Explicit Dreams About Sexuality
Frank has always had many dreams in which he is making love to a woman – sometimes his wife, sometimes other women he has known, and sometimes a celebrity (usually a movie star or political figure). He has often made love in his dreams to a woman who is a creation of his own imagination. Frank’s specialty is meeting a darkly clad woman with long blond hair walking on a foggy beach. Frank admits that this fantasy is not very original. However, it does work for him, because after a brief interaction with this beautiful (but somewhat mysterious) interaction with her in front of a roaring fire at a nearby Inn (still not very original), Frank escorts her up to his room at the Inn and they make love in a gentle but quite passionate manner.
While the content of this dream is not particularly original, it is universally appealing. I must admit that I borrowed this dream from Frank in one of my previous essays (Bergquist, 2023b). Frank has repeatedly enjoyed this dream for over forty years of his adult life. During some evenings he sensed that he was to have this dream when he fell asleep. This often results in an earlier-than-usual bedtime. He never disclosed this reason for an early bedtime to his devoted wife. Frank even likes to spend time on a beach in the Pacific Northwest that is often foggy. Is he looking for this dream lover as a real-life woman on this beach? Perhaps.
Frank indicates that he is especially thankful to his “psyche” for providing him with this frequently generated dream and many other sexually explicit dreams—especially since the death of his wife. Love-making is often quite wonderful in his dreams. Frank admits that his dream-based sexual encounters can sometimes be even better than his real-life sexual encounters.
Frank sleeps with a large side pillow since his wife’s death. He often wakes up after having a sexual dream with not only an erection but also with a “humping” motion directed toward his side pillow. Frank has not needed a blowup doll—he’s got his surrogate (the side pillow).
Like many “healthy” men and women, Frank is a creator of dreams that allow him fully to enjoy sexual encounters. We are no longer living in a “Victorian” era when all yearning for sexuality is repressed (and in this repression gains power). Most men and women are now “liberated.” They can enjoy real-life and fanciful sex (including nighttime, dream-based sexuality) without feeling guilty.
However, is this enough? Are certain expressions of sexuality still “forbidden” for Frank? Are there still restrictions on the specific people (both male and female) about whom Frank can imagine being bed partners? Bringing in Dr. Freud once again, might we wonder if the censuring Super-Ego is still alive and well in Frank’s psyche and in the psyche of most properly “socialized” men and women of the mid-21st Century?
Dreams that Symbolize Sexuality
The sexually saturated perspective on dreams that Sigmund Freud offered more than 100 years ago continues to linger in mid-21st Century life. Books about dreams have been filled with a list of dreams that provide a symbolic representation of sexuality. One can find a healthy dose of sexual symbolism in the many dream-symbol books found at the supermarket checkout line. The most commonly identified symbol is flying. I have suggested an alternative interpretation to flying in one of my previous essays (Bergquist, 2024).
