Dreaming about desire
Sexual and romantic dream content is common, normal, and a poor guide to waking preference or intention. Dreaming about someone is not a decision, a confession, or a wish you have to act on.
Also searched as: longing, wanting, attraction, lust
This page exists mostly to defuse things.
Sexual dreams are common. They frequently involve people the dreamer is not attracted to, would not choose, or actively dislikes. They frequently involve people who are unavailable, inappropriate, or entirely fictional. None of that is unusual and none of it is a statement about the dreamer.
The distress this causes is real and largely unnecessary. People dream about colleagues, friends' partners, exes and strangers, and then feel they have done something. They have not. They were asleep.
Common associations
- Wanting, in every sense including non-sexual ones.
- Connection and being known, which is what many "sexual" dreams are actually about.
- Physiological arousal during REM, which occurs regardless of dream content.
- Novelty, which dreams over-represent.
Positive readings
Reported as pleasurable, obviously, and dreams of intimacy without sex (being held, being understood) are reported as among the most affecting dream experiences and are frequently under-discussed.
Difficult readings
Guilt on waking, particularly in people in relationships. Common, unnecessary, and occasionally confessed to partners as though something had happened.
Dreams about someone inappropriate, which cause disproportionate distress. The dream is not a preference.
Dreams that are distressing rather than desired are a different matter and, where they involve trauma content, belong with the trauma-nightmare material rather than here.
Psychological perspectives
Freud made desire the engine of all dreaming, which is the most famous claim in the field and the least supported. Later content analysis found overtly sexual content in a relatively small proportion of dreams, considerably less than the theory predicts.
Physiological arousal during REM occurs in most people regardless of dream content and is not evidence of sexual dreaming. This is a genuinely useful fact and it is not widely known.
Continuity applies as ever: people think about connection and sex while awake, so it appears in dreams.
Cultural and historical
Dream-lover traditions, the incubus and succubus among them, are widespread, and are historically entangled with the sleep-paralysis material rather than with ordinary sexual dreaming. The Bestiary handles that distinction carefully.
What the sleep science says
Overtly sexual content appears in a minority of dreams in content-analysis samples: much less often than popular assumption or classical theory suggests.
Genital arousal during REM sleep is near-universal and independent of dream content.
Dream content is a poor predictor of waking behaviour or preference.
Your own context
- Was it about sex, or about being close to someone? Often the second.
- How did you feel on waking?
- Is this causing guilt out of proportion to a dream? If so, that is the thing worth looking at.
If this recurs
Recurring desire dreams about a specific person are common and are not instructions. Where they are distressing, the useful question is what the person represents rather than what the dream is telling you to do.
Specific desire dreams
Each of these is written separately, not generated from this page.
What state it was in
Questions for reflection
These are for your journal, not for us. Nothing you write is shared.
- Was it about sex, or about closeness?
- How did I feel when I woke?
- Am I treating a dream as something I did?
- What does that person represent to me?
Dream interpretation is subjective. Nothing here is a diagnosis, a prediction, or medical advice.
Sources and reviewed references
3 references. What these labels mean
- 1.The Content Analysis of DreamsAcademic book
Calvin Hall and Robert Van de Castle (1966) · Appleton-Century-Crofts
Cited for: The standard coding system for dream content, and the normative frequencies that later studies are compared against. The reason claims like "aggression is more common in dreams than friendliness" can be stated numerically at all.
- 2.The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development and Content AnalysisAcademic book
G. William Domhoff (2003) · American Psychological Association
Cited for: The continuity hypothesis (that dream content largely reflects waking concerns) and a sustained critique of symbolic dream interpretation as an evidential method.
- 3.The Interpretation of DreamsPsychology literature
Sigmund Freud (1900)
Cited for: The wish-fulfilment model and the manifest/latent distinction. Historically decisive, and largely unsupported by later empirical work, cited as the origin of an idea, never as evidence for it.
Dreamers’ accounts
How dreams of desire have gone for other people, in their own words. Nothing here is an interpretation of anyone else's dream. It is a record of what happened and what it was like.
Nothing here yet. Be the first to say how this has gone for you.
Related records
- PersonEx-partnerDreaming about an ex does not mean they are thinking about you, missing you, or coming back. It is one of the most common dreams there is, it usually reflects unfinished processing rather than a connection, and it can happen years after you have stopped caring.
- PersonUnknown romantic partnerDreaming of a romantic partner you have never met is common and is not a preview of anyone real. The figure is assembled from memory and expectation, which is why they so often have no clear face.
- EmotionAngerAnger is common in dreams and frequently directed at people the dreamer is not consciously angry with. It is not a verdict on the relationship and not something to act on.
- EmotionConfusionConfusion in dreams is usually not content. It is the texture of dreaming itself. Dreams suspend critical judgement, and noticing that they do not make sense is the doorway to lucidity.
- EmotionFearFear is the most commonly reported dream emotion in most content analyses. A frightening dream is not unusual and is not by itself a sign of anything wrong.
- EmotionGriefGrief dreams are a normal and well-studied part of bereavement, and a large proportion of people who have them describe them as comforting rather than painful.