Disclaimer: I’m not a pervert and this is a serious question.
I [M] have been having frequent dreams about my 22 [F] step daughter. It’s not explicit at all. I usually just want to have sex with her in the dream, but it never happens. When I wake up, I just feel disturbed. I have never looked at my step daughter in a sexual way before. It all started happening all of a sudden. Has anyone else had dreams about a step daughter in a sexual way and is this common? This makes me feel guilty and disturbed. I’d appreciate any sort of help.
30 comments
Sounds like the start of a porn video.
On a real note, this doesn’t make you a bad person. Just don’t act on the urges.
Sexual dreams don’t necessarily mean sexual attraction; they’re the product of your sleeping brain mashing ideas together. Shake it off and get on with your day.
Dreams can be a lot like intrusive thoughts in this way. Just keep not acting on them for as long as necessary until it passes.
You are not in control of what your whacky brain does when you are sleeping. Have you been missing your own youthful exuberance? Is something going on in your waking life that has you missing the past, your youth, etc?
Dreams are dreams…they’re ridiculous and feed off our everyday life and stresses. Seems like you understand that it’s just that and you have no real attraction to your step-daughter. So no harm, no foul as long as you maintain that.
I don’t think I’d ever talk about it to your family as well…that could make things really weird.
I had a dream about meeting my ex who in that dream had a hole in her stomach and two babies. Then I went on a binge with Johnny Depp.
Don’t worry, man. Dreams have no meanings, actions have. And your worries show you won’t do or say anything stupid, you’re good.
It’s a dream, it’s ok. Unless you have any such thoughts when you are awake it’s just stupid stuff your brain does while sleeping. Feeling disturbed when you wake up is a good sign, just don’t let it ruin your day.
Sex dreams doesn’t mean you actually want to have sex with them. They are all subjective and have many different interpretations/symbolism.
Relax. This is perfectly normal. Why? Because you had a dream and woke up feeling icky, meaning, you don’t want to have sex with her. It’s symbolizing something else. What? IDK. Look it up online.
This could mean that you are longing for an intimate conversation/connection you once had. It could mean that you feel very connected to them now. It could mean you think they are growing up. Etc etc etc.
Thought crimes are a thing yet. Don’t trip [+]
The fucked up dreams I’ve had will be taken to my grave. If you believe these are just dreams then they will remain exactly that. Just endure and they’ll pass.
How’s your real sex life? When my SO and I had a long dry spell, I started having lots of sex dreams and even woke up to myself ejaculating hands free once. That all stopped once the real sex came back into my life.
How long has she been your stepdaughter?
It’s a projection of something subconscious that needs to be resolved. It’s essentially a symptom.
Self reflecting on what the root might be would help. Are you currently satisfied with your level of intimacy and vulnerability in your relationship? 🤷♀️
True life experience here: there was a time when I suddenly had sexual dreams about a friend of my wife’s. Out of the blue. Coincidentally, sometime that week I overheard the friend tell my wife something along the lines of, “Ugh, I need to get laid, I am so sorry horney.”
Another time, I had a sudden onset of sexual dreams about my best friend’s daughter. It was about six months after her divorce and I put 2 and 2 together, finally.
We can sense all sorts of things that never register in our conscious mind. I was probably picking up the signals that a woman in my life was, suddenly, very receptive and that’s where the dream happened.
It was weird because I’ve known my friend’s daughter since she was eight. I literally can’t see her as a sexual being, but my brain did. She’ll always be that little 8 year old, smart, fearless little girl to me. So it was a strange realization that, somehow, I was picking up the signals that she was, probably, horny.
It passed. Once she started dating regularly again, never had a sexual dream about her again.
Pheremones, body language? Who knows? Maybe some primate scientist, somewhere, knows.
Freud would say that probably that’s your unconscious desire which pops up in your dreams. I’m sure I’d be downvoted but I’ll say it. Socially is totally wrong to desire your wife’s daughter, but biologicaly is normal simply because you’re a sexual active human being which finds another human suitable for reproduction, it’s basic instinct. Of course if she was a child – well, that would have been wrong on every level.
Dreams are just dreams and they don’t mean shit. If you have waking feelings of sexual attraction, that’s obviously an issue, but you aren’t responsible for your dreams.
Edit to add: Even though dreams are meaningless, it’s totally normal to feel weird about them, and if it continues and continues to cause you distress, would totally make sense to talk to a professional about it. Doing so would not be admission of anything perverse, just looking out for yourself. 🙂
And even just attraction is sort of… neutral. It’s how you respond to it that matters. Because just attraction is just a part of your brain going “Yep, that sure is a sexual mature human female capable of preproduction.” It’s what you do with that information that makes a difference.
For example, recognizing that some 17 year old hollywood starlett is attractive is just… recognition. It is what it is. Recognizing that they are underage and immature and moving on with your life, healthy and normal. Obsessing over them and counting the days to their 18th birthday, gross.
Do you have any issues with intrusive thoughts in general? People tend to think of OCD as the uncontrollable urge to do stuff like hand wash, clean house, or maybe flick a light switch a particular number of times. But a major, less spoken about way OCD manifests is repeated, persistent, and unwanted thoughts and images that are intrusive and cause distress or anxiety. And often these thoughts/images are antithetical to who the individual is as a person. Mothers have reported struggling with intrusive thoughts about harming their own children, men intrusive images about raping women. But the reason why these thoughts and images get so fixated on is because they trigger such heightened brain activity via distress/disgust. People worry that they might subconsciously be an awful person, wondering, “Do I secretly want to hurt my kids?” or, “Do I secretly want to rape?” And they may come to view themselves as a potential threat, not realizing that these thoughts/images were self selected because they’re the opposite of what the individual wants to happen, what they find peak disturbing, what they would never actually do.
You might be falling into this feedback loop, triggered by these dreams. Now that the seed has been planted you might find yourself thinking about it and picturing it against your will during your waking hours, and the more disturbed you are the more it may lead to further intrusive thoughts and images.
In any case, whether or not this reflects what you’re experiencing, you’d benefit from seeing a therapist if insurance/money allows. A man of any age can really benefit from therapy but the 40s is when a lot of EQ growth can occur. A decent therapist can help guide you through processing and moving past these dreams and can likely help you in a lot of other unanticipated ways, as well.
Intrusive thoughts and dreams COULD be tied to anxiety. What else has changed in your life?
I’ve had sexual dreams about literally the most random people in my life, people I haven’t thought about in years, like old classmates or my friends’ moms. But when I wake up, I have absolutely no desire to have sex with anybody in those dreams. Hell, I’ve had really weird sex dreams involving hot dog buns lmao. Dreams are just weird. The fact that you’re feeling weird about these dreams is enough to tell you it’s not something you want to act on.
Nothing you can really do about it, besides not acting on it.
These dreams will pass at some point.
This probably falls under the umbrella of intrusive thought. You see these kinda posts over at /r/intrusivethoughts all the time about people posting having said intrusive thoughts about friends or family members they would never normally manually or actively think about in this manner.
the general advice is just to allow the thoughts to run their course and think nothing or little of them. The more time you spend having any feelings about the thoughts or thinking about them, giving them any attention, or even trying to push them out of your head (usually a form of giving them attention) just results in you thinking about it more and making you feel worse because you’re allowing your self to feel ashamed about it when in actuality you have to just have the mental fortitude to basically let the thoughts be for a moment, then just let them go and dont give them any weight. probably easier said than done but there it is.
Aah yes, the forbidden “oyakodon” or “mother and child rice bowl”. Actual name of a Japanese dish, but also a sex act.
As long as dreams stay dreams you wont have any problems. It’s fairly common.
Having sexual thoughts about an attractive 22 year old girl who isn’t related to you by blood? Sounds pretty normal to me. Just don’t act on it
It’s a dream dude. Don’t do it in real life and you’re fine.
question, do you watch porn at all or even recently?
everything in a dream is part of a message your brain is creating for you. it is not a literal message, this person represents some aspect of your life where you want fulfillment. That is what you need to figure out. what is going on in your job, or with your wife, or entertainment activities?
You need to sit down with her and tell her that you’ve been having sexual dreams about her, and it doesn’t mean anything, and that you’re excited to be her father.
I had a sex dream once about my buddy’s wife but in the dream she was octopus from the waist down like the villain in the Disney mermaid movie.
Remember we are predominantly animal that thinks of himself as man. You’re in proximity with a 22 year old non-relation. Your libidinal brain is just gonna do what it has done for all of time. Don’t be so hard on yourself, and try to understand it in the proper context.
*FBI entered the chat*
Look into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy(ACT)(There are books, you don’t need to go see a therapist). This is recurring because in your head, “the worst thing I could do is act on this or dream about it”, so it inevitably keeps happening.