94
submitted 4 months ago by comfy@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

What is something you can sense that few-if-any people you know can sense? Literal answers only.

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top new old
[-] Infrapink@thebrainbin.org 6 points 4 months ago

If it's dark and I see a light at just tge right angle, I see an image of the blood vessels inside my eyes.

[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 6 points 4 months ago

I can hear baselines (from blocks away!) that my family can't hear at all. Or, hear isn't the right word, but I feel it as an ache in my ears and head.

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

I can see an actor and know immediately whether they guest starred or were an extra with a line in the TV show Wings.

[-] CleoCommunist@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

I can taste water, irl no one I met really can feel the different tastes of plain water but i can

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Water does have tastes. Hard to believe others don‘t notice it.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 6 points 4 months ago

My nose is more sensitive than average to certain types of foul smells mostly in the poop and rotting organic material categories but also things like mouse / rodent urine, skunks, and cigarette smoke. Oh joy.

Mostly it makes me feel like I'm going crazy because I smell these things when nobody else seems to notice leading me to wonder if I'm just hallucinating the smell. But sometimes I put it to good use by being the early warning system of skunks in the area and sometimes I'm the first to notice when the milk is starting to go bad.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago

Older TVs I could "sense" when they were turned on or off like a room over.

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 4 months ago

CRT TVs have a very iconic high pitched noise. It's somewhat similar to the sound of tinnitus. Combine that with some people not being able to hear those high pitched noises very well (especially as they age) it makes sense that you may have been able to hear them but not really consciously be aware of it.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] chunes@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Constant droning Like tinnitus except very low-pitched. Probably caused by intracranial hypertension.

[-] Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 months ago

i can hear power supplies. kinda annoying.

[-] ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

The chemical most places use for drycleaning is perchloroethylene, or perc, which can contaminate groundwater if not stored or disposed of properly.

[-] debris_slide@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

When I first read this comment I thought your superpower was being able to taste dry cleaning chemicals in groundwater. Then I read your other post in this thread and realized it’s street markings.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] BobQuasit@beehaw.org 5 points 4 months ago

I'm a super-taster and thanks to lots of childhood abuse I'm hypervigilant. So pretty much everything. If a person anywhere in the area has been smoking or in a smoky room any time in the last day or two, I'll know it. I know what you last ate - and drank, if it wasn't water. I can hear a woman sobbing quietly in a locked room down the hall when nobody else can.

I see beauty in the clouds in the sky at night. I smell faint smoke on the wind. Scents that remind me of long ago, when I was a child - like the smell of shrinky-dinks coming off a hot metal mold, or pastries coming out of an Easy-bake oven. Autumn leaves swirling in an icy breeze. Or the smell of something like earwax, or tar.

I often wonder how normal people live without sensing so much of the world!

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I think I can see more colours in the stars than most people. I can also tell the northern lights are coming up earlier, so probably just low-light cone sensitivity.

A wasp died in a vent a bit ago and it smelled awful to me, but nobody else could perceive it at all.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I don't have a sense of smell but I can still smell if it's cold or hot outside.

Ah I can hear security cameras sometimes.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 3 points 4 months ago
[-] lando55@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 months ago

Are you a medical examiner?

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 3 points 4 months ago

Mold, or at least some types of mold. Used to smell it on food but other people couldn’t, so just assumed it was something else. But did the experiment by putting things in their own containers and leaving them out for a while, while probably not the best sample size, the muffins that smelled like mold eventually visibly showed it.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Asafum@feddit.nl 3 points 4 months ago

I don't know what it is, but I can smell a somewhat metallic type smell on some specific people's breath. It always smells very similar between different people. They generally aren't very healthy, but no one seems to know what I'm talking about.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] mirshafie@europe.pub 3 points 4 months ago

I'm very near-sighted. Also means I have a built-in microscope.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The flickering of my parents old Plasma they can't.

[-] underreacting@literature.cafe 3 points 4 months ago

I can sense when it's time to wake up, while asleep.

It's likely just confirmation bias, but I almost always wake up minutes before my alarm if I have a stressful or unusual appointment, like an early flight or interview.

I assume most people has this with their routine wake-up time, that the body learns when to wake up right on time... but this is like: if I usually wake up at 8:30 but now have to wake up 5:45 or 6:15 or whatever, I'll wake up on my own right before the alarm goes off. I just need to think about it somewhat thoroughly (wake-up time and approx. how many hour of sleep until then) before falling asleep.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
94 points (100.0% liked)

Asklemmy

54139 readers
1399 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 7 years ago
MODERATORS