Casey, I love your story! I used to have small white blls of light along a river where I lived, and i thought they were fairies, but wasn't sure. I'm SO glad someone else has seen them!

False Awakening, I think we all have the power to feel the spirit of another person or any life form. When I went to energy school a long time ago, we closed our eyes and just felt a lot of things, trees, bubbles, water, the town hall even. It was fun and as we practiced, our skills got stronger. I had a startling meditation about this time---up in a huge light that felt like the heart of God/Goddess. And every time I thought something, it manifested. Like I wanted to have a friend and one just formed out of the light and we had a great time. Then it switched to a big assembly hall and God and Goddess asked for volunteers to go through the cycle of darkness. Bad things were happening in the universe because wisdom had grown stale. Wisdom is knowing what's right and wrong, and they said, it's a living stream. So the only way to deal with this was for some of us to go into realms of non-love and to learn the laws of love over again through experience. That means learning love the hard way, coming through lives of hardship and learning experientially that love is the only way. They said humanity's purpose is renewing the wisdom stream for the universe. And in the assembly hall, I went up to God/Goddess and volunteered. And then I was back in the big light , but after that every time I thought of something, bad things happened. And I took on a lot of fears and kept falling a long way to earth. At the end of this meditation, my guides asked if I would commit to healing all fear within and go back to light, and i said yes. Since then, negative things come in every day. Sometimes they are intense, but usually they are just little things. And i meditate and bring the shadows into light and it clears up. That was 17 years ago, and I've moved up through a lot of colors or planes in my aura since then. And as I ascend, the fears that come in to meet me are the same ones I took in at each level. A whole lot of these fears are energies, I guess you could call them demons, but really they are just teachers and need to be faced and healed in love. It was disconcering at first, but now I'm used to it, and just make a note for my next meditation, and don't focus on them after that. I think this is what you are feeling sometimes.

These planes are divided into 7 heavens, too, which connect to seven sheaths of light in each person's aura that burn off each time a person moves up into a new heaven in their consciousness. I started watching other people and realized they were going through the exact same levels i was, that everyone moves through these same basic conflicts and lessons during their lives. Like in my second marriage, there was a whole lot of dependency from my husband, and i learned to take care of myself and balance what i gave in a much better way. Wisdom 101. I'm probably going on too long here. But i think you are feeling energies or the spirit of your trees, etc., and have innate healing talents, and you are being called and invited to connect energetically, at the level of the spirit.

I love the smell part and now i want to develop that myself, since i usually get past life pictures in my third eye, but i haven't used scent very much. I'll practice. Blessings!