I'm pretty confident I don't have a latent desire to sleep with my mother, but after dreaming I had oral sex with her, I needed an explanation. I hoped dream expert Stace Michaels, author of Bedside Guide To Dreams would have one. She did. She told me that since I enjoyed having sex with my mother in the dream (yes, that thrilled me too) it probably means I want to get closer to her. Or that maybe there is someone in my life that reminds me of my mother that I need to get closer to. "Because sex is the way that we get closer to another person, sex in dreams is often about issues of closeness or intimacy that are not necessarily sexually related," says Michaels.
So that dream I once had about having sex with my boss (whom I disliked) while his mother (whom I'd never met) watched, doesn't mean I secretly wanted to boink him at the time or that I have a thing for moms?
"Dreams have a purpose, a reason," says Michaels. "And their meaning depends on elements in the dream." For example, if I was getting it on with ma and thought, "Yuck," it could mean that there may be someone in my life who reminds me of my mother that I should be keeping my distance from.
As for me and my boss, Michaels invited me to look at how I felt in the dream: How was the sex? How did I feel about his mom watching? Yup, all good I'm afraid. In that case, says Michaels, his mother was an approval figure, and her watching us have a pleasant sexual encounter was a way of saying it was okay to try and get along with him. That creepy feeling when I walked into the office the next day and found myself mildly attracted to him was just what the dream was trying to accomplish, says Michaels.
"It tried to make you feel more positive about this person, more ‘attracted’ to him."
That's not to say that sometimes sex dreams aren't about sex. Erotic dreams can be a very powerful healing tool when it comes to sexual issues, admits Michaels. Like one woman she talks about in the book who couldn't bring herself to have sex for over a year after a double mastectomy. She had a dream she was in the forest feeling great about herself and having fantastic sex with a series of men. Then a flame appeared in the dream and out of the flame flew a Phoenix bird, a classic symbol of metamorphosis. The woman woke up feeling absolutely yee-ha about herself and she and her husband got back to business and it was better than ever. Now that's what dreams should be made of.
Other sexual symbols in dreams Michaels describes are classic Freudian stuff. Guns, knives and other pointy, sharp objects often represent the penis while bowls, wells and other containers are the girlie bits.
So what if you're a straight boy who finds himself playing with another man's gun in a dream, or a straight woman dipping into another woman's bowl? Again, context is everything. If you're a supposedly straight guy who dreams of boinking boys every night for five years, you might want to reevaluate your sexual preferences. But the occasional same-sex dream when you're, say, a straight boy, could just mean there's a guy at the office you need to get to know better.
Another classic sexual dream is finding yourself naked on the bus or in other inappropriate situations. If you're feeling good about being in the buff in your dream, explains Michaels, it could mean you can open yourself up in a situation when maybe you've been afraid to. If you're embarrassed about it, you could be feeling vulnerable in a situation. Like a friend who dreamed he was tied to a ladder with a rubber hose and hung from a tree, while a woman he worked with hosed him down causing him to sprout a monster erection. (Probably the only thing creepier than our own sexual dreams is hearing other people's.)
"One of the first steps to analyzing your dreams is to find the narrative," says Michaels. "Here is someone who finds himself immobile, which could be a scary situation, but it turns out to be great. And since it was a rubber hose, he could get away if he wanted to. Whether this is related to a work situation, a relationship or something else in his life, is up to him to look at."
And finally, who hasn't dreamt of sex with their fave celebrities? According to Michaels, dreaming of sex with celebrities can mean that you have a desire to develop traits in yourself that you admire in this person. I wonder if a male friend's teenage dream of having sex with Charlene Tilton means he has a secret desire to have big tits and big blonde hair. Hmm... like I said, sometimes sex dreams are just about sex.
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