Curious Conclusions
有趣的结论

What was most interesting was that the women reported that the dreams themselves were not necessarily good or bad—no one had terrible nightmares or dreams about jetting to Hawaii with George Clooney—but the odors very much influenced how the dreams made the women feel. The researchers discovered that upon waking, those who smelled a pleasant scent reported having had pleasant dreams, and those who smelled something bad reported that their dreams corresponded. Although the smells didn’t seem to alter the content of their dreams, it did affect how they felt about them.

最有趣的发现在于参与实验的女性们并没有出现绝对意义上的美梦或者噩梦——没有人做太恐怖的梦，也没有人梦见和乔治·克鲁尼共赴夏威夷。但是，气味在很大程度上影响了她们对梦境的感觉。研究人员发现在被唤醒后，闻过芳香气味的女性都说做了美梦，而另一部分则说梦境很糟糕。尽管气味不见得能改变梦境，但是它能够改变做梦的人的主观感受

If you’re sleeping in a room with a ringing alarm clock or a snoring spouse, it’s common for your brain to incorporate those noises into your dreams, but most of the women in the study didn’t remember having dreams in which there was a particular scent or odor. This interesting fact seems to suggest that there’s something very unique about our sense of smell and the way it’s processed.

如果你睡觉的房间里有响着的闹钟和打鼾的伴侣，嘈杂声通常会潜入你的大脑，但是大多数女性在研究过程中忘记了自己是在特殊气味作用下做的梦。这一有趣的现象似乎意味着气味在影响梦境过程中不同于其他感觉。

This study was very small, and no other researchers have yet attempted to replicate its findings, so it’s hard to determine conclusively whether odors really can affect our dreams. Also, there are many different smells out there to test besides rotten eggs and roses. However, if you regularly have unhappy dreams, maybe it’s not a bad idea to check around your house for hidden smell culprits that might be sabotaging you. At the very least, it’s another good reason to cook a batch of chocolate chip cookies before bed.

这只是一项小研究，到目前为止还没有别的研究人员验证这些研究成果，所以很难对气味是否影响梦境下定论。而且，除了臭鸡蛋和玫瑰以外还有许许多多形形色色的气味。当然，如果你时常做噩梦的话，可以检查下房子周围是否潜藏着盗梦的气味元凶。至少，这给在睡觉前烤一炉碎巧克力饼干提供了一大理由。