“Smells may influence the emotion of the dream”

“Sleep with flowers in your bedroom if you want sweet dreams, work suggests.

When the smell of roses had been wafted under the noses of slumbering volunteers they reported experiencing pleasant emotions in their dreams.

An odour of rotten eggs had the opposite effect on the 15 sleeping women, the German scientists found.

They told a Chicago meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology that they now plan to study people who suffer from nightmares.

It is possible that exposure to smells might help make their dreams more pleasant, believe Professor Boris Stuck and his team from the University Hospital Mannheim.

They waited until their subjects had entered the REM phase of sleep, the stage at which most dreams occur, and then exposed them to a high dose of smelly air for 10 seconds before waking them up one minute later.

The volunteers were then quizzed about the content of their dreams and asked how it made them feel.

The sleeping women hardly ever dreamed of smelling something. Nevertheless, the emotional tone of the dream did change depending on the stimulation.”

BBC Health

(Credit: Yanko Design)

“Whatever designer NoJae Park was thinking, he may just have hit the jackpot with this portable kitchen for cubicle rats permanently tethered to their PCs, thanks to deadlines. How many times have we wished we could pack a mini microwave/fridge/pantry right on our desk?
Park’s appliance packs the four essentials of a kitchen: a stainless plate for warming meals; an electric stove; a dish drawer; and a mini-fridge. The design cleverly works on energy-saving power and safety features to avoid accidents.”

(Crave blog)

A Nightmare Before Christmas - Tim Burton
Credit: Movieweb.com

Recent research suggests that women are likely to experience significantly more nightmares than men and have more emotional dreams.

“In a study of 170 volunteers asked to record their most recent dream, 19% of men reported a nightmare compared with 30% of women.
Researcher Dr Jennifer Parker of the University of the West of England said there was no difference in the overall number of dreams reported.

Other research has shown women tend to have more disturbed sleep than men.

Dr Chris Idzikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre said he was not surprised the research showed a gender difference but what is difficult to pick out is whether women are having more nightmares or remembering them better.

“Women’s sleep tends to be more disrupted and they have more insomnia. And more frequent wakening could cause them to pick up on the dream.
But it could be that disturbed sleep is contributing to the fears.”

He added that nightmares in everyone were probably more common than people realised as they are quickly forgotten about.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7609985.stm