The Benefits of Sensory Deprivation for Writers
By Kim Bullock | January 27, 2020 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Dennis Wong
My ENT didn’t call me a liar when I insisted I’m not and never have been a habitual mouth-breather, but he did smile before rolling his chair over to one of the posters on the exam room wall.
He pointed to the graphic on the left. “Normal septum.” He pointed to the right. “Deviated septum.” He drew an exaggerated zig-zag in the air. “Yours.” He suspected I’d never taken in a full breath in my life.
It took only a few minutes of paying attention to confirm that it was, in fact, possible to have both a keen sense of smell and the inability to take more than two swallow breaths from the nose before switching over to the mouth for the third. Once aware of this convoluted breathing pattern, I couldn’t shake the feeling of quasi-suffocation. Our deductible had been met and there was a surgical appointment available on New Year’s Eve.
Since I really know how to party, the choice was simple. New year, new nose, at least on the inside.
The surgery itself was no big deal. As promised, I felt like I had the worst head cold of my life for a week afterwards, with no medicinal relief possible beyond narcotics, which I took because they provided the oblivion of sleep. I had no bruising, no numbness, very little swelling, and my pain level hovered around a two provided nothing touched my nose. My annoyance level, however, held steady at about 357.
Nose splints were an effective form of torture. They not only jabbed into me with every change of facial expression, but made wearing reading glasses painful, leaving me functionally blind for anything involving my computer, phone, or books during the recovery period. After a few hours of binge watching TV, boredom set in and I had an intense craving for chocolate. The good stuff. It never occurred to my codeine-addled brain that I’d taste nothing if no air molecules of air could reach my olfactory system. The texture of a raspberry truffle is great and all, but totally unsatisfying if texture is all you get.
I had completely and simultaneously lost my two strongest senses. Worse, according to Google MD, it may take months to fully get them back, IF I fully get them back. I was not prepared for this.
The prolonged loss of multiple senses, while anxiety provoking, has come with the unexpected benefit of allowing me to experience an (I hope temporary) form of synesthesia. Two days after surgery, while applying lotion, I became aware of an odd taste. My nose was still 90% decorative at that point, but the unmistakable sweet-grass scent had been detected by my taste buds instead. It became a game over the next few days to see how many scents I could taste. Some were pleasant, like a burning candle, a rose, or brewing coffee. Others not so much, such as wet puppy or the litter box that the rest of my family had neglected until I was cleared to lift more than ten pounds.
I doubt I ever write about a character going through septoplasty, though I could, or that any of my characters will have synesthesia. Still, the experience of learning firsthand exactly how taste and smell are intertwined can only enhance my ability to portray sensory details in unexpected ways.
Yet another blessing/annoyance is that my remaining senses have become enhanced, and those are the ones I pay the least attention to unless I encounter a startling sound or an itchy tag in my shirt. For every twenty times I have a character observe something in my work-in-progress, they may hear something only once. Unless I’m writing a love scene, I rarely, if ever, include tactile details. Now that I’m aware of the lack, I can rectify it.
Of course, there are ways other than surgery that writers can experiment with forms of sensory deprivation.
- Spend a day with earplugs in.
- Watch a TV show while wearing a sleep mask.
- Take advantage of a head-cold to concentrate on the texture of foods rather than the taste/smell.
- Have a friend/partner gather a series of things with different scents. See how many you can identify blindfolded.
- Try the same experiment with tastes. Bonus if all the foods can be pureed so there is no difference in texture.
- For those who don’t panic at the thought of floating naked in a dark, soundproofed tank for an hour or so, I can assure you that you will come out of the experience hyper-aware of ALL your senses for a day or so, and that this is an optimal time to write scenes where such details are integral.
How much do you actively pay attention to sensory details in your life? In your work? Which senses do you favor or ignore? Have you had any sensory deprivation experiences that changed your perspective? Have any of these experiences been deliberate?
[coffee]
Kim (she/her) has an M.A. in English from Iowa State University. She writes mainly historical fiction, though has also contributed non-fiction articles to historical and Arts and Crafts publications in both the United States and Canada. She has just finished The Oak Lovers, a novel based on the rather colorful life of her great-grandfather, landscape painter Carl Ahrens.
I lost my sense of smell and taste 35 years ago as the result of sinus infections. Taste came back quickly but the anosmia never fully recovered, though it seems complete when it comes to food, thankfully. I had brief periods of phantosmia where I smelled garlic breath when no one was around (and I’d eaten none myself). That stopped, also thankfully. I could tell you about this condition until your eyes roll back in your head. I recently submitted a short story to an anthology and the MC has anosmia. If yours lingers, there are a few clinics in the US that specialize in treatment. I was a patient at the Taste & Smell Clinic in DC.
Hi Jill,
That sounds like a frustrating condition to live with! Good for you for giving it to a main character.
It is slowly getting better. At my last follow-up appointment, I mentioned the issue to the doc. He told me that the extensive work he did in my nose did not go up far enough to damage those nerves and that the problem is due to the swelling, which takes a while to go down. Taste seems pretty much back. Smells are there, but still a bit muted unless they are strong. For example, if I am sitting beside our very gassy Boston Terrier, my nose definitely works!
Hi Kim! About two years ago, after a heavy cold, I could not smell anything, even though the cold seemed to have gone. It was outright scary! Luckily, after a while, it gradually came back, but I still remember the gratitude when I started smelling again (even the not so nice smells like my boys’ sweaty sports clothes…). And a while back, I had a stupid accident involving a finger and my right eye, resulting in a scratch in the cornea. Ouch… it took almost a year to fully heal. During this time, for the first time in my life, I started really wondering how it was to not have perfect sight. I asked my son how it feels when he takes off his glasses. I also could not read or work on the pc for long, as my right eye would get tired and “dry”. Even more scary than the smell thing! I am glad both is over. Sometimes I remember those incidents and realise how quickly one goes “back to normal”. The intense feeling of gratitude I felt both times when everything was ok again, did not last very long. I was quick in taking it all for granted again. – Thanks for reminding me! – I hope you will be better really soon!
Hi J,
I can so relate about the eye issues! I was born with a lazy eye. That alone might have been fixable by wearing patches and forcing it to work. Unfortunately, as a baby I also contracted a bad virus that attacked that weak optic nerve. Now the pupils do not work together, and the optic nerve is damaged as well. The signals my brain receives from that eye are shut off for the most part because they confuse the brain. For example, if I cover my good eye and hold up a book, I can see the printed letters, but I can’t comprehend them. Very strange. On top of this, I am nearsighted in the good eye. Without a contact lens, I’d be almost functionally blind. Again is turning out not to be fun because now I need reading glasses up close.
In case you are wondering, it is nearly impossible to function with progressive lenses when you only see out of one eye. The “sweet spot” for center of vision is not in the normal spot for me because I always keep my head a bit turned. Bifocals are also a problem because I don’t have enough of the reading prescription if I’m only using it in the corner of one lens.
I definitely felt a bit sorry for myself when I was dealing with no taste/smell on top of that. Thankfully, it is definitely improving.
Hey Kim–So glad you’re on the mend! And how cool to gain all of this applicable insight from the experience. You’ve gotten me thinking about how our senses not only enhance our emotions, but inform them!
I’m sure we all have those scent-provoked memories, and everyone knows how powerful they can be. Especially when we experience a scent that’s powerfully linked with a time period or a certain experience. One of the most amusing ones I have involves tasting beer and smelling mint at the same time. It still takes me right back to the Douglas Drive-In Theater, in Kalamazoo, MI. Every time. Even after 40 years. (As underage teens, we used to smuggle beers in the trunk–as well as stowaway passengers–and the theater is next door to a mint processing plant that supplied Wriggly’s in Chicago).
Thanks for the fresh and tasty post! Hope everything’s coming up roses for you these days.
Hi Vaughn,
That’s funny about the beer/mint association!
My strongest scent memory involves sweetgrass. I had to have smelled it a lot as a kid growing up in Maine, and just didn’t know what is was/didn’t pay attention. After many years of living in the south, in an area where there isn’t any, I smelled it again on a visit to Ontario. In my mind I associated the smell with Canada, which is a place very close to my heart. It wasn’t until I returned to Maine in the summer of 2018 and kept encountering it that I realized why the smell of sweetgrass made me so happy.
Things are definitely improving. Sense of taste is pretty much fully back. Smell is about 70%.
Kim, I hope your sense of smell returns. I love sensory details and the best books practically make me smell the story environment. I strive for that in my own writing.
Depriving one of one sense heightens the others. I sing in a small Latin Mass schola–chant and polyphony–and found I’m much more sensitive to the tuning when my eyes are closed. Of course, this means I have to know the music well enough, but that’s when the magic happens.
Hi Vijaya,
I’d say the sense of smell is about 70% normal now, so I have hope that it will fully return.
I agree about how depriving one sense heightens the others. My vision has always been subpar, and I think that’s why I relied as much on smell and why it came as such a loss when I worried I’d never have that back. Glad not to be as concerned now!
That’s cool about your sight/hearing correlation. Thanks for commenting!
What a great post, Kim, although I am sorry it came at the expense of your surgery and loss of smell.
It reminded me that everything we experience for ourselves is fodder for our books and informs our writing in a way that just hearing or reading about it could not. How many times have we seen gun play on TV or read about the confrontation of terrorists or criminals in books? It wasn’t until I attended a writer conference in San Diego many years ago that I really understood how an untrained individual could react in the real world under pressure. A workshop at the conference was conducted by DEA, who ran a simulated setting where people popped up from behind obstacles and around corners and you had to “shoot” them after a split second decision as to whether they were “good” or “bad”. The bad guys could shoot you first if you weren’t quick enough. I think I killed a mother and her baby and several equally innocent bystanders out of panic, and my life was never actually in danger! My reactions, even in this simulation, weren’t anything like I thought they would be. I was sweaty, nervous and responded impulsively. I’ve never forgotten this workshop and what an actual experience can teach us, as opposed to abstract concepts.
I would be awful in that simulation! For one, my vision is not all that good – only see out of one eye/nearsighted and need reading glasses. This would make me have awful aim, even if I were shooting at the correct target, which I’m sure I wouldn’t be. Just one of many reasons I have no interest in picking up a gun.
My sense of taste is almost all the way back. Smell is at about 60-70%, but I have hope I’ll get it all back as the swelling goes down.
I hope it didn’t sound as if I was advocating gun ownership. I hate guns too! It was a crime fiction workshop for us to explore various scenarios.
I didn’t take it that way at all! :-)
Kim, Comforting to know there is another writer in this world with similar eye experiences to mine. Also born with a lazy eye, surgery too late to truly help that eye, and worries to protect my “good eye.” When I went back to school in midlife and became an RN, I was overcome with the power of the human body and how it works and yet often does not. But humans compensate and that’s how we roll. Wishing you good health and power in all your senses. Beth
Hi Beth,
I had the surgery at two, and so just to look at me no one would know I had a lazy eye unless I’m very tired. I wore a patch over my good eye for the majority of the summer between first and second grade and got very little out of it. The vision probably did improve slightly, but my parents tested this often by having me try to read eye charts. I could probably see the letters halfway decently, but they may as well have been in Greek because my brain couldn’t make sense of them due to the other condition.
Seems like my whole life has been spent trying to protect that “good eye”, which is now not all that good either. I am VERY nearsighted, but now also need reading classes! Ugh!
Kim, the quasi-synesthesia experience sounds fascinating, though it could be a mite alarming if you weren’t used to it. I’m surprised Therese hasn’t weighed in, since one of her main characters in her Moon Sisters has the “gift.”
Sensual details, if not worked to excess in a book, can carry me away. I love some of the more painterly scenes in The Great Gatsby, and the descriptions of the hotel in A Gentleman in Moscow. Barbara Kingsolver is very good with such in several of her books.
And since everyone is discussing their medical procedures, I had a hip replaced a few months back to put more titanium in my personality. I hope your nose comes back better than ever to sniff out what works in stories.
Hi Tom,
Yes, it was a mite alarming to realize I was “smelling” the lotion with my taste buds. If it had truly been tasting, I doubt it would have been pleasant!
Hip replacement? That sounds awful, though I imagine you are well on your way to recovery now.
I agree that sensory details can be overdone, but if an author really hones in on a few concrete things, it is amazing how much a story comes to life.
This was such an interesting perspective, Kim. I love the idea of willfully removing a sense or two in order to notice more.
I got a little taste of that years ago when a man I was dating took me out for a nighttime walk and asked me to keep my eyes closed. Now and then he’d ask me if I knew where I was. It was amazing that I often did, just because of how the smells changed.
I’ll be trying out some of your suggestions!
Hi Natalie,
There are much more pleasant ways of removing those senses than surgery, I’m sure, though I really can’t complain that much about this one, and I AM breathing far better, so it was worth it.
I loved the float spa, personally; I wasn’t enclosed in a coffin like tank, but rather a small pool. The extreme levels of salt kept me floating even in very shallow water. It was pitch black in there, though, and the room was soundproofed. Since I am most definitely a “highly sensitive person” and easily over-stimulated, it was amazing to shut off and reboot the senses. I was hyper aware of everything when I came out, but too relaxed to be stressed by it. Worth a try if you have one close and aren’t too freaked out by the idea.
I love how a seemingly unrelated moment can inform how we approach our writing. Thank you, Kim!