Erotic dreams are quite common. In fact, a study published in July 2019 found that in a group of 2,907 men and women, 83% had had an erotic dream at some point in the past.
Such dreams may involve various types of sexual activities, such as flirting, kissing, touching, petting, and intercourse (vaginal, oral, or anal). People might dream about a variety of sex partners, such as their spouse, a friend, a co-worker, or a stranger. They might dream may about sex in unusual locations, like a remote tropical island or a city bus.
The July 2019 study, published in the journal Psychology and Sexuality, offered several insights on erotic dreams.
The participants included 1,730 women and 1,177 men who ranged in age from 16 to 92. Their average age was 46 years. In 2014, the group completed an online survey about erotic dreams and how they felt about them. They estimated the percentage of erotic dreams they had.
The researchers determined that in this group, about 18% of all dreams were erotic in nature. Almost half of the participants said their dreams were erotic about 10% of the time.
Men reported more erotic dreams than women did. On average, about 21% of the men’s dreams were erotic. For women, the rate was 17%.
Erotic dreams became less common as the participants got older. In a subgroup of people aged 16 to 30, 23% of dreams were erotic. This decreased to 20% for those aged 31 to 45, 17% for people aged 46 to 60, and 13% for participants over 60 years old.
When the researchers compared the findings to other studies, they found that people dreamt about sex more than they dreamt about music, sports, and politics.
Why do people have erotic dreams? The answer isn’t clear. One theory is that dreams reflect what people think about during the day. Research suggests that men think about sex more than women do, so that might be why the men in this study had more erotic dreams than the women did.
There are still many questions to be answered about erotic dreams. The study authors suggested more research on dream content, as well as the effects of sexual orientation, sexual fantasies, real-life sexual experiences, and pornography consumption.
Resources
Psychology and Sexuality
Schredl, Michael, et al.
“Factors influencing the frequency of erotic dreams: an online study”
(Full-text. Published online: July 2, 2019)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19419899.2019.1638297