Sean2001 wrote:
At the risk of being pedantic, the majority of our semen is not made in our testicles. They only make the sperm which only account for about 2% of the volume. Most of the liquid is made by the seminal vesicles and the prostate gland, both of which are up inside the body, not in the scrotum.D. Falcon_11 wrote:
I don't think that there is much evidence that wet dreams are caused by erotic dreams during the night. There is more evidence that wet dreams are caused, in guys, with high levels of testosterone which caused the release of semen from their testicles.
But I had heard the theory about testosterone causing wet dreams before. Not that only guys with a higher level of testosterone get them, though clearly guys with a per-pubescent level of testosterone don't, but that they were prompted by night time spikes in testosterone.
From what I've read, testosterone is not produced evenly throughout the day but in pulses, corresponding to pulses in luteinizing hormone and these are strongest at about 4am. If these pulses are responsible for causing wet dreams then we would expect guys to experience them in sometime shortly after 4am rather than shortly after falling asleep.
Certainly the closest thing I had to wet dream happened at around that time, about 4.30am. Though looking at the clock wasn't the first thing on my mind, I did check it at the end. In my case I woke up hard and incredibly horny and immediately grabbed my dick and started stroking. I had only given it a few strokes and I had a really intense orgasm with lots of cum, just like I had been edging for at least a couple of hours, yet I had only stroked for a few seconds. So it seems the build-up must have happened while I was asleep and it just needed a little "push" to finish.
As for the content of the dream, if some people can have them without an erotic dream then clearly the dream itself isn't triggering it. But given that plenty of people do have erotic dreams at the same time, maybe the testosterone spike prompts both the dream (in some people) and the ejaculation.
It's a bit like how some people can notice that they only got acne since starting to masturbate and could, incorrectly, conclude that masturbation causes acne. In fact, testosterone causes the desire to masturbate and testosterone causes the increased oiliness of the skin that is a factor in acne.
And having more sexual thoughts is also another consequence of testosterone. From your comment above it seems you are suggesting that two-person sex may avert wet dreams in a way that masturbation does not. I am not sure there is any evidence for that. I can see why people might think it, because sexual opportunities generally increase as we get older and wet dreams also tend to decrease, but some of the things that have been written date back to before masturbation was acknowledged as a common and completely normal way of releasing sexual tension.D. Falcon_11 wrote:
Another factor is having sexual thoughts that stimulate your brain during long periods of not having any sex activity. There is also no evidence that frequent masturbation will reduce the number of wet dreams.
It also seems at odds with what people report in that at least some people find their wet dreams stop when they masturbate more and re-start when they masturbate less or not at all.
So we are left that the "everything is full, need to make some room" theory doesn't explain why some people can go for long periods without ejaculating at all, either deliberately while awake or spontaneously in a wet dream, while others can have a wet dream after having sex or masturbated the same night or even have two wet dreams in the same night.
Meanwhile the testosterone spike theory doesn't explain why how often guys cum while awake seems to make a difference. After all, the testosterone cycle is presumably daily so why don't guys who have occasional wet dreams have them every night?
So I think there is much we don't understand.
Absolutely. Just because we don't understand the exact mechanism behind them, we know enough to know that they are both common and harmless yet not universal.D. Falcon_11 wrote:
Wet dreams usually happen while we are sleeping. They shouldn't be seen as wrong because they are a normal part of development. It is also normal for some guys not to have them.
As for being "wrong" that is usually a question of religion and I think even those that are down on deliberate ejaculation other than in accordance with their particular rules, acknowledge that wet dreams cannot be controlled.
Again, I think this is more complex than it first appears. As a little diversion, there are things called homologues. These are organs that start out the same at some point in our development, then develop differently in each sex. In that respect the ovaries and testicles are homologues. They start out as undifferentiated gonads and, while developing in the womb, then differentiate into one or the other.D. Falcon_11 wrote:
Girls can have wet dreams too with about the same results as us guys, wet underwear and bed sheets!
Another pair of homologues are Bartholin's glands in girls and the bulbo-urethral glands in boys. The Bartholin's glands produce vaginal lube and the bulbo-urethral glands produce pre-cum. These are both triggered by arousal, though the Bartholin's glands are better developed so generally produce more than the amount of pre-cum a guy produces. But both of these are produced when aroused but don't need an orgasm.
Then there are the prostate gland in guys and the Skene's gland in girls. The prostate is obviously well-developed in guys - it produces a good proportion of our cum. The Skene's gland in girls is usually not well developed, a bit like male nipples - there but doesn't do much. However there are some who believe it can be somewhat developed in at least some girls and produce a liquid very similar to a guy's prostatic fluid - a thin, white fluid - and that the action of this glands leads to female squirting aka. female ejaculation.
So when you talk about female wet dreams it is ambiguous what you mean. The ability to have sexual dreams is taken as read but, if a girl wakes up with wet knickers, which mechanism was behind it, i.e. what is the wetness?
