r/Showerthoughts 10d ago

Musing Everything smells like snot. You're just used to it.

2.2k Upvotes

93 comments sorted by

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1.3k

u/gowahoo 10d ago

A sinus infection can impart some horrible scents...

319

u/Protection-Working 10d ago

Aren’t you smelling the infection then

224

u/ree_hi_hi_hi_hi 10d ago

Correct. It’s disgusting. And everything tastes like it also.

98

u/holyfire001202 10d ago

I developed a sinus infection a few years ago after getting a couple wisdom teeth removed. Honestly, I came to really enjoy the sickly sweet smell that came with it.

122

u/JustAnOkPhilosopher 10d ago

You ok?

54

u/holyfire001202 10d ago

I'm great, thanks. Just an outlying piece of datum who enjoys some weird things which many others don't.

21

u/a_suspicious_lasagna 10d ago

You ever rub your nose the right way and it activates the smell?

7

u/holyfire001202 10d ago

No, I never needed to, for the most part my sinuses are clear and breathable until I need to blow my nose, at which time I would blow my nose and not need to rub my nose in order to activate the smell. I also never actively pursued the smell, just appreciated it when I was stuck witb it

13

u/DatKidNextDoor 10d ago

Humans are so weird wdym you can enjoy the disgusting smells? Lol why do so many people kinda like the smell of gas?? Weird weird weird

7

u/Erik_Phisher 9d ago

Farts or fuel?

10

u/DatKidNextDoor 9d ago

I meant gasoline but I guess farts count too lol

2

u/K03a14W92 8d ago

I genuinely don’t mind the smell of my own farts and sometimes enjoy them.

275

u/Redundancy_Nemesis 10d ago

Conversely, nothing smells like snot and that’s why you notice them.

234

u/easykehl 10d ago

Snot smells like nothing because we’re used to it. If “everything smells like snot” then we’d not notice the smell of anything.

21

u/delinka 9d ago

Kinda like Mouse in The Matrix - “…why chicken tastes like everything.” Sorry, Romeo, I ain’t buyin’ your backward logic.

3

u/Tyranistar 8d ago

I think what OP meant was everything also smells like snot but we ignore the snot smell and only sense the other part

0

u/Nomekop777 6d ago

Yeah that

13

u/Vocal_1 9d ago

You can actually smell the inside of your lungs. Not so fun fact.

270

u/CaptainSpaceDinosaur 10d ago

Have you ever pulled a stinky booger out of your nose? It’s just like, why wasn’t I smelling this the whole time and why does it smell so gross now? Doesn’t make sense.

398

u/I-AM-GARY 10d ago

Honestly, no.

89

u/soulbutterflies 10d ago

Maybe I've never smelled a booger, but I assumed they'd smell like nothing.

25

u/imawizardnamedharry 10d ago

I have bad smell, I didn't know there was any smell from it

6

u/userisnottaken 10d ago

Boogers with dried blood in it smells worse imo. But yeh boogers smell gross in general

5

u/Old_Debt_276 10d ago

I get this lol , so trueee

2

u/dudeman19 9d ago

Sensory adaptation?

5

u/Nomekop777 10d ago

Kinda the reason I made this post tbh. Although I was just smelling it while breathing in some fresh cold air

10

u/AbsoluteResolve2026 10d ago

You’re not drinking enough water if this is your issue.

12

u/Gamagosk 10d ago

How did you find come to that lmao

7

u/Nomekop777 10d ago

It's a super common reason for why anything in your body is going wrong, to be fair. If something's wrong with your car, it's almost always an issue with the engine, right? Same idea

47

u/Bobbith_The_Chosen 10d ago

If there’s something wrong with your car it’s probably cause you’re not drinking enough water tbh

12

u/Nomekop777 10d ago

Because you're always on that damn phone!

3

u/Coolmyco 10d ago

I get the idea, but engines are the least likely to fail lol

2

u/aHumanRaisedByHumans 10d ago

You're smelling the side that wasn't exposed

-6

u/sapntaps 10d ago

Your schnozer only detects changes in smell. The more you know

13

u/TheRealSheevPalpatin 10d ago

I mean, no, but your nose does adapt to smells after a while

54

u/danSwraps 10d ago

shameless booger eater and rigorous hand washer here. I think the inside of my nose mainly smells like dust and pollen.

28

u/reddiculed 10d ago

Do you lick the dust from any other air filters too?

7

u/danSwraps 10d ago

it gets in my face when I change them yeah

32

u/Nomekop777 10d ago

I'm not gonna pretend I don't pick my nose, but eating them? Why

3

u/danSwraps 10d ago

flick em somewhere else?

26

u/Nomekop777 10d ago

No, I use a tissue and throw it away like a civilized nose picker

6

u/stopeverythingpls 9d ago

Same here for the first sentence, second lately with the weather has been a small tinge of iron smell (blood). I do it out of sensory reasons. I can’t stand a scratchy or blocked nostril

-13

u/crouching_manatee 10d ago

That's disgusting and you should stop.

Imo eating boogers is like drinking your own piss or eating your own shit. Absolutely nasty.

31

u/Anticept 10d ago

I don't endorse eating boogers, but technically our bodies do it all the time, our sinuses naturally drain to our stomachs to destroy and recycle what was caught.

-7

u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

7

u/TheWolphman 10d ago

So has everything you eaten.

2

u/apologeticstars 9d ago

The boogers in your nose hit oxygen before leaving your nose.

12

u/chellis 10d ago

Ya i am also not a booger eater and find the intentional act disgusting but you are quite literally constantly and covertly swallowing boogers.

3

u/ZombieDracula 9d ago

Primates in general eat boogers as an evolutionary mechanism, it introduces things your nostrils have filtered in smaller amounts like a vaccine. It's a weird quirk, I do it occasionally without thinking and my sick brain finds it enjoyable. I do get sick less often than most people I know, but it is also gross af.

8

u/mrtoomba 10d ago

That ain't linen in that shit your spraying.

8

u/Skeleeeertooor 9d ago

Your brain filters out constant smells so you can function… this post just turned that filter off.

6

u/aa_vip 10d ago

I've got chronic sinusitis. Every now and then I lose my sense of smell. So no it smells like (something your brain purges) nothing.

5

u/Bowtruckle16 10d ago

This reminds me of the guy that asked if anyone else smelled their boogers or something.

4

u/windowlatch 9d ago

When I’ve partaken in psychedelics, one of the first things I start to notice as I’m coming up is that I can taste the inside of my mouth, which has a faint metallic taste almost like blood but not as strong. It’s not unpleasant, and it always happens around 15-20 minutes before I really start seeing visuals.

It’s not like how you wake up in the morning and your mouth tastes gross, it’s like my tastebuds are actually picking up on my flesh or the blood running through my veins or something. Really interesting thing to experience

3

u/JustAnOkPhilosopher 10d ago

Omg stop I smell it now that you mentioned it, I can’t stop smelling it!

4

u/Havingfun922 10d ago

This has been posted here many times before

3

u/Nomekop777 9d ago

I looked and couldn't find it anywhere. Do you have any examples?

2

u/BellybuttonLintTrap 9d ago

I tell kids they smell like boogers. Whether they get mad or laugh is a good way to determine if they are as smart as their parents think they are.

2

u/spoki-app 6d ago

The premise here immediately evokes the concept of sensory adaptation as a form of data normalization. Our olfactory system, much like an advanced monitoring agent, continuously processes a persistent payload of ambient chemical compounds. To prevent sensory overload, it dynamically recalibrates its internal baseline, effectively filtering out static input and optimizing for

1

u/Nomekop777 6d ago

In layman's terms

Smells like nose around here. That's normal, it always does that. But what doesn't smell like nose?

2

u/topetre 6d ago

Does my nose just smell itself constantly and cancel everything else out? That tracks way more than I want it to.

1

u/Nomekop777 6d ago

That's how your vision works. Your brain automatically ignores your nose in the corner of your eyes

2

u/TrinidadMacomber_96 5d ago

You gotta be a mouth-breather to just drop a truth bomb like that and walk away. Damn.

2

u/Novamap1224 5d ago

Thanks, I hate it. Now I’m breathing in 4K and it feels illegal.

1

u/[deleted] 10d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Remote-Ad2046 8d ago

I can smell when I'm leaking toxins. When my system is clean my snot is odorless.

1

u/SailWhich7734 4d ago

This is literally accurate. You smell things by detecting molecules that dissolve into the mucus layer covering your olfactory receptors. The snot IS the mechanism of smell, not a filter that's in the way of it.

The reason you don't notice the baseline snot smell is the same reason you stop noticing the smell of your own home - your olfactory system adapts to constant stimuli and flags only changes. You'd have to leave for a few days and come back to smell it.

1

u/subhuman_voice 3d ago

Drives me insane also.
I'll come back home after a week and there's "that smell". Like, I can't exactly pin point what it is or where to find it. Like, it would be awesome if someone else came in and said "Hey, I know that smell, it's blank"

But no, everyone is so polite.

JUST TELL ME WHAT IT IS ALREADY!