Hey Ivy -- A good/experienced neuro is able to diagnose epilepsy (at least provisionally) from the symptoms. A positive EEG can confirm an epilepsy diagnosis, but a negative one doesn't rule it out. Your symptoms (burning smell, sense of nausea, etc.) are classic for temporal lobe epilepsy. as for the negative EEG -- sometimes seizures are too transient or occur too deep in the brain to appear on an EEG.
Your doctor's comments about seizures being caused by being highly intelligent sounds like a load of bunk. Whether he’s referring to
non-epileptic seizures or epileptic seizures, stress can be a trigger, but intelligence has nothing to do with it. Not saying
you aren't smart, just saying I’m wondering about
your doctor’s “intelligence.”
Anyway, welcome to the forum!