All About The Penis

Nocturnal emissions - wet dreams - coming while you're asleep

Let's get one thing straight right away: a wet dream, the involuntary release of semen while you're asleep, often accompanied by sexy dreams, is normal in every way. It isn't a disease, it isn't a sign of masturbation, it isn't a sign of wicked sexual thoughts, and it doesn't mean you're damned to hell for all eternity. No indeed: wet dreams happen to every boy, everywhere,  during his adolescence, and quite a lot of men have them too.

They happen whether you're masturbating or not - though if you don't masturbate much they may happen more often - and they happen whether you want them to or not. Sexy dreams, wet patches on your pajamas, and embarrassing stains on the bed notwithstanding, nocturnal emissions are a fact of life, and there's not a lot you can do about them (except maybe masturbate more, which is probably a good thing for your pleasure and sexual health. On the other hand, I suspect few adolescents need encouraging to masturbate any more than they already do.)

I remember my first wet dream (what a great term - "wet dream"...who thought that one up?). It took me by surprise when I was sleeping in a bed and breakfast - I'd have been about twelve, I think. I had a sexy dream about a girl at my first school who, to be honest, I'd never even looked at and barely spoken to. Why would she have been the subject of a wet dream? Perhaps I didn't speak to her because there was something about her I fancied, even at the tender age of ten. Who knows? Anyhow, though at this distance I don't recall the subject of the dream, I do recall thinking the whole experience was very nice when I woke up shortly after ejaculating, except for the need to wash the spunk off the sheets next day. But, as I recall, they were rather horrible pink nylon sheets, in the best tradition of the down-market UK guest houses of the time, so maybe I shouldn't have bothered, but just let the landlady have a little frisson of something or other when she exchanged the sheets.

The next night, I tied a tissue round the end of my cock, hoping fervently that the same thing would happen again...but sad to say, it was several years before I had another wet dream: rather surprising really, because I wasn't masturbating much at that time. (Well, not at all, really, I'm very sorry to say. It would have done me a lot of good if I had been wanking every day. That way, I'd have been a lot more relaxed about sex and my body.)

Just to complete the wet dream background information: when you have a dream you may wake up, or you may not; you may have an orgasm or you may not; you may get erect or you may not; semen will come out of your penis even if it just oozes out; and - as an aside - while women may not ejaculate, they too can have orgasms in their dreams.

How often do wet dreams occur?

There's no point working out an average number of times a month that a wet dream occurs, because many boys and men have only a few in their entire lives, while some have lots. But we do know a few facts: about 83% of men have at least one wet dream in their life; where masturbation is frowned on by society (ho hum), that figure rises to 98%. No surprise there, I guess. But it's very variable - some men have lots, some men have very few. (I, sadly, seem to have fallen in the latter category. Damn!)

What's more interesting is the way they happen: the unconscious mind has a way of releasing unexpressed sexual thoughts and images in the form of wet dreams. Often these dreams will be about women who you're attracted to in some way, such as media stars who you find attractive. Unfortunately, perhaps, it's not uncommon for boys and men to dream about having sex with members of their family (for example, sister or mother, even father or brother): and no, this doesn't mean you're a pervert. It doesn't mean anything at all except that at some deep level of your mind there's a sense of love getting mixed up with your developing sexuality. These things all sort themselves out as time goes by without you having to do anything about it, so don't worry about this if it happens to you!

Having said that, I must say I have heard a few teenagers express some disgust after they'd dreamed of sex with their mothers...anyhow....just to let you know: it may not be nice, but it isn't unusual.

We aren't sure if men who have lots of wet dreams masturbate more or less than average - in any case, I guess we'd also need to know how often they had sex, and what their sex drive was like, to make any sense of the statistics. As far as I know, this research hasn't been done yet.

Wet dreams as the first ejaculation

Now, this is much more interesting. No, really, it is. Many boys have their first experience of orgasm and ejaculation through having a wet dream. I hope they're well prepared and know what's happening to them, because if they don't, it can be a real shock.

It turns out that 13% of boys experience their first ejaculation in the form of a wet dream. These are obviously the ones who don't discover masturbation for themselves, so they tend on average to be older - about a year on average - than  boys who do ejaculate first through masturbation.

Other interesting facts about wet dreams

Normally your penis goes limp after an ejaculation, but this may not happen after a wet dream.

Some fanatical deranged so-called Christians consider wet dreams to be a sin. Personally I consider being a fanatical deranged Christian a sin.

Kellogg invented the cornflake as an anti-masturbation food. Whether or not he thought it would stop wet dreams is not recorded.

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