Where did the saying "the smell of fear" come from and?

Question

how would you explain it?

dear Patrick: interesting stuff

dear Mark: I think fear has alot to do with spirituality. I was hoping for any reference or insight someone might have on a spiritual as well as emotional level

Answer 1

I don't know, but it has something to do with dogs.


EDIT:

I don't know the history of the term, but I think it is an attempt to describe the palpable fear that settles on one when their very life is in question. When a person has the emotion of fear settle on them so heavily that it becomes their sole expression, there is a sensatory quality to it.

I suppose that the sense of smell was chosen for the description because fear cannot be touched, tasted, heard, felt or seen...as smell is the most tenuous of human senses, it has the quality of describing the hard to describe. It expresses the animalistic fear--animals survive by their wits and sense of smell--that can wrap itself around us and take us back to our most primal state.

Answer 2

When you're scared, you sweat, and your body secretes different pheromones.

To an animal with a highly attuned sense of smell, such as a dog, this smells different to your usual body odours.

You may not be able to smell the difference, but thats because dogs have about 25 times more olfactory (smell) receptors than humans do.

So, the smell of fear is very literally is how you smell when your scared.

Answer 3

I know that the body produces certain pheromones in animals, and they can communicate via such chemicals. such as mating in silkworms and marking territories for cats and dogs. Humans may have such pheromones but it is still inconclusive, no pheromone receptors were discovered in humans.

So in case of fear, our adrenaline level increases and maybe it causes the release of specific pheromones that dogs and other animals with high smell ability can detect the specific smell of fear pheromones.

Edit: I'm not quite sure....LOL

Answer 4

When we are really scared our body will release a special hormone. It smells bad to most animals. Our noses don't sense it. Well, we aren't supposed to. Some have sensitive noses, and some really smell. So it can happen. Dogs are good at telling if you are afraid of them.

Answer 5

Well in old and day films evil always reeked of blood. So everyone fears from evil. So the smell of blood is the smell of fear. Thus the "smell of fear"

Answer 6

From fact. I used to be a Marine Marksmanship Instructor, and can attest to the fact that recruits were fearful most of the time. This caused them to have a uniquely pungent odor all the time.

Answer 7

The taste of fear is that metallic taste
in your mouth when you are suddenly
afraid. That definite taste is certainly
also what one can smell.

Answer 8

Probably from an old Holly War.

Answer 9

yeah, i know you want to smell the lovely smell of tresemme, but no, if you want to die soon, go ahead sniff all you like, it may be the last thing you smell :L

Answer 10

Perhaps you put off some kind of pheromone when you're afraid? Makes sense to me.