[imagesource: Amazon]

Admit it, because we’ve all had a crazy sex dream about someone that we really ought not to have imagined in that way.

Be it your next-door neighbour, a platonic best friend, or perhaps even more alarmingly, a parent or sibling, our erotic minds in a dream state have no bounds.

It helps to know that nobody is alone in this, as three-quarters of the population experiences sex dreams.

It is even more comforting to note that psychotherapists and Jungian analysts reckon the wilder, more unhinged sex dreams are honestly nothing to worry about.

Over at Mashable, Diana Moffat, a psychotherapist specialising in Jungian Analysis, says that dreams do not always represent our true needs, likes, and desires, and are rather more abstract and symbolic indicators of how we feel about our relationships.

Moffat encourages us to explore our kinks and sexual fantasies through waking dreams, or daydreams, but not to take things too literally.

“I would say it’s almost dangerous to take dream life as a kind of indicator, because dream life is all about symbolism,” Moffat says. “Our dreams could maybe enlighten us as to why we have the kinks we have,” she continues,  “a dream is about the dreamer.”

Maxim Ilyashenko, a UKCP-registered Jungian psychotherapist and analyst concurs with this perspective:

“I think it’s important to look at dreams as symbolic material first — not say, ‘Okay, I dreamt about that. I have to do that,'” he explains. “But, it can be something your unconscious is inviting you to consider. In these instances, it’s good to explore what could be missing in your life.”

“I think one rule for healthy sexuality is it should be consensual with yourself and with your partner. Next is to know how you feel about the dream, because sometimes they can be formulated in quite a symbolic language.”

Consent and communication, folks – the pillars of a good, healthy sex life.

One person, Robin, talks about this from their dream experience:

“So, picture a clone of me. (clone 1) gets down, and sucks off the original’s cock, yet I’m feeling both the act of giving and receiving a blowjob,” they explain. “It’s very weird as I have never even seen another man’s penis in real life, besides online. I’ve never touched one besides my own, and I’ve never sucked off a guy. So I don’t even know what it’s like — yet in the dream, I do.”

Robin says they aren’t actually attracted to men but are fascinated by penises on a sexual level, and thus began exploring their bi-curiousness:

“I’ll admit I’ve fantasized about exchanging handjobs and giving a blowjob if the situation was completely ideal,” they continue, “I don’t know if that’s inspired by the dream, or the dream is inspired by that. Or maybe it’s a combo of both, they both feed into and off of each other.”

That’s cool and all, but what about the sex dreams that scare the living daylights out of us?

Over to Silva Neves, author of Sexology: The Basics and psychotherapist specialising in sexology and intimate relationships:

“Often, there can be moments when our dreams of sex can include rape fantasies or scenes where we sleep with siblings, even parents,” he says. “These can be distressing and arousing. But they are not always indicative of what we want to recreate in our sex lives with our partners.”

Phew.

Neves explains further that dreams play out solely in the fantastical world of our erotic mind and can often just be part of processing what love means to us.

Basically, our brains like to process emotions and experiences by finding snapshots of images and creating a story from them.

“You do not need to act upon fantasies,” he says, “and dreams are not a prerequisite to being a degenerate. They don’t always mean something. They can be random and unsettling. It’s all how you feel when you go back and reprocess and interrogate why you might feel that way that counts for more.”

All in all, sex dreams and dreams at large can show you what you are missing in life and point the way forward:

“They can be indicative of something larger happening in your life. If you are conforming to a relationship where your safety hangs in the balance, or you are in denial about your sexuality and identity, then it can be that you explore these needs through your dreams,” he explains.

The experts also agree that recurring dreams are especially worth interrogation and self-reflection:

“It’s like food that hasn’t been digested,” Moffat says. “It just keeps repeating and playing again and again and again. And that’s where the therapeutic process works in thinking with you; it kind of helps make those things more digestible.”

Sex dreams can also be a wonderful way to broach hard conversations about your kinks and desires with your partner.

Don’t forget to grab some pen and paper before you hit the hay, folks, there’s a whole inner world to explore.

[source:mashable]