Even in this sexually ‘open’ age, people are often worried because they've had dreams with a sexual content. In particular, it can be very disturbing if, in a dream, you do something that would be totally shocking for you in real life! For instance, a woman who leads an extremely chaste and respectable life may be troubled by dreams in which she has rampaging sex with dozens of handsome males.Similarly, a man who prides himself on being 'straight' and who actually dislikes homosexuals, may be quite shattered to find that he has dreams in which he is engaging in sexual fondling with some good-looking guy!However, a lot of people are not disturbed by their sexual dreams and simply enjoy them for what they are. This is normally the best attitude to take.

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Why do we have sexual dreams?

We dream because of the intense activity that is constantly going on in our subconscious minds. And since sex is one of the most powerful of all human drives, it's not surprising that so many dreams have a strong sexual content.If we have deep urges to do certain things, they are highly likely to come out in our dreams - where our consciences cannot prevent them happening.

But isn't it true that our consciences 'censor' sexy dreams?

Yes. The mind has something called a 'dream censor', which tends to 'clean up' dreams.So, if a person who has a very strict puritanical outlook starts to have a sexy dream, their dream censor may alter that dream so that very 'rude' things are replaced by symbols.Thus, a man of strict sexual morals may have a deep, unconscious desire to have sex with beautiful women. Instead of dreaming about vaginas, he will keep dreaming about tunnels and subways. Instead of dreaming about breasts he will dream about pleasant hillocks and mounds - and so on.Similarly, a woman whose sexual morality is very strict won't dream of penises. Instead, she'll dream of penile symbols, like:

    * church spires

    * rockets

    * cigars

    * tall chimneys.

However, in our experience, this kind of 'dream symbolism' seems to be less common than it used to be. People are less 'hung up' than they were a generation or so ago - which is why they tend to dream about explicit sex, rather than symbols.