Erotic dreams are extremely common. We may experience them as pleasurable, exciting and moving, or as disturbing and upsetting. It can be hard to talk about erotic dreams, even in therapy, as they insist on attending to secret satisfactions and shames.
There is relatively little written on the subject from a Jungian perspective, so this week we dive in and discuss how to work with sexual dreams. We also analyze some of the many dreams our listeners sent in.
Dreams about sex may be about connection, union and intimacy, or they might confront us with shadow figures and situations that show us what we deny or disobey. They may also offer us potent images of unexplored desires.
Join us as we interpret four erotic dreams: a hedonistic experience in a hotel pool, an unsettling meeting with a repellent music teacher, a ritualistic sauna experience, and an unwanted kitchen encounter that invites the dreamer to reclaim her own desires.
Here are the Dreams We Analyze
Dream One
This listener, a 37-year-old man, sends us an example of a life-affirming dream in which the dream ego experiences pleasurable sexual encounters.
I am with a group of friends, 3 females, at a hotel pool. Mutually attracted, one of the girls and I flirt with and then start making love with each other in the pool. The other two friends seated by the poolside are aware in a positive sense, but are not necessarily focused on the two of us. The sex itself is intimate and pleasurable, it is something both meditatively tantric and animalistically lusty. When we finish having sex in the pool, we lay floating together and relax. I lay a towel over her as we lay there, the action is as if it was a bed sheet but the towel is of course only enough to cover the vertical center of her body. Then, in the next scene of the dream, this sexual partner from the pool and I are dressed only in bath towels and are heading towards a hot bath located near the grounds of a local university. However, instead of a locker room where one might store possessions and clothes, we walk outdoors on a grassy area with a few trees and a perimeter of beautiful bushes. There are three trees there for us to drop off our things before heading to the spring waters (which are currently off camera). Right next to the furthest of the three trees is a youthful long blonde haired harpist ostensibly practicing in a relaxed manner. I assume she is a music major at the nearby university. For some reason, my partner and I choose the tree right next to this harpist, and I disrobe, hanging up my towel on a tree branch. As I disrobe, I apologize to the harpist since I assume our proximity and presence would distract her practicing. However, she smiles with a shrug, says she doesn’t mind, and then – after looking my nude figure up and down – winks at me.
Dream Two
This 34-year-old woman’s dream offers us an example of a sexual dream in which we might feel repulsed or disgusted.
I walk into my bedroom, I’m aware that the dream has already started but I can’t remember anything before this. Laying in my bed and beckoning me into it, with the duvet pulled up to reveal his body, is the music teacher from my work. I don’t find this teacher attractive and am repulsed at the idea of him beckoning me into bed. It feels like it’s a foregone conclusion and he is confident that I will join him in bed. He is clothed and lying on his side in the bed. He is wearing a suit which he usually wears to work. He is holding the duvet up with one hand, lying on his side facing me and making a beckoning gesture with the other hand. He is smirking. I feel disgusted, repulsed and I definitely do not want to get into bed or have sex with him! I want him to get out of my bed. I wake up.
Dream Three
This 28-year-old man’s colorful, richly symbolic dream seems to hold out the prospect of more profound spiritual, sexual and relational union.
I was in a sauna with a man who I knew in the dream to be my boyfriend, though I don’t recognize him in my waking life. We were alone in this sauna and began to kiss when all of a sudden a group of four men wearing all purple (purple tunics, purple sandals, purple fezes) entered the sauna and sat on the bench directly across from us. The man set a mini cauldron down on the floor and lit a fire inside it. They were then throwing incense and what looked like sand into the cauldron as they were chanting in a language I’d never heard before. I stopped kissing my “boyfriend” and we looked at each other, giggled, and left the sauna.
Dream Four
This dream was submitted by a 30-year-old woman who is in a loving, long-term relationship, but has struggled to enjoy sex. Although dreams of rape are usually upsetting and disturbing, if we interpret them psychologically, they can carry strong messages about where we might need to reorient our attitude in waking life.
I was in a restaurant kitchen, but I was not employed there as a waitress. I simply found myself wanting to help with the work. At some point I was left alone in the kitchen. A handsome young man came in and told me that he was going to impregnate me against my will, that this was something he had to do. I did not want it, but I found myself surrendering without putting up much resistance, even though I was afraid of STDs, of an unwanted child, and that it felt like cheating on my partner. Despite all these fears, the intercourse was very enjoyable. Later, I was in the early stages of pregnancy. I found the man again and tried to convince him to have sex with me. I thought that the damage had already been done once, so why would it matter if it happened again?
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