Measuring the frequency of erotic dreams: Methodological considerations
International Journal of Dream Research August 25, 2026 DOI: 10.11588/ijodr.2026.2.116663 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Case study Case report Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Three individuals who kept long dream series (long-term dream diaries) |
| Key findings | Across three long dream series, an average of 15% of dreams were erotic. This is higher than frequencies from large-sample dream content analytic studies, which the authors suggest may reflect privacy-related underreporting, and lower than the roughly 20% from retrospective studies, which the authors suggest may reflect recall bias. The authors propose that future studies include dream recall frequency as a possible confounding variable. |
Abstract
Erotic dreams are quite common, however, measuring the frequency of such a private topic faces some challenges. First, not every participant might be comfortable to report erotic dreams in dream diary, thus, the frequency of erotic dreams might be underestimations. On the other hand, retrospective measures regarding the frequency of erotic dreams might yield overestimations as erotic dreams are typically very salient and are more easily recalled that more mundane dreams. In order to shed light on the topic, the present article presents the erotic dream frequency based on three long dream series. The average percentage of 15% erotic dreams is higher compared to dream content analytic studies in large samples, indicating that privacy issues in reporting erotic dreams may play a role. On the other hand, the frequency is lower compared to studies using retrospective measures as these studies report frequencies of around 20%. Thus, a recall bias might also be a problem when determining the “real” frequency of erotic dreams. Future studies relating the frequency of erotic dreams to other variables like well-being or personality should at least include dream recall frequency as a possible confounding variable.