I'm a neurologist - this is what it REALLY means when you have a sex dream ... trends now
Ever woken up after an erotic dream completely freaked out?
About eight in 10 people at some point dream about having sex with people who they don't even find attractive — often friends and colleagues.
It can cause an overwhelming sense of guilt in some cases: if the dream involved a friend's partner, for example, or if the dreamer was cheating on their spouse.
For others it can be deeply confusing — it is not uncommon for straight people to have erotic dreams about someone of the same sex.
Now a new book has sought to explain why we dream about certain individuals and assure people that sex dreams are not always the result of our subconscious desires.
Dreamers typically imagine someone they know - even if they are exceedingly ordinary or unattractive (stock image)
Neuroscientist Dr Rahul Jandial says there are generally two types of sex dreams, and their causes are completely different.
A sex dream involving someone who you are attracted to and fantasize about regularly while awake can often manifest in our dreams.
But the other type of sex dream stars seemingly random people, even if the dreamer dislikes them or finds them unattractive.
All dreams are the product of the Imagination Network in our brains, unbound by the rules and logic of our waking life.
When we’re dreaming, the imagination is unfettered, free to find loose associations and connections in our memories.
It can lead us to think about the people in our lives in surprising, disturbing and even erotic ways.
Because the logical Executive Network in our brains is shut down during dreaming, we can’t stop these erotic flights of fancy before they take off. They are also free from judgment — even our own.
In erotic dreams we are liberated to imagine sexual encounters that would be taboo or inconceivable in our waking lives.
They will probably not involve our current partner. Instead, we have much more of an inclination toward bisexuality and novel sexual interactions generally.
Dr Jandial says: 'This moderating influence on our erotic imagination when we're awake is gone when we dream, allowing our erotic dreams to be wildly creative and exploratory.'
That same moderating influence becoming idle allows us to dream of flying at great heights or breathing underwater, or any number of creative scenarios.
Dr Jandial adds: ‘If our daytime fantasies are visions of some desired, if improbable, sexual outcome, erotic dreams are more like a prurient thought experiment.
'We can switch genders or become bisexual in our dreams, even if it never crosses our minds during the day or in our most liberated fantasy.'
Neuroscientist Dr Rahul Jandial posits that sex dreams are a benign product of
