Does Masturbation Effect Lucid Dreams?
10 Aug
Attention! Every Tuesday, I’ll be answering questions from readers about dreams or anything else we talk about here on Dreaming Life! And guess what? 
I’d love to hear from you, too! Send your questions using the contact form here. Thanks!
AHHH -now here’s a question that’s sure to generate some interest:
“Does Masturbation Effect Lucid Dreams?”
The timing of receiving such a question couldn’t be more perfect! I’d been wanting to talk about masturbation and lucid dreaming but felt somewhat at odds with the right way to bring it up. I’m going to use this as an opportunity to mention an experiment I recently performed related to this question, and then go back to answering this question specifically as best I can.
So, here’s my experiment:
I had a theory that I could use abstinence as a way to becoming lucid.
My idea was that if I did not masturbate (or otherwise release any “sexual energy”), I would see an increase in the sexual content of my dreams.
Simultaneously, I would set my intentions towards affirming that any sexual experience I was having must mean I am dreaming.
In other words, if sexual abstinence created an environment in which sexual experiences appeared more frequently in my dreams, I could then use sex as a dream sign, do a reality test, and realize I’m dreaming.
Sounds fairly logical, right?
So what happened?
I did this for 2 weeks and the results did not yield any lucid dreams.
I don’t think there’s any problems with the logic behind my experiment, however. For me, the problem was that the lack of masturbating did not correlate with a rise in sex dreams. This is interesting especially in that over my entire life, I very rarely have dreams where I’m actually, literally having sex anyway.
And so I ask of you, DEAR READER: I know this is something that other people have tried and I’d love to hear if your experience led to better results than mine or were about the same.
NOW – back to the question the reader asked:
Does masturbation affect lucid dreams?
In my opinion:
In general, no.
But there are some exceptions.
Here’s my thoughts on the subject.
1) In general, I don’t think that by masturbating or not masturbating you’re going to see any difference in your ability to have lucid dreams. Why? Because becoming lucid for most people involves practicing specific tasks (such as reality tests and other lucid dreaming techniques) designed to create a situation in a dream where you realize you’re dreaming. This is what’s going to effect your ability to have or not have lucid dreams, not the issue of whether or not you gave yourself an orgasm before going to bed.
2) If you’re a frequent lucid dreamer, and you’re worried that by masturbating you’ll be less successfully at becoming lucid… I think this worry is unfounded. What’s the connection here? Does any one know something about this or have any personal experience they want to share on this point?
3) On a similar note if you’re trying super hard to have lucid dreams and are having unsuccessful results….maybe that’s where this question is coming from. Could fault lie in the act of masturbating before going to sleep? I suppose I can imagine how releasing sexual energy could calm the mind and thus make it harder to “wake up” in your dreams, maybe - but again, I don’t think this is really a big factor. A much more meaningful question to ask would be what are you doing to try and have lucid dreams? This is basically point number 1 all over again.
4) All that being said, I do think that if you are very in touch with your body and your mind, you can use abstinence as a means of storing and saving your own sexual energy which can then favorably be leveraged into inducing more conscious awareness in the dream state. But I don’t know this from personal experience. It’s more of a speculative thought experiment.
. . . . . . . .
So that is my take on the question of masturbation and dreams.
However:
Anything having to do with sex and lucid dreaming generates a lot of interest.
And so I hope to hear from ya’ll on this one.:)
Do you think that masturbating effects lucid dreaming? And if so, does masturbation help or hurt the ability to become lucid in a dream?
Hit up the comments below with your opinions & experiences.
I think it depends all on the person who partakes in the experiment. For me, when I masturbate, I cannot remember any dreams at all.
Hi, I have a lot of things to say, and i want to because most people don’t talk about that, so maybe can help. Is about 3 years that i don’t have sex or sexual intercourse(because i don’t need it like others and it’s fantastic! i konw you can’t understand), and so i have to masturbate periodically (logically) but when i don’t do that for 1 week (approximately) i have sexual dreams and i can remember them.
Normally they do not last long; they are preceded by a preliminary situation(like a nice girl), sometimes you want to have sex but like in real life you fail or the dream change(depend how intense is ), it is very realistic, and both the feelings and the situation are intense and sometimes you feel real love because always you meet the best girl you can imagine. And it look like a lucid dream, but you’re so preoccupied about sex that you can’t think others things.
The strange is that when you have orgasm, in the dream there is no ejaculation, there is only the erotic act, and the orgasm close the dream, orgasm coincides with the end of the dream. Then it ends and begins again to dream as if nothing had happened.
Other thing that have nothing to do with sex is love, love in dreams sometimes is so intense that when you wake up you really miss that person; and i think is because when i dream a girl, she is always perfect, perfect apparence and perfect personality, she is “the girl of your dream” and really, you miss her, is so perfect that she can’t exist in real life, so is like your soulmate…amazing…and NEVER i had sex with that kind of perfect girl, i can’t, she’s so perfect that sex is useless….so there are 2 type: sexual dreams and romantic dreams….and all from our brain, nature is so astonishing!!!
Sorry for my english.
Sexual energy and dreaming energy are considered to be the same in many traditions. To this end I have gone for up to a month without having an orgasm, and as far as I can tell now, it has had no effect on my dreaming recall or vividness. I am working with B vitamins and Mugwort now, in addition to the abstinence. If I get nowhere with these and genuine, honest effort, I will resume normal sexual frequency, which should make my girlfriend much happier anyway. But my latent lack of lucidity is far more frustrating to me than sexual abstinence is!
Good website, BTW – just discovered it today.
I would suggest anyone interested in this topic to explore what the tradition of dream yoga has to say about the conservation of sexual energy and how that pertains to the practice of building an astral body. There is a correlation here. This is a much bigger and deeper question than “does masturbation impact lucid dreaming?” http://www.dream-yoga.org
Masturbating does not affect lucid dreaming whatsoever, it only causes to have less sexual dreams. More clearly, mind and the sexual organs are in deep and complex relativity, less masturbation causes you to have more sexual dreams with a decent vividness, but of course I am telling by my experiences. Sexual dreams which I mentioned are not lucid, they are just sexual. If anybody wants to have more lucid dreams, they just need to engage themselves into the matter by reading, thinking, reality checks, dream journal. it doesn’t happen rapidly but it will eventually come to you and you will enjoy it. Good luck
I have read that the more you masturbate in waking life, the more likely you will have sexual dreams. If you abstain completely, your sex drive actually weakens, thus you will have less dreams about sex.
I sometimes masturbate in my dream and it’s because I do it in real life, that I’m even dreaming about it to begin with.
Ha ha, the vast majority of people think “lucid dream” = “lucid sex dream”…
Damn, get a sex life ! (I know it’s hard but work on it !)
In my case, masturbation put my mind at ease and fuel imagination, while exhaustiveness put my mind in a “half-conscious” mode (= zombie). If the two are combined, the probability of a lucid dream are very high (in my case).
Sure, it’s rarely a sex-related dream (and I don’t feel the need to have one, really), but it’s an interesting interaction between my conscious mind and my dreams. Also, I remember my lucid-dream easily, for several days.
Turning a dream into a lucid dream is often the result of a danger/stress, becoming conscious is a defensive action, as I prefer to follow the dream without interfering.