In a perfect world, dreams would always depict our lives at their very best. We’d be wildly rich and successful, have magic powers, and sleep with the hottest people anytime we wanted. Instead, we often dream of nudity in public, paralysis in the face of danger, and having sex with people we don’t even look twice at in real life. The latter is especially disconcerting, since it makes us wonder if there’s actual desire lurking somewhere in our unconscious minds. (Thanks a lot, Freud.) And then we feel flustered and slightly shamed when we encounter the subjects of our erotic dreams in real life, as if they know of their leading-role status in our nighttime fantasies. But if we’re so disgusted by the idea of having sex dreams about these people, to the extent that we’re uncomfortable in our waking hours, it begs the question: why do we have sex dreams about people we’d never do—or want to do—the deed with?
Hidden desire’s just one possibility.
Theories abound as to why certain people, places, and things appear in our dreams. Freud believed that dreams are forms of wish fulfillment—in other words, indicative of our repressed desires. Jung focused more on the collective unconscious, maintaining that our dreams draw from shared archetypes and symbols. Psychologist and psychiatrist Fritz Perls saw dreams and everything within them as extensions of the self. Since dream analysis can vary significantly based on which school of thought you follow, sex dreams are often interpreted differently.
Some believe they really are about desire for that particular person. In The Sex of Your Dreams: Erotic Dreams and Their Hidden Meanings, author Carol L. Cummings states that erotic dreams “tend to be, as Freud says, based on wish fulfillment.” She believes that they’re healthy ways to release sexual energy that we can’t act on in real life because doing so would be inappropriate for one reason or another (hence the need for repression). But others, like Gillian Holloway, PhD, think that there are a few factors besides unconscious desire that inspire sex dreams.
In The Complete Dream Book, she offers three potential reasons (other than repressed sexual feelings) why we have dreams about people we find unattractive. The first is that the person we dream about could represent characteristics we’re trying to develop in our own personalities. For example, say you have a sleep rendezvous with Jim from Accounting, a guy you find hilarious in real life but definitely not attractive. It’s possible you’re envious of his sharp sense of humor. A second possibility—and this is if the person you bed in dream life makes your skin crawl in real life—is that you’re making a choice that’s not good for you. “You may be getting into bed in the metaphorical sense with something else … that is also not in your normal style or taste,” Holloway writes. The last reason she offers is that you’re entering into another kind of partnership with your dream subject, such as a business affiliation.
