A wet dream, sex dream, or sleep orgasm, is a spontaneous occurrence of sexual arousal during sleep that includes ejaculation ( nocturnal emission) and orgasm for a male, and vaginal lubrication and/or orgasm for a female.
Nocturnal emissions can start as early as age ten, and are most common during adolescence and early young adult years, but they may happen any time after puberty. Men can wake up during a wet dream, or sleep through it, but for women, some researchers have added the requirement that they should awaken during the orgasm, and perceive that the orgasm happened before it counts as a wet dream. Vaginal lubrication alone does not mean that the woman has had an orgasm.
In the largest study, which included nocturnal emission samples from 10 men with idiopathic anejaculation, the semen concentration was equivalent to samples obtained from the same men by Vibroejaculation, although the proportions of sperm which were motile, and which were of normal morphology, were higher in the nocturnal emission specimens.
For males who have experienced nocturnal emissions, the mean frequency ranges from 0.36 times per week (about once every three weeks) for single 15-year-old males to 0.18 times per week (about once every six weeks) for 40-year-old single males. For married males, the mean ranges from 0.23 times per week (about once per month) for 19-year-old married males to 0.15 times per week (about once every two months) for 50-year-old married males.
In Indonesia, surveys have shown that 93% of men experience nocturnal emissions by the age of 24.
Some males have the emissions only at a specific age, while others have them throughout their lives following puberty. The frequency with which one has nocturnal emissions has not been conclusively linked to the frequency of masturbation. Alfred Kinsey found:
One factor that can affect the number of nocturnal emissions males have is whether they take testosterone-based drugs. In a 1998 study by Finkelstein et al, the number of boys reporting nocturnal emissions drastically increased as their testosterone doses were increased, from 17% of subjects with no treatment to 90% of subjects at a high dose.
Thirteen percent of males experience their first ejaculation as a result of a nocturnal emission. Kinsey found that males experiencing their first ejaculation through a nocturnal emission were older than those experiencing their first ejaculation by means of masturbation. The study indicates that such a first ejaculation resulting from a nocturnal emission was delayed a year or more from what would have been developmentally possible for such males through physical stimulation.
Research published by Barbara L. Wells in the 1986 Journal of Sex Research indicates that as many as 85% of women have experienced nocturnal orgasm by the age of 21. This research was based on women waking up with or during orgasm.
Studies have found that males typically have more frequent spontaneous nocturnal sexual experiences than females. However, female wet dreams may also be more difficult to identify with certainty than male wet dreams because ejaculation is usually associated with male orgasm while vaginal lubrication may not indicate orgasm.
The first of these is part of a passage stating similar regulations about sexual intercourse and menstruation. Leviticus 12 makes similar regulations about childbirth.
A third passage relates more specifically to Kohen, requiring any "of the offspring of Aaron who has ... a discharge", among other causes of ritual defilement, to abstain from eating holy offerings until after a ritual immersion in a mikveh and until the subsequent nocturnal emission.
In Judaism, the Tikkun HaKlali, also known as "The General Remedy", is a set of ten Psalms designed in 1805 by Rebbe Nachman, whose recital is intended to serve as repentance for nocturnal emissions.
A similar view was expressed by Aquinas, who wrote in the Summa Theologica II-II-154-5:
|
|