I am a 22-year-old woman. I am in a very happy relationship with a man. When I was younger, I experimented with a couple girls, but I never found it to be as satisfying as being with a man. That was years ago, and I haven’t even thought about it until now. Last night, I had a very, very naughty dream about a girl I am close to. I work with her. In the dream, she asked me if I wanted to have sex with her, and I said yes, but only as long as my boyfriend could watch. We got down to business. I reached orgasm with her, and she did as well, and then my boyfriend stepped in and took over with me; I don’t remember what happened to her. It was really hot with him as well. What weirds me out is that it was super hot with the woman, and I woke up still fantasizing about it. I am happily heterosexual, and I love my boyfriend very much. I am not questioning my sexuality, I know where I am there. I am just wondering why in the world I would be dreaming such steamy dreams about a girl I work with. I dream about my man a lot, but there has never been a girl involved before. What are your thoughts?
I wouldn’t give your dreams too much weight. In the years that I’ve been answering questions for Kinsey Confidential and other magazines and newspapers, I have heard countless stories from people who have sex dreams that puzzle them because in their dreams they do different things than in real life, and in the dreams they were quite happy and aroused doing these different things.
You name the combination and I’ve heard it: lesbians who have sex dreams about men, straight men who have sex dreams about men, gay men who have sex dreams about women and straight women like you who have sex dreams about women. I’ve also heard from numerous people who are in monogamous relationships but who have sex dreams about co-workers, group sex, former partners or Hollywood movie stars.
In our dreams, all kinds of things are fair game. Sleep is also interesting because one thing we know about it is that roughly every 60 to 90 minutes women and men experience genital arousal during sleep. This pattern is good — it brings increased blood flow to the genitals, which also brings more oxygen to the genitals to keep our genital tissue healthy. Some women and men wake up feeling aroused. Some people connect these feelings to sex dreams, but I’ve also heard from people who recall feeling very aroused during their sleep while dreaming about very non-sexual things like gardening or their favorite childhood cartoon.
If, in your waking life, you find that you are interested in being sexual with women or having a threesome with your boyfriend and someone else, those are ideas you can explore. Otherwise, enjoy the freedoms that you have in dreams to create and explore in any way that occurs.
Debby Herbenick, Ph.D. is a research fellow and sexual health educator at IU’s Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. She is the author of five books about sex, including Sex Made Easy: Your Awkward Questions Answered for Better, Smarter, Amazing Sex. Check us out online at KinseyConfidential.org.
Kinsey Confidential is a service of the Kinsey Institute. For more good sex information, podcasts or to submit a question, visit us online at www.kinseyconfidential.org.
