What are sex dreams about?

You can gain insight from thinking about any dream, no matter how strange. Only you, as the dreamer, have final say on what your dream may or may not mean. Each dream is unique.

The DreamWell dictionary provides information on how each dream symbol appears in dreams in general. Finding how experience sex in dreams can be a key to understanding its meaning.

Our emotions in dreams can help us understand its meaning. Pay attention to how you felt in the dream. Pay attention to how you feel about sex in dreams. See how you feel about sex now, in your waking life.

Sex is commonly used by dreams to create symbolism. Even virgins and celibate priests and nuns dream about sex—very intensely and realistically, too.

Interpreting a dream featuring sex or arousal doesn’t have to go very deep, in some cases. The dream simply means that sex is on your mind, or you’re aroused during sleep. People can experience periods of intense arousal while asleep. Dreams turn physical input into dream imagery, so arousal while dreaming is likely to be turned into sexual imagery or symbolism.

However, the “chicken or egg” question has not been answered: Does arousal cause sexually related dream imagery, or does sexual dream imagery cause arousal?

Most dreams connect in some way to the process of integrating new material into the psyche. Sex is a terrific analogy for this process because sex is essentially about integration. Two bodies integrate. Two hearts integrate. You give and take, physically and emotionally. You “make” love, a very telling verb to use, basically saying that sex is a creative process. It’s something that grows and develops and takes on a life of its own.

Think about it. Dream sex is sex (metaphorically speaking) with yourself.

The same idea applies to celibate people, who can have intensely sexual dreams that provide outlet for their sexual energy, and at heart it’s healthy. It can be a way of pouring energy into an area of life, especially related to creativity and personal development, and encouraging bonding between parts of the psyche.

It’s common to dream about someone you know who arouses you. If you have sexual thoughts or fantasies about the person and dream about having sex, the dream might simply reflect your thoughts. It might not be wise to pop awake and tell your bedmate about your “sex with someone else” dream, but it’s not something to feel guilty about, which is a typical reaction. Sex in a dream is symbolism.

Whatever you repress or deny in your waking life will be given extra emphasis in your dream life, so it’s better to allow it outlet in your dreams.

If you already know that a person turns you on and you dream about having sex with that person, you’re not learning anything new. Instead, it could be a safe forum to think through the situation, or a safe outlet for your feelings and desires. At least you get a taste of that fruit, perhaps enough to satisfy. It’s a simulation to help you work through related issues such as attraction, desire, performance, anxiety, comfort, and orgasm. Being comfortable with sex in a dream can make you more comfortable with sex in your life, or with sexuality in general.

For example, a woman who has never had an orgasm, and has been racking her brain trying to figure out why, dreams about having sex with a man who really turns her on. Rather than the usual “wham, bam” sex she’s used to, he takes his time, unlike the men she’s been with. She reaches orgasm in seconds—it’s mind-blowing. And when she wakes up she thinks to herself that she has to find a man who can do it the way her dream lover does it. It’s her dream’s way of showing her—not just telling her—what she needs to orgasm.

Your physician would probably agree that sexual arousal in dreams is healthy for you, especially if you are not having any sex in your waking life. A wet dream helps the prostate and Skene’s gland. It releases stress and anxiety. Enjoy it!

Unrequited sexual feelings can show in dreams, too. It’s quite common to dream about your crush and not get what you want. It can be a way of expressing frustration, of thinking you won’t get what you want, or of thinking through strategies for getting it.

For example, a young man dreams that his best friend—for real, not imaginary—has sex with every girl he likes. It’s awful as time after time he watches his friend take a girl into a bedroom, while he can only weep. The dream is not tormenting him. It shows him he has a great example in his friend for learning how to get the girls he wants. His friend is good with the ladies and an example to follow.

Sex in a dream can symbolize intimacy of any kind. You can be intimate with a person without having sex with him or her. You can be intimate with a subject or idea. For example, a student dreams about having sex with a professor. The professor is not at all physically attractive to the student in waking life, but in the dream he is a real Casanova. The dream helps the student realize that the professor is intellectually stimulating. His lectures are dynamic. The subject of the class and the professor’s teaching ability is what actually turns on the student.

Sex can be used to symbolize forced intimacy. A teenage girl dreams recurrently about being told by her mother that she must have sex with her father. She reluctantly follows him into a bedroom, where he casually disrobes. The dreams end just before they do the deed. She’s disgusted. In her waking life, her parents are divorced and her father is distant from the family. Her mother pushes her closer to her father, forcing her to have a relationship with him, but she doesn’t want to be close with him. Her dreams turn the situation into a scenario of being forced to have sex with him. See: Incest

Sex in a dream can express personal intimacy with what you create. A writer dreams about a sexually charged situation with a character he invented for a book he is writing. The dream reflects the closeness and intimacy he feels with the character. Our creations are often expressions of our inner lives. Story characters, in particular, reflect the writers that create them, so the leap from a story character to a dream character is a short one.

A college-age female in a committed relationship with her boyfriend dreams about having sex with their mutual friends. She wonders whether she has a repressed desire to cheat, but instead the dreams reflect the intimate conversations she’s been having with those mutual friends. It feels like cheating because she’s sharing thoughts and feelings with them that she isn’t sharing with her boyfriend.

Sex in a dream can be used to express thoughts and feelings that are intimate or private.

It can be used in association with jealousy. For example, a man dreams that his wife is having sex with her co-workers. He does not suspect she is cheating in waking life, but does feel a bit jealous of all the time she spends at work. The dream amplifies his feelings so he will consciously deal with them rather than ignore them. See: Infidelity, Jealousy

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the most basic purpose of sex is reproduction. Sex in a dream can be about pregnancy and related matters. See: Pregnancy

Sex in a dream can symbolize dominance and submission, giving and receiving. The symbolism derives from the roles played and positions assumed during sex. For example, dreaming about being on top during sex can symbolize being in a dominant position in a business deal or relationship, or in some way taking the lead or getting on top. The dream can be about getting what you want and relate to sex only because it’s used as a comparison to getting something else you want.

Sex that finishes soon after it starts can symbolize disappointment. Something doesn’t live up to expectation. Something exciting or pleasurable ends too soon.

Sexual dream imagery that is absurd, inappropriate or outrageous can be a sign of something out of kilter in a person’s sexual attitudes and perceptions.

Interrupted sex in a dream can symbolize lacking privacy or opportunity for sex or masturbation. See: Masturbation

If none of the other possibilities covered in this entry fits your dream, the possibility is strong that the dream is about integrating something new into yourself.

Dreams can draw on hundreds of euphemisms for sex to create symbolism: plowing a field, climbing a flagpole, hitting a home run. Just keep in mind that your dreams don’t bring up sex just for the fun of it. Or do they? With dreams, anything is possible.

The possibilities for symbolism are endless, and this book goes to great lengths to explain the symbolism of sexually related dream imagery and themes. Use the entries listed below to continue your exploration of this subject.

See also: Beds, Bird cages, Body parts, Breasts, Castration, Infidelity, Eggs, Fireworks, Genitals, Incest, Lips, Love, Masturbation, Orange, Ovaries, Pregnancy, Raping, Testicles, Undressing, Uteruses, Vaginas

This interpretation is from ""The Dream Interpretation Dictionary: Symbols, Signs, and Meanings" and is provided by J.M. DeBord aka "RadOwl". He is the author of several acclaimed books about dreaming, the host of The Dreams That Shape Us podcast, and is a moderator of r/Dreams, one of the largest dream sharing communities on the internet.