Dreams will often allow us to explore physicality in a safe way. Real spiritual growth takes place when we are not afraid of the curiosity that allows innocent exploration of our own body. When a child is first born, its first awareness is of itself as an individual. It has to learn that it is now separate from its mother and cope with the separation. It begins to become ‘conscious’of itself, and of its need for warmth, comfort and love. n Dreams highlight the whole range of the individual’s sexuality. One vital stage of growth is the baby’s fascination with its own body and the ability to be physical. Only if later we ignore our own sexual nature and fail to appreciate his own life force do the negative aspects make themselves obvious in dreams. This is a natural attempt to balance the waking state, which may have beenover-intellectualized, or over-dramatized. Contact with others then becomes necessary, and often this need will manifest in dreams. There are many aspects of sex and sexuality that can surface in dreams unexpectedly or in an apparently bizarre fashion and they can generally be interpreted as follows:

Bisexuality

within us we all hold both masculine and feminine potentials. One is more overt than the other and when there is conflict between the inner and the outer selves this can sometimes show itself in dreams as bisexuality.

Castration

in a dream this suggests fear of loss of masculinity and sexual power.

Clothes

being fully clothed would suggest feelings of guilt or prudery. Contraception – dreaming of contraception can indicate a fear of pregnancy and birth.

Ejaculation / Emission

the conflicts that arise in us because of our sexual desire for someone can be dealt with in the dream state through dreaming of emission or orgasm.

Fetishes

a fixation on an external object, in sexual terms it appears that there can be no sexual act without it – akin to a child being without its comforter. In dreams, therefore, a fetish can highlight fear, immaturity and lack of capability.

Hermaphrodite

dreaming of a hermaphrodite (someone who is both masculine and feminine) signifies our attitude to bisexuality, or androgyny – the perfect balance within one person of the masculine and feminine qualities.

Homosexuality

in dreams this is a desire for someone who is the same as oneself, i.e. has the same energies, thought processes etc. If we can identify similarities with the dream character that are not purely sexual, the dream can be fully interpreted.

Incest

usually characterizes the need for love expressed in a more tactile way. In dreams incest can highlight the guilty feelings we have about our parents or members of the family.

Intercourse (or petting)

the wish or need to be able to communicate with someone on a very intimate level can translate itself into intercourse in a dream. If intercourse is interrupted we may have inhibitions of which we are not consciously aware. Often intercourse in a dream can mark the integration of a particular part of our personality. If a child is then born in the dream that integration has been successful.

Kiss

this can indicate a mark of respect or a desire to stimulate the dream partner. It suggests we should be aware of what arousal we ourselves need.

Masochism

the desire to hurt or be hurt in dreams through sex arises from two causes. The first is to be a martyr (to suffer for one’s ‘sins’) and the second to feel extreme emotion of one sort or another. We may not allow ourselves to feel deeply in everyday life.

Masturbation

the child learns to comfort himself through masturbation, so such a dream shows a need for comfort.

Perversion

when sexual perversion appears in dreams we are avoiding, or attempting to avoid, issues to do with closeness and bonding.

Phallus

any image either of or to do with the phallus signifies everything that is creative, penetrative and masculine. It is vitality and creativity in both its simplest and most complex form. It is resurrection and the renewal of life.

Rape

any image of rape appearing in dreams can be as much to do with violation of personal space as with the sexual act. Rape may only appear as an image when we as adults are ready to deal with trauma of any kind.

Sadism

in everyday life we may be very timid, in which case sadism in a dream is an escape mechanism. If we have to be dominant and controlling in everyday life, the unconscious shows its need to be controlled by such dreams.

Semen

the sign of masculinity and of physical maturity, semen is often seen in dreams as some other milky fluid. Dreams have an odd way of manifesting images of primitive rites and practices of which we may have no conscious knowledge, such as depositing semen in the earth.

Transvestism

signifies a confusion so far as gender is concerned in dreams.

Venereal Disease

in a dream this can suggest awareness of some kind of contamination. This need not necessarily be of a sexual nature, but could also be emotional.

In dreams, sexuality, in the sense of feeling desire for someone else, is a basic, primeval urge for closeness and union. It is as though we are searching for a part of ourselves that we have lost and the other character in the dream represents the closest we can get to that part. If we were a fully integrated human being, we would have no need for sex with someone else, but most of us have an inherent desire to be united with everything that is not part of our own ego. Sexual activity is either the highest expression of love and spirituality between two people or, if purely physically based, is entirely selfish. It would be up to us and our understanding of ourselves to determine which it is.