Attention all campers! You no longer have to bother dipping your bunkmate’s hand in warm water in an attempt to make him pee in the bed. If you want to know how to terrorize that kid who picked on you on the kickball field, all you have to do is get inside his dreams. Through his nose.

German researchers have found that sleepers exposed to an unpleasant smell will have negative dreams. The opposite is also true. When subjects were exposed to the smell of roses, their dreams were predominantly positive. These olfactory observers used rotten eggs in their study, but we are sure that a stinky gym sock, left perched on the pillow of your enemy, would work just as well. While we’re fairly certain that the researchers didn’t plan to have their findings used in this manner, there are always unintended (and sometimes dastardly) consequences of scientific breakthroughs.

Because our sense of smell involves such a sensitive and neurologically complex function, and because it’s so powerful in its influence on our behavior, it’s not surprising at all that so many scientists have studied the effect of different scents on emotion, memory, appetite, energy, and sexual arousal. The sense of smell is known to be closely linked to the same area of the brain which handles memory and behavior, which is why a familiar scent can trigger a vivid memory or feeling about the first time you got a whiff of it. Scientists have also found that our sense of smell intensifies when we sense a dangerous smell — such as a fire — sparking our brain’s fight-or-flight response.

It certainly seems logical that there would be a strong connection between smell and stimulation, but you might be shocked to find out what the most sexually “intoxicating” fragrances actually are.

To test the effect a scent has on arousal, Dr. Alan Hirsch, a nationally recognized smell and taste expert and the founder of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, chose 30 pleasant odors and hypothesized that these enticing scents would stimulate more than just the nose. He measured penile blood flow while exposing men whose eyes were covered to various scents. The winner, by a nose, was lavender and pumpkin pie, with a 40 percent average increase in blood flow to the penis. The smell of doughnuts and black licorice came in a close second with a 31.5 percent increase in penile blood flow Cranberry finished dead last, so you may want to leave that off the seduction menu.

Hirsch also studied the effect of odors on women and measured their sexual response. The winners: the combo of Good & Plenty candy and cucumber with a 13 percent increase in vaginal blood flow. Baby powder tied with a lucky 13 percent boost. Pumpkin pie and lavender also seemed to stimulate the ladies, coming in second at 11 percent.

Now, you’re probably ready to radically alter your choice of cologne and aftershave, right? After all, who needs Chanel No. 5 or Boucheron pour Homme, when it’s apparently so much more provocative to slather a hunk of pumpkin pie across your neck or daub a melting Twizzler behind your ears?

It’s said that humans are able to distinguish over 10,000 different odor molecules. We do this by simply breathing in. That whiff of air goes up the nostrils and makes its way to the roof of the nasal cavity where it hits a tiny area called the olfactory epithelium. The olfactory epithelium contains millions of olfactory receptor neurons. On the surface of these neurons are odorant receptors that pass the smell information to the olfactory bulb (just underneath the front of your brain) and then on to the olfactory cortex in the temporal lobe of your brain.

Confused? Well, so are scientists. You see, humans have only about 400 odorant receptors on the surface of those sensory neurons. The otherwise humble mouse has approximately 1,200! Yet we olfactorily challenged humans can still detect thousands of odors.

Because the power of human sense of smell is so greatly underrated, the great and profound enigmas of scratching-and-sniffing remain to be solved.

队员们注意了!想让你同寝室的伙伴尿床吗?这次再也不用把他的手放进温水里了。想知道怎样恐吓球场上作弄你的家伙吗?睡觉时让他闻臭味就行了。

德国研究人员已经发现,如果卧室里有难闻的气味人入睡后就会作恶梦,反之亦然。当人们在充满了玫瑰芬芳的地方睡觉,他们梦里绝大多数的人或事都是积极乐观的。嗅觉研究人员在研究中使用了臭鸡蛋。但有一点我们敢肯定,将运动后穿过的臭袜子挂在你仇敌的枕边也会奏效。虽然我们相当肯定研究人员并不打算将自己的发现运用于此,但科学技术上的重大突破难免在不经意间带来不良后果。

大家知道嗅觉涉及到一个灵敏的神经方面的复杂功能,而且它左右着我们日常的行为举止,所以我们对众多科学家们研究不同气味对人的情绪、记忆力、食欲、精神和性兴奋所产生的效果就不足为奇了。我们都知道嗅觉和我们大脑中控制记忆和行为举止的部位有着密切联系,这就是为什么熟悉的气味能使我们回想起第一次闻到它时那生动的画面或那份感觉。科学家们同样发现,闻到一种危险的气味时我们的嗅觉会增强,例如闻到火味,我们大脑会做出应激反应。

气味和刺激有着密切联系,这一点好像似乎还合乎逻辑,但你可能会感到震惊,因为科学家们发现了促使男女达到性兴奋的气味。

为了测试气味对性刺激的效果,美国知名的嗅觉和味觉专家、芝加哥嗅觉与味觉治疗与研究基金会创始人艾伦· 赫希博士选用了30种悦人的气味并提出一个假设:这些诱人的气味不仅仅对鼻子有刺激作用。赫希博士将一些男人的眼睛蒙上,让他们去闻各种各样的气味,与此同时测量了他们阴茎的血流量。结果气味中的获胜者是熏衣草和南瓜饼,闻到它们时被测试者们的阴茎血流量平均增加了40%。油炸圈饼和黑甘草的气味位居第二,被测试者阴茎血流量增加了31.5%。蔓越橘效果最差,最后被淘汰。

赫希博士也研究了气味对女人的影响并测出了她们的性反应。这次气味中的佼佼者是:糖和黄瓜的混合气味,被测试者阴道的血流量增加了13%。婴儿爽身粉的气味也达到了前者的效果。南瓜饼和熏衣草的气味位居第二,它们似乎对女士也有性刺激作用,被测试者阴道血流量增加了11%。

现在,你可能准备好从根本上改变你对科隆香水和须后水的选择了吧?当你在自己脖子上厚厚地涂上一层南瓜派或在耳后涂上正在融化的Twizzler(美国的一种糖),这显然是些煽情物,毕竟有了这么多的刺激物,谁还需要香奈儿5号女士香水或宝诗龙男士香水呢?

据说人类能够区别万种以上的不同气味。我们通常是将这些气味吸入体内。被吸入的气体升入鼻孔,一路来到鼻腔的顶部,在那里它遇到了一小块地方名为嗅觉上皮细胞。嗅觉上皮细胞包含了几百万个嗅觉神经元。神经元表面是气味接受器,它可将嗅觉信息传递给嗅球,接着依次传递到大脑颞叶(位于大脑外侧)的嗅觉皮层中。

你是否对此感到困惑不解?别担心,科学家们也一样。要知道,人类的这些感官神经元上仅有400个气味接受器。而卑贱的鼠类竟有约1,200个。然而嗅觉受到挑战的人类仍能察觉到数千种气味。

由于人类嗅觉的能力被大大低估,伟大而意义深远的嗅觉之迷还有待揭开。