Is there something... a sound, a smell, a film, a book, a picture, etc. that instantly evokes nostalgia?

The old Christmas cartoons and commercials make me feel like a kid again!

I’m a little older now so there are so many but recently I heard a song, Young Rascals Grooving that took me far back to a happy moment in my life. It is always a pleasant experience when this happens so thanks for making me recall it again.

The smell of skunk. It instantly brings me back to my childhood in the country and coming home late at night in the back seat of my parents’ car, feeling sleepy and secure and ready to get into my nice, cozy bed.

Savage Garden’s “To the moon (and back)”

Hearing the Rolling Stones song Ruby Tuesday instantly takes me back to a high school dance when a guy I had had a huge crush on noticed me. We danced together to that song and I was in the teenage girl equivalent of heaven.

The smell of newly cut grass and crunching along on falling leaves can take me back immediately to my childhood.

So great that you would ask this today. Just this week I was in my car listening to the radio and some random song from the 80’s was on. I started thinking of Ventura Highway by America and was instantly taken to a moment in time when I was in the 9th grade at a party that I wasn’t supposed to be at and remembered the guy I was talking to, Joe with the little tennis shoes. I was smiling to myself, remembering that moment when the very next song to come on was Ventura Highway. Totally freaked me out.

Pipe tobacco brings me back to the kitchen as a little girl with my entire family. Walk of Life by Dire Straits brings me back to 1987 and dancing with my best friend and my little sister.

To me, the things which punch me in the nuts with nostalgia the most (thank you Grisaille for that very useful phrase) are smells. I’m unable to identify smells but when I get a certain whiff of a certain something (for example a perfume I simply cannot identify) my mind will suddenly hurtle back to my childhood and I’ll sigh and melt into a puddle of nostalgia for a few seconds.

And when they disappear I’ll just linger on in the area, trying my best to remember what I just smelt before it vanishes from my memory once again.

@Simone: I love that entire CD.

@Saturated_Brain I am so with you on the scent thing. Channel #5, fresh mowed grass, the ocean, salmon eggs (fishing with my dad, there is no smell in the entire world like salmon eggs), baby spit-up, I could probably go on and on.

The backyard of my childhood home, or at least what it used to be. It always brings me back of the memory of the ephemeral time I spent with my father when I was about 5 or 6. We were playing football (soccer to Americans), and the ambiance was nothing short of exuberance. The next day, however, he abandoned my mother and I to satisfy his own selfish pleasures. Sometimes I wish that I can relive that memory again, but his choice to abandon his weak and helpless wife and his young son negates that wish.

@poofandmook oh yes!

Anytime I drive over a grate bridge it reminds me of going for ice cream with my Grandma. She used to take me to a place just outside of town and we had to cross one of those bridges. Unfortunately, most of them are gone now.

Proust wrote about nostalgia, to produce nostalgia. I have read In Search of Lost Time often enough that I now read it the way I read the Bible: I just open it to any page, and immediately find myself transported to a different state of mind.

@pdworkin I’ve never read it and I’m a real reader. Is it that good? Obviously, you think so so maybe I’ll move it up on my list.

Oh, it’s just lovely, but very daunting because of its length. Don’t be afraid, don’t tiptoe in. Launch yourself into its waters. You’ll be glad. Do some research about translations first!

@pd. Thanks. Right now I’m teaching 19th century novels and reading less challenging things in between, but A La Recherche de Temps Perdu sounds like a great vacation or summer project. (In translation, I just used the French title to be pretentious. :-))

I was gonna, but I was afraid I would spell it wrong!

Menthol cigarette smoke
Shoe polish
Pine wood smoke

Blue Monday by New Order http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3duUzBbBmmc reminds me of driving with my exboyfriend, targa top open, in my high school years.

I Saw Her Standing There by the Beatles reminds me of dancing in the living room with my dad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR9hEVHe_V8 Actually many oldies reminds me of my parents. My mom loved the Beach Boys and Elvis.

Fresh cut grass where I live now reminds me of spending time with my grandparents up in the Catskills during the summer. For some reason the grass in southern FL does not have that smell, and I had been living there for so many years I had forgotten about it.

@poofandmook It is a rainy and crappy day today so I am watching Disney movies all day too! I love these kind of days :)

For me its all the old Disney movies. Also To Kill a Mockingbird and Arsneic and Old Lace I watched these two constantly as a child. My mom had these really old books my favorite was “On Cherry Street” she read them in school it is about these children in their neighborhood. Reading them and just the smell of these books bring me back to my childhood immediately. Any songs by Fleetwood Mac, and Ain’t Even Done with the Night by John Mellencamp reminds me of the easy days of my childhood.

The smell of rubber makes me think of my father at work.

Tomato soup does it for me.

Camel or Winston cigarette smoke reminds me of my dad. (yeah, I can tell the difference)

Bacon + scrambled eggs + blueberry pancakes (or really, any of these) reminds me of when I was younger and spent a lot of time with my grandma.

For nostalgia, the film Anastasia always reminds me of the last movie I saw (in my home state) with my dad, before he moved away. Mulan is similar, but it wasn’t the last one I saw.

I have some chicken bouillon that smells exactly like Chicken in a Biskit, which is very reminiscent of my childhood, for some reason.

Cherry chapstick reminds me of when I was very young.

I associate the scent of Secret Powder Fresh deodorant with my mom so much that I can’t wear it myself.

Fresh-baked whole wheat bread reminds me, again, of my grandma.

Enya’s Memory of Trees (the song, not the entire album) reminds me of being in 3rd or 4th grade, and in my Literature class (my teacher was adamant that she wasn’t teaching us how to read, so it wouldn’t be called Reading), we had time at the beginning of class to read, and she always played that cd and that track.

@evegrimm Lurve for Cherry Chapstick reminds me of my childhood as well.

Most of my nostalgic items were lost a while back from my early childhood. Every now and then I’ll remember a song from the 90’s and just get nostalgia-bombed into oblivion. Even more so if it was a song I adore then and just randomly stumble upon again, the way it hits you that you haven’t heard it in X many years is just beautiful.

I live about a mile from the Illinois River and every time I hear a barge horn it reminds me of the short time that I lived in Morro Bay, California. I have a great love for the Pacific Ocean, fog and fog horns and this sound reminds me of this time of my life. It’s a very calm and soothing sound for me and I am so thankful that I live near a body of water that allows me to continue hearing it.

@JLeslie Blue Monday is my favorite New Order song. I feel young again every time I hear it.

On YouTube, the son of the man who produced this animation posted it, and the first thing I thought was “Yay! Charlie Brown’s coming on!” Apparently, that poster’s father also produced this. I am instantly transported: I’m 5 or 6, not quite asleep in my little bed, but hearing the TV set on in the living room.

The smell of Love’s Baby Soft perfume reminds me of Christmas because my mom always got me a bottle every year when I was young.

White Shoulders perfume, my aunt wore it.
The smell of Crayola crayons and Play Dough.
The smell of a damp canvas tent. My dad had an old WWI or WWII army tent that he would set up in the back yard and we would camp out in there sometimes.
Maple leaves in the fall, the way they smell and how they sound when you walk through them.
and that is just my early childhood, there are so many things…

@wilma I always thought Play Dough smelled so good I wanted to eat it! I still think it smells pretty good, but I am not hungry for it any longer…

yea, breath of fire 3, slightly cool autumn mornings and hot summers all remind me of my good old days in florida…siiiigh i miss those times.