So I've been having this dream many times but never one so clear. Been having this idea/dream since college year (2009) multiple times but never really told anyone.. I mean I did.. kinda.. sorta. I implemented parts of my dream to an assignment presentation before.. if that counts as telling anyone..
You know there has always been talk about the Smellevision idea? A television with an extra sense implemented to let you smell what you're watching? It's a pretty general idea most people think of - yes. But I've dreamt of how to make it - sorta. My science knowledge isn't great, just what I've learned from high school and nothing more.. I recall learning that smells are technically made out of molecules, basic smells like fruit, flowers, alcohol is easy to reproduce in the school science lab. That's all fine and good. This interested me enough to do my own Google research on this and they can also re-create "bad" smells too - like the smell of fish, rubbish and rotting flesh.
Smells are technically compounds made out of a different bunch of molecules. If it's easy enough to be done in a high school lab, I'm pretty sure that it can be modified and tinkered into something automatically done just by providing "sensors" to recognize the compound of the filming and then translate that into what's required for the person watching the show.
A Smellevision would add smell to the viewer's experience - imagine cooking shows with this! It's a dream, really! "What about the bad smells etc?" Pretty easy actually.. Let's say you're watching a murder/horror show with lots of blood and gore, right? People who act in these shows are obvious using only fake blood etc, but to make the entire Smellevision idea more realistic, they could take the "sensors" to sense the compound of real blood and whatever disgusting stuff they want to put into their movie.
You might think it's a pretty disgusting idea - to smell gross stuff of whatever you're watching, but it would work like sound - you can mute it! I called it "smute" last time when I did my presentation back in college. It was just an international business presentation really, I actually have no expertise in the field of chemistry :P In fact, it's my most hated subject in high school. I failed so hard at it! Haha!
But I do like watching documentaries and stuff. Super nerdy, but it's SO interesting! They don't usually cover all these "smell compound" stuff so I usually get my fill from Google. My favourite documentaries are the animal ones.. So I figured, you know how snakes "taste" the air? Isn't taste kinda like smell (in a way)? So why don't scientists put more study into that? If they could taste the air, it's a sort of smell sensor, right? So yeah, snake tongues.
So the whole snake tongue thing would be the sensor for filming or acquiring the smell and what the compound is made of (because movies and shows are always acted so you need to require the smell from another REAL source) and then each Smellevision has this pack of mixable molecules to re-create the smell right there in your living room. If I remembered correctly, most basic smells are made of C, H, O and N. Just how many, how they're connected and whatever. Science stuff which I don't like.
So when you're watching cook shows, the sensor will pick up the compound formula from the air, then the smell will be recreated in your Smellevision! Or (this is creepy, but whatever) when you're watching those celebrity stalk shows like E! or MTV, paparazzi and cameramen could install the Smell Sensor onto their cameras and now instead of just criticising their looks, you could also criticise their smell too! So if the paparazzi is stalking the celebrity close enough and right after they woke up, they might smell bad! If they're on the red carpet, they would smell nice. I mean, they probably already smell nice because of perfumes and whatever, but instead of having those "Who wore it best?" between celebrities, they would now have "Who smelled better?" too! The idea makes me smile :P So amusing.
Anyway, that doesn't really cover my dream today.. that was just.. part of a dream from years ago and also my own interest in it - blablabla. My dream today was actually on an idea called "The paper test" which is a piece of paper USB thingo. The piece of paper is water-proof and you can totally clean it up and stuff. What's so special about this paper is that it's a snake tongue sensor thingy! The one I talked about earlier in the post! So yeah. You get this piece of thin paper that's actually a taste/smell sensor which has a USB port connector on it. What you can do on it is bake or cook something, stick your paper sensor into your dish and VOILA you can now share more than just pictures of your food on Facebook, you can also share the smell AND show off if it smells good! Or or or or or. You know how perfume smells different on different people? Like a certain bottle would smell nicer on one person than it does on another? I don't know why that is - maybe some kinda chemical thingy on your skin? Whatever. So you could use this paper test and have it touch your skin and then connect it to your computer and ask your friends what they think etc!
Imagine how easy it is for perfumes to sell now! Just get the compound build info from using the sensor, then the customers can smell it right there in their living room! You know how perfume ads are always kinda vague and stupid, just some really good looking girl/guy doing something completely random and then the perfume brand is displayed. Or else the perfume is endorsed by some celebrity and creepy fans would buy it just to smell like their favourite celebrity.. Which I'm sure isn't true because the celebrity is just being paid to endorse it, I'm pretty sure that it isn't their REAL favourite perfume brand and since there's no Smellevision around, people can't tell what they really smell like and so they can just use whatever they like instead. Advertising perfumes on Smellevision would be so much easier, no?
I don't know.. When I woke up, I was kinda like "THIS IS A BRILLIANT DREAM!!" and I kinda wished I knew more science or did better at it to actually be studying it now.. This could kinda be my life research thingy - kinda. Too bad I hated science so much in high school that I dropped it off from my studies ever since SPM. Weird how I hated the subject so much and yet I constantly have dreams on these sort of stuff and how I love watching documentaries.. Meh.
Am I weird for thinking of this? Dreaming it is okay, that I know - because dreams are always weird anyway.. But I actually THINK of this when I'm awake. Next time when I grow older and if I'm rich enough, I might actually invest in this idea and hire some really smart science-y people who are way better at science than I am to do the research and experiments and maybe one day create a REAL Smellevision. That would be awesome.
