Female Nocturnal Orgasms

by Franceen King, Ph.D.

I am conducting an on-going online survey regarding Sleep-Related Female Orgasms and Sex Dreams. I need responses from women of all ages, especially ages 60 and above. If you would like to participate, please click here.

I have recently published my new book, Waking into “The Big O” – A New Look at Sleep-Related Female Orgasms, which includes fascinating statistics and anonymous commentary from participants in this survey, ages 15 to 85. It also includes extensive discussion of the conditions in our present culture which probably contribute to this orgasmic enigma. I realized that this information needs to be easily available to the public, and currently there simply is not much available. I will continue to gather data, and plan to eventually update Waking as appropriate. I also published my doctoral dissertation on Sleep-Related Female Orgasms: A Survey of Biological, Psychological, Sociological, and Cultural Factors, in book form. Each are available at my e-store for $16.00 plus postage, by clicking on the title, or by ordering directly from Amazon.com (SRFOs) or Amazon.com(Waking). This material is copyrighted. Please contact me if you would like more information.

This page includes the Abstract, Introduction, and modified Table of Contents of my dissertation for those who might be interested. I’ve included the Table of Contents of Waking into “The Big O” on the survey results page.

Preliminary Survey Results

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ABSTRACT

The study summarizes what is known about SRFOs based on existing research and historical opinion in fields of sexology, physiology, psychology, sleep, dreaming, anthropology and spirituality. While Kinsey noted that there is no single factor or cluster of factors that is predictive of SRFOs in an individual history, the strongest predictors in his research were frequent waking orgasm and “erotic responsiveness,” low availability of other psycho-sexual outlets, masturbation, and fantasy during masturbation (Kinsey et al. 1953, 212-15). Today research suggests that overall, sleep mentations are more continuous than compensatory, and that sexual content and orgasmic experience during sleep are more likely among women who think about sex when awake. Waking cognitions include memory, fantasy, desire, imagination, prosexual attitudes, knowledge of SRFOs, and familiarity/safety with sexual pleasure and the orgasmic reflex. It is likely that formal education, intelligence, personality characteristics, and other cultural factors also influence these sleep mentations. Orgasmic responses during sleep seem more likely when there is some level of autonomic nervous system arousal before sleep, including both psychological and physiological elements. Physiological elements include lingering arousal from waking orgasms or other sexual behavior; however, this arousal may also be due to hormonal fluctuations, physical exercise, or emotional states such as anxiety, or anger. In these latter cases, SRFOs might serve a compensatory role in maintaining system homeostasis. It is likely that SRFOs occur more frequently among lucid dreamers due to possible neurological conditions unique to the lucid dream state, and the conscious freedom to exercise volition by choosing pleasure. SRFOs appear to be neither unhealthy nor rare.

Findings of the study suggest that the term female nocturnal orgasms needs to be replaced with the term Sleep-Related Female Orgasms, which is a more accurate designation of the phenomenon since these occurrences are diurnal as well as nocturnal. Additionally, the researcher lists twenty-seven possible hypotheses based on an extensive literature review that could be used in future research on the topic, and recommends that the topic be included in sex education classes for adolescents and continuing education modules for heath care professionals.

INTRODUCTION

Erotic dreams among women have been documented since the early Greek civilization; however, only in the past one hundred years have researchers begun to study the incidence and dynamics of sleep-related female orgasms (Kinsey et al. 1953, 191). While it is widely known that most men occasionally experience wet dreams, it appears that many adults in contemporary American culture are unaware that many women experience sleep-related orgasms. Given the prevalence of these responses (37 percent of women by age forty-five in Kinsey et al. 1953, and likely higher now), this lack of awareness is somewhat surprising. Realistically, however, this topic is rarely discussed. In addition, as will be shown, the dynamics and etiology of these female sleep-related orgasms are somewhat different than the nocturnal emissions of men.

Interest in this topic began while testing sample survey questions for a different topic. The issue of female sleep and dream-related orgasms kept surfacing. Two respondents reported that they mentioned these occurrences to their male therapists only to be told that the therapists had “never heard of such a thing.” Subsequent inquiries have revealed that this is not unusual. An informal survey by this writer suggests that in 2005, approximately 70 percent of men did not know that women could experience sleep-related orgasms. It is even more surprising that a significant percentage of women, in excess of 25 percent, lacked this information.

Informal inquiries also suggest that women, who do experience sleep-related orgasms, enjoy them. This writer recently spoke to a mixed-sex group, ages twenties through sixties, and mentioned that while Kinsey found that the active incidence of female sleep-related orgasms peaked in the forty and fifty age decades, the accumulated