Nothing compares to that sheer sense of relief when you wake up in a cold sweat to the blissful realisation that you didn’t actually sleep with your boss or best friend’s boyfriend. So why, especially during the past 12 months, have we been having vivid (and somewhat inappropriate) sex dreams?
Firstly, you’re not alone in your kinky dreams. According to Google trend data, the search term ‘what do sex dreams mean?’ has seen a 10 per cent rise within the last three months. And “what is a lucid dream” is up more than +5,000%. It’s little surprise that we’re all having strange dreams – we are in the midst of a global pandemic, balancing WFH with homeschooling and wondering when the f*** life will return to normal. We wish the past 12 months was a dream, tbh, but it seems we should be paying close attention to our dreams to decipher the current state of our mental health.
“Your dreaming mind has so much it wants to tell you,” Theresa Cheung, Sunday Times bestselling author of The A to Z Dream Dictionary (Harper Collins) and The Dream Decoder (Laurence King), told GLAMOUR.
“The problem is, most of us don’t listen to the wisdom of our night vision.”
So what do these lucid sex dreams reveal about our current mindset? Here, relationship therapist Zoe Williams at the health and lifestyle brand Gear Hungry, presents the science behind sex dreams, what they mean and whether they hold any meaning.
Firstly, what happens chemically in the brain when we have sex dreams?
The majority of dreaming (90%) takes place when we’re in a REM state of sleep, the fifth of the sleep stages that takes its name from the Rapid Eye Movement it produces. “When we’re in this state, our brain is just as active as when we’re awake during the day, though scientists attribute the strangeness of your dreams to the fact that, chemically, our brain is completely rewired when we sleep,” explains Zoe.
“The areas of the brain that are most active during REM are the ones that control our emotions, specifically the limbic system, which is responsible for creating and controlling both good and bad emotions. Compare this to the parts of brain that are least active – the frontal lobes, which are responsible for higher functioning activities and thought, and you now understand why our dreams can sometimes be erratic at best.”
Now to the science stuff: Chemically speaking, oxytocin (the love hormone) takes centre stage when experiencing dreams of affection or sexual attraction. Hypothalamus, the nuclei that oversee the distribution of oxytocin, is located close to the regions of the brain that monitors arousal, and more importantly, the sleep and awake states of the body. This is theorised as one of the main reason’s oxytocin is so active during sleep and hence the sex dreams take place.
What can sex dreams teach us?
As we all know very well, our dreams are complex, maddening, blurring and sometimes just plain illogical – but you can take meaning from them.
“Dreaming about a sexual encounter doesn’t always mean you pine for the person, but it can be as simple as you find them attractive subconsciously. Where things get a bit more interesting is what type of sex dream you have with someone,” said Zoe.
Here’s what sex dreams with certain figures might reveal about your mental health….
Sex with your boss: A dream involving an authority figure (teacher, boss) can indicate a desire for more control in your life – control that you don’t think you’re capable of giving yourself, or it could stem from a craving of attention that you don’t feel you’re currently getting.
Wild sex: A sex dream involving a more adventurous type of sex that you would normally never imagine can indicate a person wanting to let go, and get out of their comfort zone, subconsciously desiring a life free from self-judgements.
Sex with an ex: If you’re dreaming about sex with an ex whilst you’re in a new relationship, it could be that you’re still getting used to a new partner or have unresolved grief about an ex.
Sex involving dirty talk: If your dreams involve talking dirty it could indicate that you’re desperate to feel more comfortable in your own skin and feel insecure about how others may perceive you.
What are some practical tips to help people start to learn from their sex dreams?
“As with all dreams, the benefits of keeping a journal and writing all the details down are extremely helpful to understanding a connection. Every week, read through your entries and see if there’s a connection, a sign that your subconscious is trying to tell you something, over time you may even start to notice over patterns, like particular dreams occurring at certain times, or even recurring characters,” she notes.
Sweet dreams!