The Nose Knows – Being Nosy About Reality

To see what is in front of my nose is a constant struggle – George Orwell

If you go further than the tip of your nose to find what is truly precious, you’ve gone too far. – John Harper

nose knowsAh, the nose – it leads us into so much of our experience, even as it rejects what smells fishy or offending. Many of us rely on our “gut” for a sense of the truth, but the gut may be receiving input from the nose that we’re not aware of.

Cats arch their backs at the smell of a rival, and mice scurry at the scent of a fox. But how does the nose know who or what is lurking? Now scientists have identified several special receptors in the noses of animals that react to specific scents given off by others.

It’s these receptors that signal to the brain whether the animal needs to flee, make itself large and scary, or perhaps even woo a mate. – Fight or flight: How the nose knows what to do

If you lose your sense of smell, could insanity be next?

An Australian team from the University of Melbourne examined a group of people deemed to be at ultra high risk of developing psychosis and found those that went on to develop schizophrenia, rather than other forms of psychosis, all displayed the inability to identify smells. This deficit was present before the onset of any significant clinical symptoms of psychosis. – Could You Suffer From Psychosis? The Nose Knows

Hairy Sensitivity – Before the hair stands up on the back of our neck, our body is registering a lot of hairy information. Our hearing and smelling rely on very sensitive hairlike cilia as does our sense of balance.

The olfactory cilia inside the nose line the mucus membranes of the nose, and unlike most other cilia in the body, they are non-motile, remaining stationary in the nose rather than wiggling around in the mucus like the cilia which line the trachea and intestines do. As smells enter the nose, they dissolve in the mucus and come into contact with the olfactory cilia. The cilia in turn transmit the smell to the olfactory nerve, which passes the information on to the brain – via the olfactory bulb.

At a cellular level, primary cilia appear in key places that involve hearing, sight, and other forms of sensory input. Does this mean that when we are – sensing, looking & listening – we’re just a bunch of wild hairs interacting with biological reality?

Consider for a moment your proximity and relationship to the tip of your nose. Does soul have a face that orients forward?

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