We Asked A Therapist What It Means To Have A Sex Dream About A Gender You're Not Interested In
Although every human being dreams — and most animals too — scientists have yet to nail down exactly why. While psychologists like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung had their theories, it wasn't until the 1950s that American physiologist Nathaniel Kleitman decided to take a neuroscientific approach to dreaming in the hopes of understanding the mystery of dreams. According to a 2011 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, while Kleitman and his team were able to establish rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in correlation to dreams, the research still had many unanswered questions, especially in regard to the possible meaning of dreams.
"Brain activity that occurs when we're dreaming is similar to the memory processing brain activity we experience when we're awake," behavioral sleep medicine expert Michelle Drerup, PsyD, DBSM tells Cleveland Clinic. "That's one of the theories of why we dream. Our dreams might help us process and manage our emotions."
So if that's the case and you have a hot sex dream about a gender you're not interested in during your waking hours, does that mean your sexuality isn't what you thought it was? Not necessarily. Women exclusively spoke to licensed mental health counselor, psychotherapist, and sex therapist Kate Klein, LMHC to unpack what such a sex dream could possibly mean — if anything at all.
You see part of yourself in the person you had a sex dream about
Like having a sex dream about a co-worker, having a sex dream about someone of a gender you're not attracted to could mean more about how you see yourself than any burning desire to be with the subject of your dream. "Dreams can have so many meanings and interpretations, and we can never really be certain about what they mean, try as we might," says Klein. "For example, according to Gestalt theory every object and/or figure in your dream is an aspect of yourself."
Developed in the 1940s by psychotherapists Fritz and Laura Perls, Gestalt theory focuses on increasing your self-awareness and understanding your relationship to everything in life. So if we adhere to the Gestalt explanation for these types of dreams, then the person who appears in the dream may represent some aspect of yourself. As Klein explains, "intrusive thoughts and/or dreams ... are often distressing, mainly because they are the exact opposite of what you really want."
Your brain could just be having a bit of fun
Because dreams might just be a way of processing information, a sex dream about a gender that you're not interested in could be your brain having a bit of fun. "When we fantasize and/or dream, it is a way for our brain to creatively and playfully express and explore thoughts and ideas that we may or may not want to actually do in real life," Klein exclusively tells Women. "Just as we might have a sex dream about a family member (who we don't want to have sex with), we may dream about others who we don't really want to have sex with in real life."
What's important to realize is that dreams don't necessarily reflect real desires. So, if the members of Boygenius keep going down on you in your dreams, it doesn't mean that you're suddenly gay, bi, pan, or any other sexual orientation under the sun. If you want to take these dreams as a sign that it's time to sexually explore, then by all means, go for it. But if these dreams are making you feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, Klein advises not over-analyzing them.
"Allow yourself to move through the discomfort rather than assigning meaning to it," says Klein. "I like to use the analogy that difficult or distressing thoughts and feelings are tunnels, and we are trains passing through them." A train doesn't linger, but keeps moving so it can come out the other side intact. "A cognitive behavioral viewpoint to keep in mind is that thoughts and feelings are not facts," says Klein.