Wet Dreams

What Is A Wet Dream?

A wet dream (nocturnal emission, sleep orgasm) is a perfectly healthy experience where the body is sexually stimulated during REM sleep. During REM, your body has increased breathing, heart rate, and blood flow. This increases blood flow to the genitals, making them more hypersensitive and responsive to stimulation. Typically, it is accompanied by ejaculate or vaginal secretion fluids during sleep. A wet dream may or may not be produced by a sexual dream.

When Do Wet Dreams Stop?

You can have a wet dream at any age, although it is more common during the teenage years because of hormonal surges. When hormones stabilize, people tend to have fewer wet dreams. However, the frequency varies from person to person.

Do All Wet Dreams Include Orgasms?

Not all wet dreams include having an orgasm. In addition, not all orgasms have ejaculation (semen leakage or vaginal wetness). See Dry Orgasms for more information about this.

What Increases Wet Dreams?

Experiencing sexually stimulating material such as an erotic story, movie, book, or in-person situation may increase your likelihood of a wet dream, but it is not required. Many people have them without any prompting. Research has shown that lying on one's stomach can increase one's chances of having them. There is no way to reduce the frequency of wet dreams.

Wet Dreams In Females

Many people think of boys and men when they think of wet dreams as they tend to be more obvious; however, girls and women have wet dreams. Alfred Kinsey, Ph.D. (a well-known sexual researcher) had interviewed over 5,000 women and found that forty percent of them had experienced a wet dream and were aware that they had. He found that women who have orgasms while sleeping have them several times throughout the year. Another study published in the Journal of Sex Research in 1986 determined that 85% of women experience wet dreams before they are 21 years of age.

Men may recall having a wet dream but may also notice that they have ejaculated in their underwear or on their sheets and are often made aware of them even if they did not consciously remember it occurring.

Women most likely have them more often than they realize, as they may have to be mentally aware of them to consider the experience a wet dream. After all, women are already naturally lubricated, and a little extra wetness is not something that would necessarily tip her off that she had an orgasm during her sleep. It should be noted that a wet dream is not the same as female ejaculation.

In Closing

Wet dreams are a healthy part of our lives as children and adults and should be embraced as such regardless of whether they occur.