Why do people so often dream about sex? Have you ever wondered why certain images and scenarios appear in your dreams?
In The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud explains manifest and latent content of dreams. He contends that dreams aren’t random—they’re coded messages from our unconscious mind revealing our deepest desires and unresolved conflicts.
Keep reading to learn how childhood experiences shape your dreams and why sexual symbolism appears so frequently.
Latent Content of Dreams
According to Freud, a dream can be divided into two layers: the “manifest content” and the “latent content.”
- The manifest content of dreams is the surface level content: the events you can remember when you wake up.
- The latent content of dreams consists of your repressed wishes that are trying to express themselves through the manifest content.
For example, an unconscious wish for recognition (latent content) might manifest in a dream about winning a race using elements from a TV show watched the day before (manifest content).
| The Hidden Content of Dreams Across Cultures Many cultures throughout history have interpreted the details of dreams (manifest content) as indicative of deeper meaning (latent content). However, people have often believed that this deeper meaning came from external sources rather than the dreamer’s inner mind. As a result, many cultures have traditionally seen dreams as wisdom about supernatural or future events. For example, in Japanese tradition, the first dream you have in the new year contains omens about what the next year will bring. Dreaming about Mount Fuji, hawks, or eggplants is considered especially lucky. Islamic tradition recognizes three types of dreams: “true” dreams that are messages from God, “false” dreams that are messages from the devil, and “confusing” dreams that contain no external messages, but could still lead the dreamer astray in their religious life. Finally, in some African cultures such as the Yoruba, the spirits of ancestors are believed to communicate with their descendants through dreams. These ancestors provide guidance and are considered an important source of morality. |
Common Latent Content of Dreams
While every dream and every dreamer is unique, Freud argues that there are common unconscious wishes that appear in dreams more frequently than others. We’ll explore Freud’s theories about the sexual content of dreams and about early childhood desires that stay with people into adulthood.
Sexual Wishes in Dreams
Freud argues that most of the unconscious desires expressed through dreams are sexual in nature. Recall that dreams arise out of the tension between an unfulfilled wish and the censor that filters out unacceptable thoughts and feelings. Freud states that sexual desires are heavily subject to repression because of the many religious and social taboos that encourage people to view their own sexual desires as unacceptable. Thus, while not all desires expressed in dreams are sexual, Freud asserts that most of them are.
For example, a dream featuring a steady rhythmic activity such as rowing a boat or riding a horse could be a symbolic stand-in for the act of having sex. Meanwhile, male genitals may be symbolically represented by long objects such as pencils or bread sticks, while female genitals may be represented by containers such as suitcases or boxes.
| Dreams About Sex Itself While not all psychologists agree with Freud’s view that seemingly mundane dreams are often secretly about sex, research has confirmed that explicitly sexual dreams are quite common, with 85% of men and 75% of women reporting they’ve had at least one erotic dream in their lives, though the frequency and subject matter of such dreams varies by gender, sex drive, and relationship situation. For instance, people with high sex drives tend to have sexual dreams more often. Women are more likely than men to dream about their current partner, while men are more likely to dream about a casual acquaintance. Finally, both men and women who are unsatisfied with their current relationship are more likely to have a sexual dream about someone outside of their relationship. |
Freud’s Theories of Childhood Desire and Development
Freud also asserts that many of the unconscious desires expressed through dreams are left over from childhood. He maintains that childhood wishes are strong and thus leave a deep impression on our minds that can last for a lifetime. Furthermore, he contends that many childhood wishes are undeveloped versions of the adult desires we grow into as we age. We’ll explore how these childhood desires develop from family dynamics to become common themes in dreams.
(Shortform note: Modern research supports Freud’s general view that our childhood experiences have the power to shape our feelings and behaviors as adults. Studies have found that children raised in emotionally supportive homes are more likely to succeed in education and to form satisfying relationships. Meanwhile, children who suffer adverse childhood experiences such as neglect or abuse are more likely to develop anxiety or depression and struggle with forming healthy relationships.)
Desire for Opposite-Sex Parent
Freud argues that a child’s yearning for closeness with their opposite-sex parent represents an early, rudimentary form of sexuality that evolves into adult sexuality as the child matures. As a child grows and develops, these feelings are typically repressed and redirected toward more appropriate objects of desire. However, Freud contends that this early experience of desire for a parent shapes your later romantic relationships and sexual preferences.
| How Parent/Child Relationships Impact Romantic Relationships While most modern psychologists are critical of Freud’s theories about childhood attraction to their opposite-sex parent, many support the idea that child/parent relationships can have a profound impact on romantic relationships later in life. In particular, attachment theory maintains that people have different styles of attachment shaped by their parents. For example, when parents are unavailable and fail to meet their child’s needs, a child may develop an ambivalent attachment style characterized by feeling anxious that their parents will abandon them. People with ambivalent attachment tend to feel more insecure and jealous in their romantic relationships, constantly worrying that their partner might leave. Furthermore, when parents are abusive, a child may develop an avoidant attachment style. People with avoidant attachment styles tend to feel uncomfortable with intimacy and may avoid romantic relationships altogether. |
Rivalry with Same-Sex Parent and Siblings
Freud posits that an undeveloped sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent can make children view their same-sex parent as a rival, potentially causing feelings of resentment and antagonism. This may result in an undeveloped wish for the death of their same-sex parent. Freud emphasizes that this is not a wish for literal death, since children lack a mature understanding of death, but simply an undeveloped desire for the rival parent to disappear so that they may enjoy the complete attention and affection of their opposite-sex parent. For instance, a young boy might fantasize about his father being absent, allowing him exclusive access to his mother’s attention.
Freud explains that this desire for connection with the opposite-sex parent can also lead to rivalry with siblings, as a child may view them as competitors for the affection of their opposite-sex parent. This can result in a primitive “wish for death” for their siblings as well.
(Shortform note: In The Moral Animal, Robert Wright argues that children have a natural tendency to view both siblings and parents as rivals, but not necessarily for the reasons Freud presents. He asserts that children evolved to compete with their siblings for their parents’ attention, since historically, children who received less attention were less likely to survive. Furthermore, he argues that this pits the interest of parents against those of their children, as parents have an evolutionary incentive to be equally invested in all their children. However, this theory doesn’t necessarily assert that children respond differently to their opposite-sex parent than their same-sex parent.)
Why These Desires Influence Dreams
According to Freud, childhood sexual wishes play an outsize role in our dreams because they’re so heavily repressed. While any sexual feeling may be repressed, attraction to your opposite-sex parent is especially unacceptable because it’s viewed as incestuous, while a wish for the death of family members—parents or siblings—is unacceptable because it’s seen as murderous and immoral. Thus, these desires are banished to the unconscious, where they’re only capable of expressing themselves in dreams.
| Incest, Abuse, and Challenges to Freud’s Theory According to anthropologists, virtually all cultures prohibit sex between a parent and a child. Despite these prohibitions, incest has been recorded throughout history and across cultures, with paternal incest—fathers sexually abusing their daughters—being the most common. While this opposite-sex pairing may support part of Freud’s theory, the difference in power suggests that it’s the parent, not the child, whose desire drives the behavior. According to some scholars, this dynamic may have inadvertently influenced Freud’s theories about childhood sexuality. Prior to his theory about childhood sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent, Freud developed an alternative theory linking neuroses to childhood sexual abuse, based on his patients’ accounts of sexual encounters in childhood. However, he later changed his mind, believing that these accounts were fantasies or dreams rather than memories of abuse, and that his patients were fantasizing about sexual encounters with their parents as children. This has led some scholars to argue that Freud might have misinterpreted real accounts of his patients’ sexual abuse as dreams and then developed his theories of childhood sexuality based on these misinterpretations. |
