees being broken, grunting noises, etc...Definitely not as stressful as a visual sighting. The evidence, which is a very bad small in conjunction with a visual sasquatch sighting, exists in quite a number of cases. Probably even a meaningful percentage of all reported sasquatch cases. With that being said, here is what we could do to get a better idea whether phantosmia is truly coming into play: analyze the sightings in which a pungent odor is mentioned, and attempt to determine how many of such cases contained multiple eyewitnesses, all of whom noticed the smell. Of course this would likely be very difficult, both because most sighting reports are written by a single individual, even when there are multiple witnesses, and because it would be time-consuming to comb through reports for this specific information. Perhaps what would work better is for those conducting interviews to specifically request this information, and then speak to the other witnesses who were present. I'm sure you see what I mean, considering that if more than one witness describes a similar odor, it would be virtually impossible that the smells were of a phantom nature. The same goes for visual hallucinations, considering that even rarer than a hallucination is for multiple individuals to share a hallucination. Although I have seen this explanation proposed for a few phenomena, which causes me to shake my head in disgust, lol. IF it were even possible it would be extremely rare, which works well for those attempting to "scientifically" explain mass sightings that rarely occur. It seems that even the most unlikely explanation MUST be the right one when one is unwilling to consider possibilities that they do not understand or which clash with the scientific status quo...even when those possibilities offer a much better explanation for the particular occurrence. That is not related to bigfoot by the way, but is just a general statement about a very specific type of clinging to ideas that are known to be tentative, or at best only a partial explanation of the world around us, considering science itself advances and develops over time. Many new scientific discoveries will essentially consist of additions or additions accompanied by slight revisions, as opposed to major upheavals, and the same goes with the existence of bigfoot in my opinion. Anyway, while I disagree with your hypothesis, if you were even presenting it as a hypothesis as opposed to just throwing it out there for debate, there remains the possibility that phantosmia or a similar phenomenon could play a part in sasquatch sightings- I just do not feel there is enough to suggest as much at this point in time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beerhunter Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Sometimes, after I eat beans, I smell foul odors preceded by imagined barking spiders! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the parkie Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Bigfoot. Any further details please? Have you detailed your hallucination here anywhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Thats brilliant, Flash! B y transforming the crazy imagery into a psycho-medical condition that is diagnosible , Pfizer finally found a way to profit off the bigfoot phenomena while maintaining the stigma of insanity! Sheer genius! Soon, we'll see ads "Do your suffer occaisional overwhelming clouds of stinkiness? Do you sense the presence of large hairy creatures, without visual confirmation? Or have anxiety when driving down desolate country roads? If so, ask your doctor if Sasquatol might work for your symptoms, and for you!" Followed shortly by commercials saying that Sasquatol causes cancer and that you may be entitled to financial compensation. Cheatem' and Steal, attorneys at law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bipedalist Posted February 7, 2015 BFF Patron Share Posted February 7, 2015 There is a large number of people experiencing some form of hallucination. I did a poll here at the old BFF I believe, that asked who has experienced some form of hallucination while driving, and the affirmative results were between 30-40%. I think this is higher than the general population, leading to the question "Does Bigfootry attract people prone to hallucinations?" We discussed Black Dog hallucinations, and the forums where truck drivers relate their experience with driving while tired and the hallucinations. It is far more common than you would like to think. Reference hypnopompic hallucination as well as hyponogogic. A hypnopompic state (or hypnopomp) is the state of consciousness leading out of sleep, a term coined by the psychical researcher Frederic Myers. Its twin is the hypnagogic state at sleep onset; though often conflated, the two states are not identical. The hypnagogic state is rational waking cognition trying to make sense of non-linear images and associations; the hypnopompic state is emotional and credulous dreaming cognition trying to make sense of real world stolidity. They have a different phenomenological character. Depressed frontal lobe function in the first few minutes after waking – known as "sleep inertia" – causes slowed reaction time and impaired short-term memory. Sleepers often wake confused, or speak without making sense, a phenomenon the psychologist Peter McKeller calls "hypnopompic speech." When the awakening occurs out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in which most dreams occur, the hypnopompic state is sometimes accompanied by lingering vivid imagery. Some of the creative insights attributed to dreams actually happen in this moment of awakening from REM. In The Committee of Sleep, Margie Profet's McArthur-award winning biology experiment is shown to be one of these. Read more: http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/knowledge/Hypnopompic.html#ixzz3R5Qffy3Q What you are attempting to do is to say many or most who report BF encounters late at night are experiencing nothing but highway hypnosis, hypnogogic hallucinations/hypnopompic hallucinations. As I remember you used to play the narcolepsy card to account for daytime sightings too. I think this is a remote possibility in some instances but far from the majority of valid BF encounter reporting I am sure. In the case of "when you hear hoofbeats think horses not zebras" I think in most cases of detailed nocturnal reports the horses are the real BF that are being reported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beerhunter Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 (edited) I don't think the attempt to explain away the BF phenomenon with sweeping generalizations of a one size fits all diagnosis is appropriate. For example, when I am driving down the road and smell road-kill, and I then see the drivers ahead of me avoiding the road-kill with their vehicles and I finally see the road-kill and drive my vehicle to avoid the mess on the road - I know every person on that road cannot be hallucinating or have sinus/migraine problems, we merely have clean cars. Edited February 7, 2015 by beerhunter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jayjeti Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 I'm surprised no one here seems aware of a common explanation for what causes this odor. When male gorillas are under high stress situations, like being pursued by poachers, they release a horribly pungent odor out of auxiliary glands in their armpits. Humans also have these glands that react to nervous stress, but it doesn't produce an overwhelming odor. This is the reason only a small percentage of BF encounters result in a bad odor, something needs to trigger this involuntary response. The following is copied from an article: Canadian retired journalist and Bigfoot researcher John Green says that only about 10% of Sasquatch sightings are connected with a strong smell. It is this distinctive stench that separates Bigfoot from the other cryptids. Now, the question is, why the smell? Why does this happen when a sighting occurs? The answer could be as simple as a defense mechanism. Similarly to the skunk, mountain gorillas are now known for emitting an intense odor. Anthropologist Dian Fossey recorded this fact in 1993. When frightened, she said, “the hair on each male’s headcrest stood erect and an overpowering fear odor permeated the air“. In 1997, Dr. W. Fahrenbach, a retired biologist from the Oregon Primate Center, referred to George Schaller description of the gorilla’s hormonal release: “a mix of sweat, manure, charred wood and burning rubberâ€. This odor, he explained, emanates from the axillary organ, which is located in the armpit. http://cryptozoologynews.com/tsiatko-skunk-ape-bigfoot-odor/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobbyO Posted February 7, 2015 SSR Team Share Posted February 7, 2015 I'm surprised no one here seems aware of a common explanation for what causes this odor. Oh I think many are Jay for sure, it's just there is absolutely no point whatsoever in explaining this to the OP. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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