Flowers in bed `lead to sweet dreams`

London, Sept 22: Nothing is more pleasing and romantic as flowers in the bedroom. Now, a new study says that the floral scent can also lead to sweet dreams. Researchers in Germany have carried out the study and found that sleeping with flowers in the bedroom may encourage sweet dreams, a major finding they claim could help nightmar sufferers to an extent.

They came to the conclusion after an analysis of the sleep patterns of 15 female volunteers for a period of nearly 30 nights, a leading British newspaper reported today. The researchers pumped scents of rotten eggs, roses or no scent under their noses for nearly ten seconds while the women were in the Rapid Eye Movement period of sleep when the dreaming occurs. The subjects were then woken up and asked to record their dreams. The smells had an affect on the emotions of the dreams but did not become part of the dream in that the women exposed to roses did not dream about roses, the study found. There was a correlation between the negative smell and negative emotional scores the sleepers reported from their dreams and vice versa. According to the researchers, it`ll be interesting to study nightmare sufferers and if positive smells can actually influence the mood of their dreams as a form of treatment in the future. Bureau Report