Does the stranger in your dream know you better than you do?
What Your Erotic Dreams Reveal About Your Deepest Desires #01
Even when you don’t recognise the face in your dream, the feeling they give you is a reflection of what you hunger for most.
Over the last month, I’ve been collecting anonymous erotic dreams from around the world. I call it the Deep Desires Project: a large scale, living archive of our erotic unconscious.
My intention was simple: to map the terrain of arousal that emerges in our sleep.
But what I’m finding is far more intimate than I expected.
Before I go on, let me share something personal.
I was a sleep scientist for over five years.
I spent my days analysing REM cycles, circadian rhythms, and brainwave patterns.
But my fascination in this area has always been with the dreaming mind.
While science can explain when we dream, it still struggles to capture why some dreams seem to be so meaningful and symbolic- some people feel they even receive messages or information in dreams.
I once had a scientific friend share that they solved an incredibly hard problem they were having with equipment in their dream!
Back then, the most compelling research I found came from Stephen LaBerge, a pioneer in lucid dreaming.
LaBerge showed us that dreams aren’t just stories but they can be shaped, healed, and inhabited.
He developed techniques to become conscious within dreams, proving through physiological signals (like pre-arranged eye movements during REM) that the dreamer could communicate from inside the dream.
His work bridged the worlds of neuroscience and mystical experience and it was something I’ve never stopped thinking about.
I remember feeling frustrated in my Sleep Scientist job- I was surrounded by equipment that could research dreams but there was little to no funding happening for it.
You can imagine my excitement when over a decade later the Deep Desire Project idea came to me.
It seems erotic dreams remain largely uncharted.
Too taboo. Too emotional. Too hard to measure.
So I started this project not just as a researcher but from a place of deep curiosity.
Curiosity I hope I can share with you.
Some may say dreams are supposed to be random, surreal, the brain defragging itself.
But the dreams people are sharing so far in the Deep Desire Project are anything but meaningless.
They aren’t just sexual—they’re symbolic, psychological, spiritually disorienting.
Some carry echoes of trauma.
Others offer healing.
And some read like erotic poems…untamed, unstructured, and yet uncannily precise in what they reveal.
As I was reading through the 50+ dreams that have been submitted so far, the first significant theme became apparent.
Again and again, people described erotic dreams involving strangers: ranging from faceless lovers, ghosts, caretakers, demons, to public shadows.
In fact the most common person in the erotic dreams reported so far was a stranger!
Not exes.
Not crushes.
Not pornified memories.
Not even current partners (although they were a close second).
Strangers.
1 in 5 of you report that your most memorable erotic dream has been with a stranger!
But here’s the twist: even when the figure is unknown, the feeling is unmistakably personal.
“We’re underwater in my old school, everything calm.
He kisses me and breathes into me, and we make love in silence.
I wake up feeling full.”
“There’s a being made of light, and I can't tell their gender, only that they’re the one.
It feels like home.”
These strange dream figures are shapeshifters.
They wear the masks of something unfamiliar to deliver something deeply known.
Sometimes they’re tender.
Sometimes they’re monstrous.
But always, they touch something sacred.
They carry themes of:
longing without shame
submission without justification
intensity without explanation
pleasure alongside confusion
And they often leave the dreamer feeling exposed, seen, and sometimes even cracked open by emotion.
These aren’t just sex dreams.
They’re messages from the erotic unconscious.
In Jungian terms, these figures are often animus or anima projections (our inner feminine or inner masculine)—representing something the ego isn’t yet integrated with.
In psychophysiological terms, they are the body processing repression.
But in human terms?
They’re invitations.
Invitations to listen to what our desire is trying to say when it doesn’t have to perform.
The Emotional Texture of the Erotic Unconscious
Erotic dreams often bypass the socially acceptable categories of identity and touch something deeper: the emotional texture of desire.
This is something our waking lives rarely allow us to name.
You may not remember who is in your dream but you remember how it makes you feel:
exposed
worshipped
undone
angry
flooded with sensation
longing for something
Several participants describe dreams where the setting is surreal but the feeling is unmistakably real.
A demon scratching them as they climax.
A spectral lover appearing during ovulation.
A sense of being watched, touched, devoured.
And sometimes, these dreams aren’t even sexual but the intimacy shakes them to the core.
One of you shares:
“It isn’t sex, it’s merging.
I can’t see their face.
I can’t even tell what parts they have.
But I know it’s them.
I know it in my cells.”
That’s the erotic unconscious at work.
It’s not about the genitals it’s about the knowing.
The collision of pleasure and meaning.
Why Erotic Dreams Feel More Honest Than Fantasies
Here’s what’s fascinating: many people say their erotic dreams feel more real than their waking fantasies.
One of you even wrote:
“My fantasies are kinkier, but my dreams feel like truth.”
This points to a split I see all the time in my work on desire: between performed eroticism and emergent eroticism.
Fantasies are often shaped by will, repetition, and media.
Dreams are shaped by longing, memory, and unresolved emotion.
That’s why the characters in dreams are so often strange and yet, we’re so open to them.
Because they bypass the inner critic.
They speak in metaphor.
They offer what we’d never dare ask for.
In dreams, the body and mind have their say.
And often, they says things we’ve been afraid to say aloud:
“I want to be dominated.”
“I want to be seen.”
“I want to disappear.”
“I want to feel wanted, not because I earned it, but just because I exist.”
There’s a lot of exciting data to process here.
But the biggest learning is this:
Even when you don’t recognise the face in your erotic dream, the feeling they give you is a reflection of what you hunger for most.
Desire isn’t always about who we want.
It’s about:
What we want to feel.
Where we want to be led.
What corners of our psyche are aching to be acknowledged.
I now invite you to reflect on your own erotic dream life…
Have you ever dreamed of a stranger who felt deeply familiar? What was their message to you about your desires?
Do your erotic dreams tend to mirror your real-life experiences—or challenge them?
What patterns, symbols, or emotional tones appear again and again in your erotic dreams?
How do your erotic dreams feel compared to your waking fantasies—in intensity, agency, or meaning?
If your dreams are a private language of desire, what are they trying to tell you?
If you haven’t yet submitted to the Deep Desires Project, you can still add your erotic dream here.
Also I’d love to ask for your help- can you please share this project with your friends and followers? Let’s create the largest library of erotic dreams in the world together!
The future of the Psychology of Desire
This is the first insight I’m releasing from the Deep Desires Project.
There’s MUCH more to come.
Future analysis includes comparing your erotic dreams across cultural, gender, sexuality, age, and religious differences…plus wherever else the data takes us!
This week I also made a shift: I’ve now paywalled the archive of previous posts.
Not as a gatekeeping move but as a boundary of respect.
These writings are labours of depth.
And if you’re drawn to this work, your support means I can continue to explore these edges without diluting them.
Free posts such as this one are available to everyone for the first two weeks.
After that, they become part of the paid archive to support the depth of this work.
So consider this your invitation.
Thanks for your understanding as I make these changes.
There is so much more to come and I’m so excited you are here on this journey into the erotic psyche with me!
Emma
Founder of Psychology of Desire
Host of The Erotic Realm
p.s Want to explore my other writing?
My Erotic Journey: From Repressed to Expressed
The Secret Life of Your Desire
Why Your Desires Are More Normal Than You Think.
What If Everything You Know About Men and Women Is Wrong?
The Hidden Key to Lasting Desire: It’s Not What You Think
Are Men and Women Wired Differently For Desire?
And don’t forget my Jung of Sex Series:
p.p.s Want to check out my projects?
Listen to The Erotic Realm podcast here.
Support The Erotic Realm Confessional here.
Be part of The Deep Desire Project here.
Exciting Announcement! The Erotic Realm now has it’s own merchandise! If you love the show and want to support it check it out here.
Heartiest congratulations on your efforts and marvelous results, Emma. Permit me to make a pair of quick comments:
<< “My fantasies are kinkier, but my dreams feel like truth.” >>
I found that statement rather baffling, since my dreams are (or at least were) far kinkier than my fantasies!
<< Even when you don’t recognise the face(s) in your erotic dream, the feeling they give you is a reflection of what you hunger for most. >>
...or perhaps fear most? Just curious.
Again, applause for your work, and I look forward to the next installment.