Roses cause pleasant dreams
Want to have a good night’s sleep? Smell some roses in your garden and you’ll get rosier dreams.
This rosy connection was discovered by researchers from the University Hospital Mannheim in Germany who said that what you smell may influence your dreams.
Their new research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Foundation in Chicago. It is the first study that shows the impact of olfactory function on dreams.
“If odor has a strong effect on your emotions when you’re awake, it makes sense for it to have a strong effect on your emotions when you’re asleep,” said study author Boris Stuck.
To prove this, they recruited 15 healthy young women in their 20s – the period when the sense of smell is strongest.
The volunteers were fitted with olfactometers. Tubes leading to their nostrils constantly pumped air as the subjects slept.
“The subjects’ brain activity was also being monitored. When they reached the rapid-eye-movement stage of sleep, when most dreams occur, a shot of scent was administered via the olfactometer for ten seconds,” reported Rebecca Carroll of National Geographic News.
Two kinds of scents were administered – that of roses and rotten eggs. After a minute, the subjects were awakened and asked to describe their dreams.
“Each subject was interviewed three times: once after a rose-infused dream, once after smelling the sulfuric scent of rotten eggs, and once after no odor was administered,” Carroll said.
“The results showed that smelling roses gave nearly all dreams a pleasant tint, whereas the rotten eggs colored dreams negatively,” she added.
The novel study was praised for establishing the link between smell and the sleep centers of the brain. So sleep tight tonight after smelling the roses.
March 23 2009 | Gardening | No Comments »