Dreams containing sexual themes are not uncommon, and men experience them more than women. This finding comes from a study published in Psychology & Sexuality.
While some researchers propose that the content of dreams is random, newer studies suggest that a person’s waking experience is often reflected in their dreams. In this way, the study of dreams can provide insight into a person’s worries and preoccupations.
“One of my research topics is the continuity hypothesis of dreaming stating that dreams reflect waking life, especially if waking life experiences are emotionally intense. Hence, the idea to study erotic dreams,” explained study author Michael Schredl, the head of research at the sleep laboratory at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Germany.
Men typically report spending more time thinking about sex and more time engaging in sexual fantasies than women do. While it would be expected that they experience more erotic dreams than women, findings on the subject have been mixed. Researchers were interested in investigating this inconsistency by looking at gender differences in the frequency of erotic dreams using a large sample with a broader age range than most previous studies.
An online survey questioned 2,907 men and women between the ages of 16 to 92 who had varying levels of education. Participants completed the Mannheim Dream questionnaire, which assessed the frequency of their dreams, the emotional tone of their dreams and their attitudes towards dreaming.
Subjects estimated the percentage of erotic dreams they experienced when compared to their total recalled dreams. Erotic content was described as, “any occurrence of sexually motivated actions such as flirting, kissing, intercourse or masturbation as well as watching sexual actions”.
Results showed that 83% of respondents had experienced erotic dreams. This finding supports previous research claiming that the vast majority of men and women experience sexually explicit dreams at some point in their lifetime.
When asked to estimate the frequency of their erotic dreams, the average response was 18% of total dreams. For men, this number was higher, roughly 21% of dreams. The average estimate by women was lower, roughly 16% of dreams. There was also an age effect, showing that as age increased, the frequency of erotic dreams decreased. Subjects over 60 years old estimated, on average, that around 13% of their dreams were erotic.
The authors propose that the finding that men experienced more erotic dreams than women supports the continuity of dreams hypothesis, by suggesting that dreams reflect the waking thoughts and preoccupations of the dreamer. Since men tend to have more thoughts about sex, they are less likely to experience dreams of a sexual nature. The researchers suggest that the same theory might explain why the frequency of erotic dreams decreased with age. Since older people tend to be less sexually active, they are less concerned with sexual fantasies and therefore less likely to experience erotic dreams.
“Erotic dreams are frequent and often positively toned and very likely more affected by erotic fantasies during waking that actually erotic behavior,” Schredl explained.
While men reported a higher frequency of erotic dreams across all ages, the gender difference for college-aged subjects was smaller than reported in an older dream study by Hall and Van de Castle in 1966. The authors suggest that this may have to do with the influence of feminist movements. They explain, “one might speculate that younger women in modern society (post feminism era) deal with sexuality as a topic more openly than older women of previous generations”.
Overall, the study provides support for the idea that waking life can influence dream content. The authors conclude, “erotic dreams are a window for eliciting the person’s pre-occupation with this topic”.
The study, “Factors influencing the frequency of erotic dreams: an online study“, was authored by Michael Schredl, Caspar Geißler, and Anja S. Göritz.
