A sex dream involving someone who’s not your partner is a nightmare scenario.
But a prominent neurosurgeon says you can sleep soundly knowing it doesn’t mean your relationship is in jeopardy.
Dr. Rahul Jandial makes the claim in his forthcoming book “This Is Why You Dream,” declaring that such sex dreams are surprisingly common and don’t indicate a desire to cheat.
“Dreams of infidelity are unlikely to be a signal we want to be unfaithful,” he writes in the tome, excerpted by the Daily Mail. “Cheating on a partner in a dream may simply be a sign of curiosity and normal sexual arousal, rather than a desire to stray from the relationship.”
However, Jandial says the way we react to such dirty dreams in our waking hours indicates the actual state of our relationship.
In unhealthy relationships, the neurosurgeon says, infidelity dreams can lead to “decreased feelings of love and intimacy in the days that follow,” but in healthy relationships, they “don’t have much of an effect at all.”
“What really counts is not our erotic dream narrative or our partner’s but how we react,” he writes.
Jandial says sex dreams involving an ex-partner are also quite common, and don’t mean that you subconsciously want them back in the sack.
“You may be tempted to conclude this means we’re longing for an ex,” he explains. “But based on a number of studies, the opposite is usually true. These dreams appear to be helping us to get over our former partners. They may simply be a way of processing the emotions of a break-up.”
Meanwhile, the neurosurgeon says “we have much more of an inclination toward bisexuality and novel sexual interactions” in our sex dreams.
But again, if you’re dreaming of a same-sex encounter, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything about your real-life sexuality.
Jandial writes that around 1 in 12 of all dreams contain sexual imagery, but Americans are less likely than other nationalities to admit to having dirty dreams.
Just 66% say they get X-rated while catching Z’s, in comparison to 90% of Brits and 77% of Canadians.
But sex dreams aren’t shameful, and they don’t mean that you’re a more sexual person during the day.
“Erotic dreams are not tied to how much sex you are having in your waking life, nor to whether you masturbate,” he declared. “They are not even connected to how much pornography you consume.”
