By Layne Dalfen
Why We Dream About Sex
Have you ever dreamt about having sex with your best friend? Or dreamt about sex with a hot stranger, perhaps while lying in bed right next to your partner?! How does this dream make you feel when you wake up? Aroused? Uncomfortable? Guilty? All of the above?
It’s not surprising that of all the dream topics I analyze with clients, sex dreams top the titillation–and confusion–charts. The way we dream about sex can uncover our deepest secrets about ourselves helping us problem-solve and offering critical guidance on important life issues. You just need to know how to deconstruct them. Discovering why you had a particular dream is an investigation. You’ll want to ask yourself questions to solve the puzzle. Remember that in our dreams we are decision-making, testing out different solutions to our problems. We are practicing different behaviors. And all of the possible ways of behaving in every situation we face are there for us in our dreams. Why feel stuck with the same reactions to situations over and over again when our dreams offer us the potential to change our behavior and our lives?
Sexual dreams can indicate that our body needs sexual release. But they can mean so much more. They can give us a chance to understand conflicts or opportunities in our sexual lives. They can wake in us our need for love or nurturing in our relationship. Even more importantly, they can serve as metaphors for nonsexual issues and situations in our personal and professional lives. Sexual dreams can reveal a union between different aspects of our own selves.
The dream reflects a current need or situation
Before I look for possible meanings in a dream, I always like to look at first things first. The first level of your dream always reflects a very specific current issue in your life that you are attempting to problem-solve. We are adept at hiding our feelings from ourselves and we do so easily keeping busy daily. We may not always be in touch with our needs. Well, your subconscious never lies to you. Dreaming is a form of thinking without the filter.
To attach your sexual dream to the need or situation it is reflecting, the first thing you’ll want to ask yourself is if you need some release. Sometimes a sexual dream is there to inspire you to ask your partner for some loving. Maybe your dream is just there to make you feel good!
Dreams offer a safe place to practice.
Sarah, who was brought up in an extremely conservative home, had the idea it was a woman’s place to always lie under the man when having sexual intercourse. Recently she had recurring sexual dreams in which she was always on top. Sometimes it wasn’t her husband either! After eighteen years of marriage she was bored with their routine sexual life. Sarah had to admit that her dreams were exciting. At forty-five years old, her dreams provided Sarah with a safe place to let go of her teenage conditioning and practice how it feels being in the top position. When she felt comfortable enough Sarah took her new idea out into her waking life and surprised her husband!
Metaphors for nonsexual situations
Sexual dreams are often also directly related to problem-solving situations in our personal or professional lives. So when literal explanations for your dream don’t seem to ring true, search out a metaphoric meaning. Allan, a client of mine kept dreaming that his wife was cheating on him. When looking first for a literal explanation, I asked him, “Is it true? Do you really think she is cheating on you?” His answer was no. So we began to investigate other possibilities as to the dream’s meaning. The act of doing this is exactly like trying to solve a puzzle. You try one piece, and if that doesn’t fit, you try another. I like to call these puzzle pieces different points of entry into the dream.
In Allan’s case I tried a “feelings” point of entry by asking, “How do the dreams make you feel?” His response was immediate. “Betrayed. Surprised. Saddened. Angry.” I asked, “What situation do you think went on in your life this week that has made you feel the same emotions?” It was in answering that question that Allan clicked on the dream’s meaning.
A client who had been doing business with Allan for many years, who he felt very close to and whom he thought he could depend on, (much like his wife), took some of their business to a competitor. Allan was not expressing outwardly the tremendous feeling of sadness and betrayal he was experiencing. His subconscious using a picture of his wife cheating on him, accomplished its task. The dream gives rise to an emotion that helps you move closer towards the goal. In this case the goal or lesson of the dream, was to get the dreamer in touch with the sadness he was experiencing and to express it. In many situations it is most beneficial if we can express our feelings directly to the person it concerns. But even when that is not possible, the simple act of expressing out instead of holding in can be a great release. You let some air out of the balloon. The dream has served its purpose. Happily it was Allan’s wife who was there to lean on.
Once you have correctly decoded a dream’s meaning (and by that I mean that you have succeeded in discovering what specific problem the dream is addressing), you will be astounded by how precisely it mirrors that situation!
Recapturing your disowned character traits
All the parts of your dreams represent different parts of you. You are the producer, the director, and all the players in your dream. You are the wall, the water, the road, and even the snake. In a movie one person can’t play all the parts! Likewise, in our dreams, we cannot play all the parts. In life I am Layne the wife, the mother, the daughter, the aunt, the friend, the writer, the radio personality, and the dream analyst. I can be giving, selfish, sad, happy, weak, strong, assertive, shy, angry and frustrated, or optimistic and energetic.
In dreams we usually take the role we most easily connect to in our waking lives, and give out the other parts to people, animals, or objects. We use them as metaphors and symbols to say something to ourselves that only we can understand. So our dreams show us different characteristics we need to be fully ourselves, in every situation and give us the opportunity to reunite these “divorced” aspects of our own character, so that we can move forward through life with a deeper, truer self. When a character trait is “missing” and needed in a particular situation, that trait will very likely present itself in the person’s dreams.
We all have freedom of choice as to how we want to behave and who we want to be. Having the ability to understand our dreams gives us the opportunity to be completely in touch with our whole selves when making decisions.
Steps to take and questions to ask yourself to decode your sexual dreams:
- Look for a literal meaning. Is the story of the dream something that really happened? Is it something you really do want to do?
- Write down how you felt in the dream. Is there a correlation between how you felt in the dream and something that is going on in your life?
- Isolate the symbols. (People, places and things) What comes to your mind when you think about the symbol? Is anyone in your life behaving like that recently? Is it that you might need to adopt that characteristic in your current situation?
- Say the dream out loud. Maybe you’ll discover a word play or pun! For example, a woman who dreamed there were snakes on the floor and said, “I couldn’t put my foot down” was subconsciously referring to an inability to “put her foot down” in a situation with her husband.
Once you find the mirror, look for the solution:
- Is the solution in the action or lack of it? Is the action appropriate to the situation?
- What behavior or personality type can I take from the dream and use in my current situation?
- What strength about my character do I need to tap into right now in my life? An example is a woman who dreams that she falls to her death, gets up and walks away. The dream makes a comment to illustrate how when she hits rock bottom, she knows how to pick herself up and carry on.
Remember, dreams allow us to experiment, try new things, learn, all in a safe way, and then transofrm ourselves in our waking lives. Next time you dream a dream, don’t be too quick to dismiss it– it will often give you the answer to looming questions you’ve been sitting on the fence about in your life.
~Layne
BIO:
Layne Dalfen, Dream Analyst
Founder of The Dream Interpretation Center, and author of Dreams Do Come True; Decoding Your Dreams To Discover Your Full Potential, Layne Dalfen has emerged as a speaker and guest on TV and radio programs in the United States and Canada. She lectures at schools and universities and speaks yearly at conferences all over the world.
Layne provides the tools needed to decode and understand why we have certain dreams on a particular night, and how that knowledge can potentially enrich our lives.
You can reach Layne at [email protected]
Tell us, do you have sexual dreams? Do you have recurring dreams? Have you had dreams that have actually helped you make a real life decision? Do you remember your dreams or forget them? Share any experiences with our readers.
POST YOUR DREAM, AND LAYNE MIGHT ANALYZE IT FOR YOU!
Layne, last night I dreamt 2 things at the same time. My 2 mini African dwarf frogs that we have, became 2 massive jumping toads that jumped out of the water and were jumping around my house. They were scary, but after a while, I managed to open the door, and they jumped out. I felt relieved.
Also, with these mini frogs that became huge ugly jumping toads, there was a mother pitbull and 3 puppies (i don’t like pitbulls) also in the house, but not attacking me.
What does all this mean! It was complete animal chaos.
Hi Erica.
Excellent final comment!! That should help you attach the dream to the current issue you are working through. You said, “It was complete animal chaos.” So my question is…..”What do you think is going on this week….a situation that seems to have started small and easily containable, which has suddenly become chaotic?
I LOVE the part of the dream where you say that while you experienced some fear, you seemed to have calmed down after a bit, took control of the situation, “OPENED THE DOOR” (I LIKE that!) and you let them out.
The metaphor about keeping a door open has plenty of positive associations for me. When I open a door, I am opening myself up to hearing things, doing things, in this case you are opening the door to “let something out”. Get it?
I also like how you felt relieved. Now….If this was my dream I might have it when I am holding in something I want to say and the longer I hole it in the “bigger and uglier” the thing becomes. If I just open my mouth and let out what I want to say, I typically feel a great sense of relief!
My animal instincts, my intuition, my gut. When I need to pay attention to those qualities, it may not “look” good but the dream help inspire me to take action.
Here’s a similar situation I had about letting it out only last week!
http://dreamcatcher.net/layne/6600
Hope that helps!
Thank you Layne! Amazing interpretation!
This was very helpful. I will now pay closer attention to my dreams. I don’t have sexual dreams but I always dream about someone chasing me. I usually manage to escape him so I guess that’s a good sign.
Hi Shelly.
Escaping someone who is chasing you can be a “good sign” if that’s the solution to the VERY SPECIFIC CURRENT ISSUE” you are attempting to problem solve!…..But not necessarily. Once you have successfully decoded WHY you had the dream, if the chase is happening because you have been feeling too much pressure in your work for example, and you need a break, then you’re successfully escaping hopefully encourages you to take some time for yourself. Maybe go have a message and see a movie with friends. Then the getting away is an appropriate response to the current issue.
In some situations though when you have a chasing dream, you’d be better to let yourself be caught! For example, if there is a situation in your relationship that needs your attention and the dream is mirroring how you are running away from, ignoring, or sweeping the issue under the rug, then the “solution” to the chasing dream would be to stop and face the issue you are running from.
So it always depends on the specifics of the situation in your life THIS WEEK that the dream is helping you problem-solve.
Good post. I once dreamed my best friend gave me oral sex but I am a happily married woman. I woke up in a sweat and very disgusted. I’m not posting my name.
Hi. Never any shame in sexual dreams! You could have had a dream like that if your friend made you “feel so good” meaning that she did something so nice for you, and in your subconscious you associated “feeling so good” with oral sex. The language of dreams is a world of metaphors. Once they are decoded they often take on another meaning altogether. If you had the dream recently you might even ask yourself what happened recently that you imagined would feel so good, but left you feeling “disgusted”. (I don’t mean something sexual). I just mean something you thought would feel good and didn’t.
Very interesting post. I love the comic strip, its very funny. 🙂
I have on again/off again dreams about having sex with ex-boyfriends – the sex is SUPER hot, all over the place, and it’s so intense that there are times I actually feel flushed when waking up. It’s always the same 2 exes and I never actually had intercourse with either of them! I am married and happy with the sex life I have, so this has driven me crazy. What are your thoughts?
Our subconscious mind is a huge database holding every single memory and association we have had since we’re born. I’m over fifty so I call it a filing cabinet! The point is, these associations and memories are as unique to each of us as a fingerprint. It’s your very personal dictionary.
So if I look up one of my daughters in my dictionary, all of my 4 daughters will appear there. And if I am having an issue with one of them and my dream is attempting to come to some conclusion about the issue, my subconscious may choose any one of them in the dream, even though the problem I am having is about the one daughter. In the world of metaphors, they become interchangeable.
If I am dreaming (talking to myself/thinking) about a recent problem I am trying to solve that has to do with my husband, if u look in my personal database, under the definitions for Andy (my husband) we would find there, every single boyfriend I have ever had. We will also find any “male family member”, all the men named Andy I have ever known.
All these definitions are interchangeable and ANY of them might appear in my dream even though the discussion I am having with myself in the dream is actually about my husband.
All that said, the dream at the first level is about something that either happened to you yesterday or something that you thought about yesterday. If you haven’t thought about those ex’s or they are not in your current life, then they are simply a symbol for someone or something else.
Could be the obvious….your husband….but not necessarily. Maybe you are using them because they both also represent “things you haven’t done that would feel hot and intense”. For all I know maybe you have been contemplating skydiving!! = something you haven’t done that you imagine would be hot and intense.
I have some clear examples about how to decode the dream at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqx7GWyAnlA Hope that helps!
Okay i have been having a dram about a big family get together and friends ( my husband step son in laws and my steps sons mom and family and my family and a few friends ) but in this dream i get madd at my step sons mother not that that odd that i decied to leave with a (male ) friend of mine and my husband in the dream is okay with it cuz he doesent want drama so while me and my male friend are gone we have sex ! i mean it was so intense sex ever had but in my dream i told my friend that that all it could be was what just happend and he said okay well after that we went back to where i was staying at with my familys and he said he was gonna go down the road and when he came back he asked em to come talk to him and i said sure and we went in a bed room set down on the bed and he kissed me and said eh wanted to be with me and i todl him i cant i love my hsuband and my family and i dont want to lose that and he said well can we sneak and i said idk im scared you might take it to far and he said he wouldent as long as i wore a ring he went out and baught that was small pink dimonds that fit my pinky and i said okay but if someone asks where i got it im gonna lie and he said okay then i go out side and my husband had jsut got back form being out with the family and eh seemed madd and i asked him what was wrong and he asked if i had sex with blank(my friend) and i said no huni i would never and you should know that and he said okay and went ion about the day and for the rest of the day nothing in my dream seemed strange >….. now i have never had any sex with thsi friend and we have had plent of chance just neither one of us never tryed anything like that with each other and now im jsut so confussed and wish i knew why i was dreaming about it when i woke up i sent my friend a message about it and he jsut laughed and said i was crazy and that he loved me and that was the end of it can you plz tell me what this means?????
just to add IM HAPPILY MARRIED
I am a 19 year old girl and some days back I dreamt that I was involved in sexual practice with My best friend, who is also a girl. I am mostly attracted to males but i have nothing against dating a woman(which i never did though) . But My friend is completely straight and i have never been sexually or romantically interested in her. So that dream was shocking and i have been feeling very guilty. I would very much like to know what this means.
Thank you.
Hi Johra. I am sorry that I never received this comment of your by email and was lucky to find it while perusing Erica’s site a few minutes ago, or I would have responded in a more timely manner!! I DO hope you receive my response though! Our subconscious is like a vast dictionary. One that is personally tailored with our very own associations to people, places and things. That said, it is possible that in your personal “dictionary”, when you want to express to yourself how good you felt about something that happened….or something you did…..or how good someone made you feel…..or what an amazing time you had….you might use sex as a way to say it to yourself. OR maybe (as you said here) you did something the week you had the dream that you don’t normally do and you turned out feeling good doing it! For all you and I know that could have been going to a baseball game!! So don’t get necessarily “stuck” on the sexual thing necessarily. Even though the dream was a few months ago, you might still ask yourself if there was something you did in January that you never thought about doing and that you “feel guilty” about having done.
Hi,am 32yrs old married mother of 3.recently i dreamt having sexual intercourse wit a strong political figure,i completely remember wanting it n even enjoying it,i even remember him asking me if i was having sex,which i answered wit annoyance becoz we r going thro’ an emotional strain wit my husband.what puzzles me is that while i enjoyed it n thinking that he also enjoyed,i found him showering n scrabbing himself wit a brush on asking why,he said that they(i guess his wife)snoop on him everyday he got home.pliz help me understand this
Hi Hilda. For some reason, I never received an email with your comment and am lucky to have discovered it today while perusing Erica’s site. If, as you explain, there has been a strain in your relationship with your husband it makes understandable sense that you might dream about having great sex with someone else! It is your subconscious’ way of making yourself feel good during a time where you weren’t. The dream presents an element of “erasing” or “trying to hide” or “get rid of” the good time. If it was my dream, I’d be asking myself what I have been doing lately that I feel I have to cover up. Cover up my good time! For example, someone in my family became paralyzed recently, so I don’t go visit her at the hospital wearing my gym clothes and come in looking like I just finished a workout and telling her how great it felt. You get what I mean? So I would go home and change into other clothes before I see her, much like you “politically correct” lover does in the dream. I hope my explanation helps you decode why you had that dream and that things in your relationship are better!
I had a dream last night that was very arousing and weird. I secretly followed a man into a building (I knew him in the dream, but he doesn’t exist in my real life – and I am happily married), but what I found was not the man but a circle of people who welcomed me in and pushed me into what they were doing. It was some sort of open sexual circle – a group of people not physically having sex but taking turns with each other in any form of foreplay – kissing, groping, biting and sucking on the neck, etc… As their “new member” they stripped me down to my undies, lacy see-through ones, and each one “introduced” him/herself to me with some form of sexual affection, while I stood slightly inside the circle. At one point, I think as a response to my speaking out, they stripped off another layer of my clothing, so finally I was completely naked. I remember finding this whole process fascinating and being slightly into it, but very quiet and submissive. Then suddenly I see the man I had followed walking up from another room. We both look shocked to see each other, but he covers his shock much more quickly. The leader of the circle tells us all that within the group, all ties to the outside world are cut. We do not use our real names here, and all associations to people we may have known are nonexistent. The man I know admires my naked body as he takes confident strides towards me, and when he arrives in front of me he scoops my body against his with one strong arm, bends me backwards and leans in to whisper in my ear something to the effect of “Be careful in this group, I wouldn’t trust them completely.” I’m baffled by the words, but more than anything I just feel a sense of strong arousal at the dominance of this man over me, whom I get the sense I had never thought of in such a sexual way, and to whom no other could compare. I get the feeling that, regardless of how we may interact with others in the circle, we are bonded together.
Hi. Please remember that the dream is reflecting a current circumstance in your life. Something you are attempting to come to a conclusion about, or your subconscious is pointing you towards a certain behavior that would be the appropriate response to whatever the given current situation in your life is. All that said, what I can give you are some thoughts and ideas that come to my mind when I read your dream. Hopefully some of this feedback will help you pinpoint what the situation is. So I am giving you my “projections” from my own life experience, as opposed to “telling” you what your dream is about. And if you click on what’s going on in your life and you share it with me, I am very good at pointing you towards the solution to the issue as it appears in the dream. For example, let me jump to a possible solution before I even stab at my initial thoughts! I’m a person who typically is the “take care of it” person in my relationships, especially with my husband and my kids. And you know, sometimes I tire of that role. I find it VERY appealing and attractive, or shall we say, I get “turned on” when my husband steps into that role. I am not referring to sex by the way. In fact that is the only department where he IS the initiator! But in most other aspects of our life, it’s me. So when I was ill a few years ago, I longed for the kind of man who “took over” and “dominated” my situation. You know what I mean? So in a case like that, where I was feeling “exposed” I would have been very turned on had he taken the stance that your dream man takes whispering to me not to trust the “group” who was “undressing me”, completely. What I am doing here for you, is creating a scenario that could illustrate the kind of dream I could have had when I was ill a few years ago and hopefully, if I was NOT EXPRESSING my wishes and hopes for my husband’s role to him openly, the dream would be there to inspire me to do so.
More…..As for helping you uncover or decode what issue the dream is addressing, here are a few things that come to my mind. You say, “he scoops my body against his with one strong arm, bends me backwards”. That makes me think of the expression “bending backwards for someone. Sometimes I bend backwards for someone because It is my pleasure to? Sometimes because I am feeling “pushed to”? Sometimes I think i would have to be literally held back and whispered to in a dominant kind of way when as my husband says about me, I “fall in love too quickly”, like with people in business, and he wishes I would be more wary.
The dream also makes me think of a “group situation”, obviously because there is a group in the dream. I notice you are letting the group “have their way with you” and most importantly, you are saying it’s a turn on. Do you think like me the dream wants to inspire you to ask people around you to look after you more right now? To make you “feel good”?
Finally, I can NEVER leave out that a good old sexual dream has the terrific effect of turning you on. And sometimes with our busy lives, we have to be reminded how good sex feels. If the dream wakes you up to that and inspires you to ask for some? Then it has done a good job!
A few nights ago I had a dream where I had sex with my best friend. The dream was loving, passionate, sensual, intense and, well it was perfect in every way. It was beautiful – I won’t lie there. I knew it was him even though I didnt see his face in the dream. I could however, see his back, chest and shoulders and other parts of his body like his arms and hands like I can see in real life.
I snapped awake from the dream and was quite shocked to have dreamt about him in this way. He’s gay, you see. The dream itself was very detailed and EXTREMELY real. I could feel his skin on mine, hear his voice and could even feel his energy in the dream just like I can when we are in each other’s presence in real life.
I’m very confused and curious as to why I dreamed this. He and I are very close and the love we do have for each other is very deep, pure and unconditional, whilst remaining totally platonic. To give you an idea, like a two person gang that no one else can join. No one, and I mean no one ‘gets’ us. We are what you’d call two of a kind. Just to clarify further – I am also very aware of his sexuality, I respect it, accept it and know that nothing could ever change the way we are because he is attracted to men not women.
I’ve had a few thoughts as to what this dream could mean. Perhaps we could have been something in a previous life and that the dream was telling me this? Perhaps something else? Perhaps it was something else entirely? Maybe deep down I long for a romantic love that is like what he and I share? A metaphor for something else?
I do wonder….
I’d be grateful if you could help me in any way. Thank you in advance.
Hi there. You could have used this dream as a metaphor to describe to yourself that you are doing something in your life these days that you never thought you would do but you are enjoying it. One of my women clients years ago had a similar kind of dream about her co-worker and it turned out to be about that she had been boating and absolutely loving it, when she never thought in a million years she would even get on a boat, never mind enjoy it. The whole experience was very “exciting” for her. It was very “new” coupled with the fact that it was something she “never expected to happen”. In fact boating becamse a “passion” for her.
So all these words; the language she used, brought with them sexual images. We are speaking to ourselves in pictures. The dream does not necessarily have anything whatsoever with your friend. If you go over the steps listed in the article here, it should help you pinpoint what recent situation in your life you are discussing with yourself. If you want to have a private consultation, the fee is 50.00 per half hour and it would be my pleasure to help you. You can book a consultation at my site. There is a secure page there, and I accept Visa and Mastercard. Layne Dalfen http://www.haveagreatdream.com
Can you tell us more about this? I’d love to find out more details.
Hi sofort Sexanzeigen.
If you are seeking more information about how to decode and analyze your dreams, please visit my site! There are articles on my blog, and links to my youtube videos.
I am also available for private sessions by telephone and/or SKYPE! You can reach me at [email protected]
Have a great day.
Great blogs, thanks. Nothing better than dreaming of sex and sensual encounters!
?? I don’t know who you are saying cheated on who in the dream….but I can tell you these stories are sometimes just a metaphor for something else completely different. So don’t be stuck thinking your dream is necessarily literal. For example, please read the section in this article titled “Metaphors for nonsexual situations”.
Hope that helps you!