Let’s talk about sex dreams! Those are always fun – even when they are weird or uncomfortable. I say this because sex dreams really say something, in a sort of absolute sense: either you are psychologically attracted to something, or, you are psychologically merged, blended, intermingled, or fused with something.
Whether that attraction or merging fosters or hinders your psychological development depends on who’s having sex in your dreams.
For example, if you are a man who’s having sex dreams about his mother, or a woman having sex dreams about her father, well then … it should be clear to you that this imagery is problematic (though not necessarily deviant). I’ll get more into what sex dreams about our parents mean later on in the post.
Maybe you are watching someone else having sex in your dream, which could say something about how far removed your conscious ego may be from the psychological situation imaged in the dream.
As with any dream, your sex dreams have to be taken into consideration with your current life situation and conscious attitude.
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For instance, I once had a sex dream about a man whom I abjectly despised. I mean really despised.
I can almost always see something in a person – even if it’s deeply buried beneath layers and layers of shit – but in this guy, I just couldn’t see it in him.
He was, in a word, a total dick. Okay, that’s two words, but you get my drift here. What stood out most about him was his extraordinarily violent aggression toward people, both men and women.
Yes, the guy I’m referring to was this bad
In the dream, however, he was actually quite pleasant, gentle and loving even. When a person appears in your dream as the extreme opposite of himself, take a pause.
This is one of those cases where you have to ask yourself whether or not you are missing something about the actual person. The question is: are my judgments about this person off, so to speak.
Try though I might, I simply could not find anything about this particular guy that was gentle, loving, or even mildly pleasant.
So then , I had to ask myself a difficult question, what part of my inner masculine is dick-ish?
That’s a painful blow to anyone! Was I somehow like this to others without knowing it? I’m pretty sure that was not the case, though I was seriously on watch after that.
My inner masculine was extraordinarily aggressive toward me: brutal, belittling, mocking. You know, those deep-seated, dark voices that sometimes catch us off guard, making us feel as though “we could never” … never be successful, never find love, never be happy…
But in the dream this real dickhead of a guy is totally transformed. For me, that meant this horrible negative masculine in myself could also be transformed through loving attention.
So then … what kind of love has the power to do that?
Sex dreams are often an image for self-love. Even as I say the words self and love together, I cringe because the whole concept of self-love has become this cheesy cliche. For example, I get most of my images through my Shutterstock account. Knowing exactly what I was going to see, still I searched for “self-love” anyway. I was not disappointed.
Love is a dimension from which you experience yourself; it is not a feeling about yourself. Try to keep that in mind as we go through this next section on dreams about sex.
help me attribute this image
If your sex dreams are about someone to whom you have an actual attraction, then you have to look at the person as a symbolic image for an aspect of yourself. In this case, two positive parts of yourself should come together.
In essence, two separated parts of yourself want to merge in order to fill out and add dimension to your personality.
By that I mean that so many people, and I do mean so MANY people, have a desperate need for this kind of dream imagery to be an indication that the person imaged in their dream is somehow thinking about them or secretly wants to be with them.
This kind of thinking is borne out of a deep sense of insecurity and inferiority about yourself. All I can say is that you should not be disappointed by the idea that the dream is about yourself. This is your soul showing you something about yourself that you do not realize.
If only you would realize it, then you would not feel incomplete.
Homosexual sex dreams aren’t saying that you are secretly homosexual or anything like that. These dreams are about integrating same-gender, psychological energy. In order to get at that energy, you have to reflect on the lover in your dream.
By Zhernosek_FFMstudio.com
What are the traits of this person? Don’t say that you don’t know! Your conscious ego doesn’t know – because it can be very dumb sometimes.
You have to reflect on the imagery of your sex dreams. If you “don’t know” anything specifically about your dream lover, then fantasize about what this person might be like.
There’s nothing wrong with engaging in fantasy when it comes to uncovering your dream’s message. It just has to be product fantasy.
Many women have asked me about their lesbian dreams. “Does this mean I’m gay?” is the most common question.
If you have had one of these dreams, you need to know that this female lover in your dreams is a part of yourself. She is a part of your own unrealized femininity. Sometimes we use the term dark side or shadow side of your femininity, only to indicate something unknown about yourself.
These dreams are about integrating something about this dream woman into your own sense of femininity. She has the potential of becoming a part of you.
As I have already said, she is a shadow figure, something about yourself that you do not yet recognize or accept as part of yourself.
I had to make love to a beautiful woman, and somehow, this act of loving her would produce a child. I was nervous and afraid because I did not think I could through with it.
Here’s a little bit of background, all of which I have permission to share. This woman had suffered a deep wounding to her own femininity and we were in the process of working through that. The woman herself had recognized that she had become harsh and bitter about her life – harsh and bitter toward herself, not toward others.
image by PhoenixNeon’s/Shutterstock
In addition to that harshness and bitterness, she lived with some debilitating regret and remorse about her life choices. She really wanted to transform that attitude and the dream gives her an image of that other within who wants to come to life as the new child.
The dreamer described this beautiful woman in her dreams as someone sweet, delicate, and feminine. You can see how this dream lover is almost the exact opposite of the dreamer herself, who felt she was bitter and harsh. This is what I mean whenever I speak of compensation dreams.
So when you have dreams of having sex with women, you need to reflect on the qualities of this other woman. Ask yourself what she can add to your personality. Don’t do this disingenuously. I am certainly not talking about imitating someone.
I am talking about finding this other woman in yourself. Ultimately, she is a part of yourself that loves you, exactly as you are right now.
Does the idea of a part of yourself actually loving you constellate any self-loathing?
So, if you felt uncomfortable about the situation in your dream, then where in your life do you feel that kind of discomfort about yourself?
For example, are these same feelings associated with becoming a new woman or wanting to step into a new phase of life? These are just examples, but hopefully, you get what I am suggesting that you do here.
If you loved the experience, then what experiences are you just now blissfully stepping into? You might be ready to embrace a new life. When the dream situation depicts a loving scene, then it is positive dream imagery. As I have told others, let this dream woman teach you something about yourself that you never knew was there.
Alchemical imagery of Sol and Luna
Whenever the image of parental incest appears in dreams, there is a regressive psychological dynamic involved. By regression I mean a reversion to an earlier psychological situation. In general, something in your attitude is holding you back from moving forward in life, and therefore, you have slipped back into an infantile state of identification with your parent (or perhaps never left it).
I have only seen three cases where sex dreams about their father left the women disturbingly undisturbed and two cases where sex dreams about their mother left men unabashedly aroused.
It’s fairly safe to say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that sex dreams about your parents depict an unhealthy psychological situation.
As I have said, generally speaking, sex in dreams means union or fusion. When it’s a psychologically healthy union with another, something new is born.
However, when someone is “in union” with a parent or parental figure, the individual is lost in that merging.
The most famous of this psychological situation is depicted in the story of Oedipus.
When you have sex dreams about your mother, the imagery is clear: you are too psychologically identified with or attached to the mother.
The dream should absolutely shock you into wakefulness, i.e., shock you into consciousness of your situation.
By that I mean it should make you aware of an unhealthy psychological situation situation with your mother.
image of the self-castration of Attis (emasculation of the son by the mother)
This kind of situation keeps you from stepping into your adult life.
Jung called this psychological stalemate the family romance. It often manifests in a psychological relationship with a parent which takes on a character that is too much like a marriage or romance.
You can really see this in families where the father dies and an all-too-young son steps in to be the man of the house. Indeed a noble effort for the little guy, but I have seen the sons of mothers who have let it go too far – way too fear.
I would call a man in the scenario a sort of provisional man.
A son cannot serve as a substitute, psychological husband. When that boy grows up, a huge part of himself is still trapped in childhood, despite the fact that he had to grow up early.
He grows up to be a sort of man-boy, someone not really a boy, but definitely not really a man either.
SIEGFRIED BATTLING A DRAGON WAGNER’S RING CYCLE OPERA POSTCARD
Another way this unhealthy mother-son relationship manifests is the one in which the mother acts like a slow poison in the man’s life. She is constantly pulling him aside and injecting him with her motherly wisdom regarding what he should and should not do with his life, who he should and should not be with – and all the while offering it as motherly wisdom and love.
I have seen mothers like this destroy their son’s relationships with women.
An unhealthy attachment to the mother keeps a man from being able to authentically relate to women, and moreover, from connecting to the women who really attract him at the soul level.
The key here is to break this hold of the mother, which often means confronting your own mother in one way or another.
Archetypally speaking, this confrontation with the mother is called the battle for deliverance from the Mother (see C.G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, CW, volume 5). It’s in every hero-fighting-the-dragon story.
Once you can do confront this dynamic in yourself, then you should start seeing a different kind of woman appearing in your dreams, one which won’t constellate an incest taboo.
Regarding other sex dreams about family members, I am fairly certain that you can extract what you need from the above description. No matter which family member appears in your dreams, if you are having sex dreams about them, then you need to figure out where you have an unhealthy psychological attachment or unconscious identification.
Charles II of Spain, born mentally and physically disabled due to centuries of inbreeding in the House of Habsburg
As I said earlier, I have only come across three women who defended the dream as “pleasurable and feeling very close him”.
If you have any doubts, then take a look at this disturbing image of Charles II.
Clearly, there is something wrong here: he was born mentally and physically disabled. Translate that disturbing image into a psychological situation and you have an abject psychological disability.
Archetypally speaking, the Father represents a dominating attitude or a principle of consciousness, one which can become unrelentingly fixed. As a psychic process the father is the unconscious lens through which you perceive the world.
Even the perfect father can be an unhealthy psychological dynamic in your life, for example an underlying dynamic in a woman’s psyche which causes her to compare every man she meets to her perfect father.
Ever the proverbial “daddy’s girl”, unconsciously she seeks to marry her father.
Zeus (the father) appearing to Persephone (his daughter) in hidden form
The following dream is from a 41 year-old woman who had lived – unconsciously – with a father complex for her entire life.
She too had been that “daddy’s ‘girl” once upon a time, but things changed when she realized what kind of person he really was: a hopeless, and very cruel, drunkard.
From the age of 22 until 44, she had not spoken with her father. She had been in analysis for two years when she thought she could handle re-connecting with him.
It did not take long for the old father-daughter romance dynamic to “kick-in”. In this situation, I mean a psychological dynamic, not an actual incestuous relationship.
One of the things this father-daughter had shared was an interest in music, so one night she found herself excitedly compiling a music mix for him.
Lot and his daughters
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with sharing music with your father, but there was something off about her attitude toward doing it. Something stopped her from sending the email with all of that music on it. She said that she just felt weird about sending it. That night she had a sex dream about her father.
In the dream, her dream ego said, “WTF. How has this happened?!”
She awoke in a sweaty fright and said to the unconscious: OK. GOT IT!
Enough said.
Needless to say her attitude was forever changed.
By inappropriate sexual situations, I mean sex dreams that involve a power or parental dynamic, for example:
By in appropriate, I only mean an image that causes conscious revulsion. We cannot moralistically judge our dream images.
I would even go so far as to say that if you did feel that desire, the desire itself is also symbolic of something in yourself that longs to be realized. It is simply projected into the image of the person.
If it’s the latter, then you’d have to become conscious of where the two of are “inappropriately” bonded, meaning bound by an unconscious identity.
I remember a man who identified himself as a “virtuous pedophile” because he had unholy fantasies about little girls. He despised this in himself, and so, thankfully never acted on it.
This is indeed indicative of a psychological problem, only not necessarily a problem of deviant fantasy.
If he could get at what the “little girls” in his fantasies symbolized, then he could shatter the psychological dynamic that induces these fantasies. There is a child within himself – an embodiment of his own immature femininity – that needs to be explored symbolically and integrated consciously.
And as I already said, even if he had conscious desires for her, I would still say that it is symbolic of an underlying problem with his own femininity.
The question is this:
Does the sexual act in the dream mean that he needs to integrate something about his step daughter or that there is something psychologically unhealthy about the dynamic between the two?
I have already covered what the unhealthy dynamic looks like.
In the other possibility – integration – the idea is that his step daughter has qualities that are in alignment with his inner feminine. In that case, he needed to explore his inner feminine: for example, his intuitive and feeling qualities, his capacity for relatedness, and his capability for nurturing something. As I said in my answer to him:
If your step daughter is a child, then your inner feminine is in an immature state. You’d have to explore the ways that you act like a little girl, so to speak. For example, I have seen grown scream or throw tantrums like little girls. It’s hard for some men to admit that about themselves, but not admitting doesn’t make the behavior go away.
Even if that is the case, your step daughter still possesses qualities that are like your inner feminine. Pay attention to the women that attract your attention. Each one of them is an aspect of your inner feminine. Realize her within and you bring those qualities into every relationship in your life. You become a whole man.
Atum was creative in that he proceeded to masturbate with himself in Heliopolis; he put his penis in his hand that he might obtain the pleasure of emission thereby and there were born brother and sister – that is Shu and Tefnut.
Pyramid Utterance 527 (Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt)
The above masturbatory creation myth was a common motif throughout both the Sumerian and Egyptian cultures. The general idea of this theme is not as crude as it appears on the surface. Atum was originally an abstract creative principle.
On the other hand, masturbation in dreams can be an image for or compulsions such as auto-eroticism or autistic, solitary, or addictive tendencies.
The meaning of masturbation in dreams depends on what’s happening in your life.
Sometimes our dreams portray acts of sexual violence, again a scenario that can have many meanings. The dream is an image for the form which the symbolic, sexual attraction takes.
For example, if you are sexually sadistic in your dream, you can ask yourself whether you need to be more assertive in certain situations.
Let’s say that you are an aggressive person, with a habit of “fucking people over” – well then, sadism in your dreams would mean something entirely different.
Another question to ask is, What is your psychological attitude toward having sex in dreams?
Now, that my seem like a bizarre question, but you might be surprised at how many people report – much to their own chagrin – that they found pleasure in it. Naturally, they were appalled on waking, but the dream depicts a different attitude – one of taking pleasure in being victimized.
You always have to ask yourself, “what tendency in me is symbolized by this act?”
And remember, all of this information that I have given you about sex dreams is to be used as a general guideline for working through your dreams about sex. Everything depends on your conscious situation and your associations.
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Hi Jesamine. I dreamt last night that I live with my husband (who is actually my boyfriend in real life), my 4-5 year-old son (an imaginary person; I don't have children in real life), and my mother-in-law (my boyfriend's mother in reality). My husband and I want to have sex in bedroom but no one takes care of the son. So we are having sex while the son is watching next to us. It's weird and ridiculous! After that, the son learns to self-masturbate until ejaculation. We are shocked by such inappropriate behavior of a young child. That absolutely ruins the son's physical and mental development. I feel guilty and suggest to my husband that we should ask his mother to take care of our son when we have sex. He is bit hesitated but still agrees.
I don't have any ideas about my weird dream. I have 2-year stable relationship with my boyfriend and I feel satisfied in the relationship. So I'm confused what happens in the dream. Hope you can help me to interpret it. Thanks a lot!
Elizabeth this is strange imagery, but remember it is symbolic. Because you have left no information about your life or conscious situation, I can't really say much.
Dear Jesamine,
Sorry for not leaving useful information just because I didn't know which part of my life is relevant. In the part of relationship, my boyfriend loves me and takes care of me very well, so we are planning to cohabit and get marry in coming years. But we are currently living in different countries due to work, and thanks to covid, we aren't able to meet each other and don't have sexual life for at least few months. So sometimes I feel lonely when I'm alone. For the child in the dream, I guess it might represent my inner child, because sometimes I act childishly and emotionally when I'm having troubles in my work. His mother is a traditional housewife in real life. As my boyfriend and I plan to live in another country in future, his mother disagrees because she will miss the son much. But my boyfriend is determined about the plan.
I'm also facing tension with my flatmate recently because I couldn't stand her rudeness in talking with people. So I'm now just keeping distance and avoiding meeting her. But I'm not sure if this part is relevant.
I love your blog and hope to get some insights from you. Thank you!
Elizabeth, I think you have the wrong idea about how to work with dreams. No offense. This is common and it is the reason why I am putting this work out there, so let me try to give some general guidance (personal interpretation is reserved for my paying clients, who arrange private sessions with me - which you are welcome to do. ?). For example, dreaming of child doesn't meant you act childish. That is a literal interpretation, not a symbolic interpretation. "Inner child" is really an expression of pop-psychology and not something I resonate with. People use the term, yet it has no real meaning.
The imagery in your dream is repulsive, right? Your dream is meant to shock you about something going on in your life. It has something to do with your relationship to this man. Given that he is a real person in your life, you must look at this dream from both an objective and a subjective perspective. All of this can be found on the site, so if you want to know what I mean, read through the site carefully. It's not about looking up your specific dream meaning. It is about learning to work with your dreams.
This child in your dream is an aspect of your psyche - a piece of yourself that has been injured - symbolically injured by this desperate union depicted in the dream. As I say in my post about babies (children also apply), go back 4 or 5 years - the age of the child. See what happened there in your life. It is a little boy, which is part of your inner masculine, in a child form - not an inner child in the way you have said.
In every post, I tell the reader to stay with their associations to the dream imagery itself and not to free associate, as you did when you brought up your flatmate. If your dream means to say something about your flatemate, then she will appear in your dream. So, always stay with imagery itself and make associations to that specific imagery. I get the feeling there is an unhealthy attachment between your boyfriend/husband in the dream and his mother. Dangerous situation for you.
This mother in your dream is also an image for your inner mother, probably a mother complex that functions in your psyche the same way this woman is irl.
Hello Jesamine, glad to find jungian dream interpretation of some sort online. I just woke up from a dream where I ended up having sex with a lady that had a crippled leg. In the dream she is also a teacher of some sort and she initially treats me unjustly as she purposely and with ill intent fails me on a test I had been studying for on a technicality. I protest ardently and in the heat of our confrontation thing turn sexual. The dream then becomes a mix of moments where we have sex. She has a femme fatale quality about her, like she could be a character in a film noire, involved in some shady dealing. The setting of the dream is film noirish, an apartment in the city with neon lights flashing right outside. Before the scenes with her i had been dreaming about walking around my old home town during a dark grey day. I felt like a Humphrey Bogart private investigator, I had been surprising by bumping into an old high school friend i feel guilty about not treating as warmly as our old friendship would warrant (in my opinion). During a moment in the dream her face changed to become more beautiful and innocent, as if I hadn't been noticing it before and then I saw it. Her face was a mix between an anime character and a doll, maybe a geisha. Her face changed throughout the dream, as did my impression of her, from mean and matronly, to attractive, to beautiful and innocent. When it had its most dollish quality, i would say it reminded me of the face of one of Kubo's aunts from the movie Kubo and the Two Strings. When we started having sex, she showed great sexual appetite and great enjoyment at whatever I would do. I was pleased and even spoke dirty to her. At one point she would saw me come to her towards the bed and, upon seeing me, opened up her blue silk robe to reveal her body, bad leg and all, and offer it to me. I was sexually aroused but curious throughout, and maybe felt a bit uncomfortable. Anyways. Interesting bit of info: traveling to my hometown in five days to stay for a good bit. Going there always arouses interesting dreams. Hope to hear from you. Best, V.
I’ll just jump right into it. I’m 15, so when I get sex dreams it freaks me out! I had a dream about my father about a year ago and I wasn’t okay with what he was trying to do in the dream. I don’t have a good relationship with him at all. Fast forward to last night and I had a dream about my grandfather. We had to sneak around in the dream because my grandma was home but she almost caught us so I got changed and apologized to my grandfather. I felt so gross when I woke up. I have a pretty good relationship with my grandfather, the best relationship with anyone in my family is with him. What do I do? What does this mean?
Hi Izy, thank you for sharing this very personal dream. I can imagine that this would be a startling dream for someone so young. I am going to speak to you as a maturing young woman, only because of the name you have given. The problem is an inner one and it has something to do with how you are maturing, but at the psychological level. You are very young to have this kind of dream, so I am not sure where to step into this with you.
At some level, you could be too identified with the masculine elements of your psyche, hence dreams that say that your identity is "psychologically incestuous". The dream is meant to shake up you up and force you to take notice. This identification could manifest in a number of different ways, so you will need to reflect on that. One the one hand, you could be neglecting your feminine side, or "hiding from her", and on the other hand, you could be suffering from the relationship with you father - especially if he has an abusive personality. That suffering would come through as negative thinking - about yourself or life in general.
I hope this makes some sense for you.
Hi Jesamine. I had a sex dream last night for the first time in a while. I dreamed I was alone in the apartment of a friend of my parents. He is a recluse, and very wealthy. I was looking at porn on my laptop, and realized the friend would be able to see my search history. Then I was in bed making love to the actor Mads Mikkelsen, who I find to be very attractive. The sex was a little rough, but pleasureable, and we lay together afterwards in the big bed. However, at one point during the lovemaking he attempted to administer the drug fentanyl with a needle to amplify my pleasure. I had to look up fentanyl afterwards, and realized that it is a painkiller given to my grandmother as she was about to pass away.
I’m working on studying this dream. As for my current life situation, I’m busy with new work and happily employed doing something I have always wanted to do. However I am feeling quite sexually frustrated, given that I am single and prefer it that way for now, so that I can focus on my work. The sexual thoughts and urges can be distracting. This is the only thing that has really been bothering me lately.
Hi Madison, for some reason your post was put in spam, but luckily I have found and restored it.
There are a few places where you can work with this dream. My first thought is that "watching porn" may be a compensation for not being sexually active. I write about compensation in the intro post about dream interpretation. The meaning depends on whether you actually watch porn or don't.
You are in the apartment of an older, reclusive man. It's as if the dream says, "your current psychic atmosphere is like this wealthy, reclusive, older man". For a woman, this can be a trap set by a negative animus. You can search that term on the site to find out more.
Juxtapose to this older man is an actor, whose meaning really depends on your age. If he's your father's age, then I would lean toward working with a father-complex in your life, by which I mean, there is a psychological dynamic that should be explored. I say that given the friend of your parents being a figure in the dream as well.
Now this dream says, "your inner masculine (also something you can search on my site) wants to drug you". How did you respond to this? Is he trying to ease some unconscious pain or make you more unconscious? This drug is an Opioid, so it activates our pleasure-chemicals. Is he trying to get you to feel something? We don't know his meaning until you work with the dream more.
I think it's great that you are focused on your work, but don't forget that you are a woman. We are multi-dimensional beings with many facets. If you focus too much on "one-thing", then you lose your dimension and depth. If these two men are "less than positive" inner masculine figures, then the dream says that your way of approaching life is causing a problem in your depths. Maybe you don't feel it it, but you will soon suffer the symptoms of that.
You can look at your distracting sexual thoughts as symbolic of a direction your energy wants to go. Translating those urges literally wouldn't necessarily alleviate anything. I'd lean toward finding or recovering a creative part of yourself.