Sex dreams in the news
A surprising finding comes from a Canadian study and flies in the face of previous research that suggested the females had far fewer erotic dreams than males.
In a detailed study that served to investigate the actual nature and content of sexual dreams across a large sample of dream reports from men and women, approximately 8% of everyday dream reports from both genders contain some form of sexual-related activity. It seems both genders dream about the subject in equal measure.
The study, authored by Antonio Zadra, PhD, of the Universite de Montreal, was presented at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).
The study
The study required 109 women and 64 men to keep a dream diary for two to four weeks. Participants were on average about 30 years old. Participants jotted down every dream they had, whether it was sexual or not. All in all, they noted 3,564 dreams. Of those dreams, 292 included sexual content. Sexual intercourse was the most common type of content, followed by sexual propositions, kissing, fantasies and masturbation.
The findings
- The study found sex dreams make up 8% of men’s and women’s dreams.
- Both men and women reported experiencing an orgasm in about 4% of their sexual dreams.
- Orgasms were described as being experienced by another dream character in 4% of the women’s sexual dreams, but in none of the male dream reports.
- Current or past partners were identified in 20% of women’s sexual dreams, compared to 14% for men, and public figures were twice as likely to be the object of women’s sexual dream content.
- In women, a whopping 18 percent of sex dreams involved unwanted sex; the number was 5 percent among the men.
- Multiple sex partners were reported twice as frequently in men’s sexual dreams.
Zadra said:
Despite countless books about dream analysis, dreams remain a big mystery. Still, specialists figure that if you dream about a topic, it’s something that occupies your waking thoughts too.
If the sex dreams tend to involve unknown or fantasy characters, it is probably a reflection of your waking state, that your desires and fantasies are with strangers.
For the most part, male and female sex fantasies, conform to gender stereotypes. While women tend to fantasize about film stars, politicians, rock stars or lovers past and present, men tend to visualize themselves making love to multiple partners in public or unknown settings. In their fantasy worlds, the men almost never had to put their ego on the line as in about 90 per cent of the erotic dreams they logged and reported to investigators, the women made the first move.
References:
Sex Dreams Equal 8% of Adults’ Dreams
Dream reports from both men and women consist of some form of sexual-related activity
8% of dreams about sex
Jun 16th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
that’s interesting. definately rings true for me.
Jun 16th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Hmmm … and why am I not surprised?
Not to worry. In my dreams, I always have the leading role. ;)
And what I learned from the study results is that I (ahem) do not “fit” the genderized stereotyping. I keep a dream journal and the 8% erotic dreams stat makes me LOL. I’m scoring in the 25% range.
I never dream of past lovers, present partner excepted.
I never dream of movie stars.
I’m always willing and usually on the make in dreamland.
I’m frequently having great sex with strangers, in unknown places, in off world settings.
And, as far as multiples go SHE has a following, who worship her and do her bidding, no matter where SHE goes. ;)
And as for the Os … well, this blog doesn’t have a mature rating.
Jun 16th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
@adam
I forgot to say “thanks for breaking the ice”. This is a new blog and of course, I’m hoping to see my readership increase. The post we are commenting on has had lots of hits but those hitting on it must be extremely secretive about their dream lives because they’re not talking.
I mean what’s a girl got to do to get attention {she stamps her foot}?
Jun 17th, 2007 at 2:14 am
The most common “sex” dream is lots of women saying no! They’re my dreams and I still don’t get it. Explain that one!
Jun 17th, 2007 at 8:31 am
yeah, i’ve never dreamt of past lovers either, it’s mostly people i’ve met briefly. i couldn’t keep a dream journal, though. i usually can’t remember dreams unless something reminds me later. or unless i woke up hurriedly (see )
as far as breaking the ice… writing well always attracts readers, whereas writing poorly tends to attract commenters.
Jun 17th, 2007 at 11:37 am
@Collin
I can’t explain that one at all.
In my dreams I have a higher level of self confidence and self esteem than I do in real life. This is probably because I have used creative visualization to increase these two when I’m in a waking state so the visualizations seem to have translated into my dream world as well.
Jun 17th, 2007 at 11:47 am
@adam
I also mostly dream about people I have recently met. Most of them are just passing acquaintances and some are just people I’ve seen on the street or in the shopping mall, drugstore, etc. I seem to retain some small detail like their expression or their hair color or clothes or something they said and embroider on that all night long.
My night dreams always take me to multiple improbable locations that boggle the mind when examining them in the daylight hours.
Keeping a dream journal is easy. Part of the process is telling yourself before you drop off to sleep every night that “I will remember my dreams in the morning”. Once we commit and then tell our brains to comply, although we may have to repeat this over and over, it usually works.
If you refer to my post here http://thistimethisspace.com/2007/05/02/journaling-your-dreams-part-3-questions/
you will find a list of questions. What I do is simply answer as many as I can while I drink my morning tea. It’s interesting that even the most sketchy dreams I can barely recall do become more fully revealed when I answer the questions. So maybe it will work for you too.
As far as the writing goes I’m not sure whether I should thank you for the compliment or deliberately endeavor to write poorly. ;)
Jan 14th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
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