Question: Is having wet dreams a sin?
This is another of the questions that I see sometimes appearing in search engine terms for this blog, so I thought I’d address it here. For the quick answer, scroll to the bottom.
First, what is a sin? This is a big topic, but I’ll just write what I think the people asking this question want to know. There are two kinds of sin: mortal sin and venial sin.
There are three conditions that must be fulfilled before a person is considered to have committed a mortal sin:
1. Freedom of choice - a person must have been able to make the choice before an act is considered a sin. Coercion to make that choice lessens the seriousness of the sin.
2. Gravity of sin - the act must be a grave matter.
3. Fullness of knowledge - the act was committed with the sinner’s full knowledge of the gravity of the sin, and his or her deliberate consent.
Venial sin is sin whose object is a grave matter but committed without full knowledge of the gravity or without full consent. In other words, there is actually no sin that is not considered grave, but that’s beside the point here.
The point in this question is: do you have any choice at all about what you are dreaming? If your answer is “yes”, then you should be able to never have any nightmares at all. I mean, who would purposely want to have nightmares? Therefore, your answer would probably be “no”. If there is then no consent in your choice of dreams, then that means that having wet dreams is not a sin.
In fact, having wet dreams is nature’s way of “releasing sexual tension” in your body, of getting rid of excess sperm that is made by your body. For those battling the temptation of masturbation, wet dreams can even be seen as a sign of encouragement, because you only have wet dreams if you do not masturbate for a period of time.
Answer: No.
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Filed under: Chastity, FAQs, General, Moral Theology, Sex
Thank you very much for this post and this blog. I think it’s very good and that you are doing a good job at helping other Christians with your knowledge.
After reading this post I still have a couple of questions. I would really appreciate it if you could help me with them:
what about enjoying the wet dreams? is it a sin?
if you could choose not to feel the pleasure of it and still decided to feel it, would it be a sin? some times if I make some huge effort I can stop my body from ejaculating when waking up in the middle of a wet dream. I do this for the fear that I am choosing freely to ejaculate by non taking an action against it, hence sinning by omission.
how about taking actions to make a wet dream more likely to happen? some people say that if they sleep nude, tummy-up, or with silk cloth wet dreams occur more frequently.
Thanks a lot!
Hi Ed,
There’s nothing wrong sinful about enjoying the wet dreams. Free will is necessary in order to sin, and in a dream, there’s rarely any free will, if ever.
There is nothing sinful about ejaculation itself, provided that you do not masturbate to experience the pleasure after waking up.
I suppose the most important thing is that pleasure itself is not the aim of having wet dreams. The pleasure comes as a consequence of having wet dreams, so we should not strive to obtain the pleasure itself, but take it as part of a biological process.
The best way of making a wet dream more likely to happen is not to masturbate.
Hope that helps.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Excellent answers, thank you very much again!
I understood pretty much everything. Though, I am still a little bit confused about the last part. What I understood is that striving in order to have the pleasure that comes with the wet dream is bad, but taking actions so that the wet dream happens (as not masturbating, or the others mentioned) is not bad. Did I interpreted you correctly?
Thank you very much again. You have been of great help indeed!
God bless you too.
Hi Ed,
What I mean by the last part is simply to say that if you masturbate, you’re very unlikely to have a wet dream. If you don’t, chances are wet dreams will come naturally, so just enjoy them when they come.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Is masterbation a sin?
Hi Meka,
Masturbation, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action. In other words, regardless of the reason a person masturbates, he or she has done something wrong.
In short, yes, masturbation is a sin, but depending on the situation and the person, the degree of sin can vary quite greatly.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
thanks for the reply.
what if you kind of know whats going on in your dream,
and (mentally) try and pull away from the scenario in your dream, but still desire it as you dreamly self?
Hi Joseph,
In order for something to be a sin, there must be at least some measure of control of what a person is doing, and the knowledge that what one is doing is wrong. The greater the control and knowledge, the greater the sin.
Joseph, let me just ask this: do you have nightmares? Do you like having nightmares? Chances are, you are a normal person like the rest of us, and we all have nightmares, and we do not enjoy nightmares. But we still have them. It shows us that we do not have control over our dreams. We do not have control over our emotions and our desires in our dreams. If we do not control, we cannot sin, at least not grievously.
Still, we do sometimes feel guilty over such desires. Sometimes we might even masturbate while half asleep. The trouble with this kind of guilt is that it presupposes that we humans have perfect control over our passions, not just over lust, but also over anger, envy, and other disordered emotions. We know that we have no such control, even when we are awake!
You did not mention whether masturbation is a problem for you when you are awake, but if it is, what I would encourage is faithful adherence to a spiritual programme, such as Sexaholics Anonymous. At the very least it puts you in an environment where guilt and shame can be shared, rather than carried alone. Try to frequent the sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist to continue to draw strength from the Lord.
I found the following essay quite helpful in answering other questions pertaining to masturbation. Perhaps it will help you too.
http://couragerc.net/PIPMasturbation.html
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Oh no, masturbation hasn’t been an issue for me for quite a while.
It was hard, before my catholic life, but the temptation doesn’t get past my God given strength. Thanks for the help.
I do get nightmares.
I don’t like them.
Good to hear that Joseph.
I don’t like nightmares either. I just had one. Brrr!
God bless,
Catholic Writer
If a person was to actively try to control a dream as to cause a wet dream to occur, would that be considered a sin?
If one were to do something sinful in a dream (intentionally or unintentionally), does that actually count as a sin requiring confession? Thanks.
Hi Scott,
I’m can’t really tell you what is a sin and what is not a sin, because this is really between you, God, and the priest in the confessional who has been given power by Christ and his Church to judge a person’s sins and to forgive them.
Rather, what I can do is to invite you to ask yourself: what is the intention for wanting such a thing to happen?
Incidentally, another way to approach your question is, if you murdered someone in your dream, would it be a sin? If you can answer this, you probably have the answer to your own question.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Man am I glad to see other people talking about this happening. Here’s the problem: Both I and some of the other people writing in here do have more-or-less lucid dreams in which they can control what happens, which almost always that leads to acting out sexual fantasies in the dream. The inhibitions and ability to make correct moral judgments are often almost gone. The more lucid the dream, however, the more you remember that the scenario you are creating is wrong…
No big deal, right? It’s just a dream isn’t it? Unfortunately, the answer is no.
The reason that it is a problem is that once you choose to cross the barriers to sin in a dream (and yes, it is a semi-conscious choice) and then remember that dream when you wake up, it becomes much easier to cross those barriers in everyday life. Sin leads to sin, as we all know.
This problem has been tormenting me for years and years. It tends to show up when I am stressed. The events that immediately cause the dreams are sleeping in late (you tend to be in REM but somehow close to waking when you are doing that) and, since we are so open about this here, needing to get up and pee. Sometimes I even halfway wake up and then consciously choose to go back to sleep so the dreams will continue.
Just in case people are confused, yes, I am a woman, and yes, women do orgasms in their dreams. It happens to me alot.
I truly believe I am called to a life of celibacy, but this is torturing me. I had a very colorful life before I joined the church, and recently had a period of a couple months where everything fell apart and I completely swung into the pornography/sleeping around/masturbation lifestyle. It has left me scarred and the struggle is harder than ever.
So the question of sex in dreams is not as simple as it might seem. Nightmares are different because we can’t control them nearly as easily as more pleasurable dreams (but with practice you can do that too, or at least I can).
Hi Amanda,
I’ve thought and thought and thought about it. And still I come up with no answer.
I hate to admit it, but I suppose I must. My only answer is: I don’t know.
But still, thanks for sharing your problem. I hope you find an answer eventually, and when you do, come back and let me know.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Yes Amanda that is a very good point, and i also have woke up and have thought exactly the same thing what everybody is posting about here.
In the dream that I just had last night, there was some sort of temptation in it, I can remember it. And i believe that maybe the enemy has control of our dreams to a certain extent meaning that we will still be trialed throughout our dreams.
Even though our mind is not the same as when we are outside of a dream, there is still temptation as i felt last night. And i gave in to it.
But - I believe that God understands this temptation, and we learn from it once again. For me - every time I fall I come back stronger. It’s better in wet dreams then masterbation really.. so we should be proud.
But i still feel that the enemy has control to a certain extent.
I have only been christian for about 4 months I think now, and only the last month have I been trying to live alot more Christ-like.
Cheers
Sheldon
Hi Sheldon,
A friend of mine shared with me recently about something called the theology of sleep. Quoting from this book “Spiritual Warfare” by Vivian Boland, OP:
“The Jesuit theologian Kahl Rahner (1904-1984), writing about a ‘theology of sleep’, speaks about the supernatural battles that take place over the beds of sleeping Christians. Things happen in the course of the night. The Bible speaks of God revealing things in dreams. God’s people are then more vulnerable to spiritual interference, a fact that is recognised in the liturgy of Compline, the prayer that seeks God’s protection from the dangers of the night.”
What this friend of mine recommends is to get some holy water and sprinkle in on your bed every night before you go to sleep. Say a short prayer for protection before you sleep, such as the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel.
Do give it a try, and if it works, let me know. If it doesn’t, well, I’ll keep looking out for more explanations.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
i have had wet dreams before and i was wondering if ,like I did, try to enjoy the wet dream (humping the bed) to make it more pleasurable is that a sin?
Hi jj,
I don’t actually see how humping the bed makes wet dreams more pleasurable, since humping the bed seems masturbatory, as in, you hump the bed because you haven’t ejaculated yet. In other words, it’s not yet a wet dream. If you have already ejaculated, why would you hump the bed?
Maybe I’m missing something in your query… could you be more specific?
God bless,
Catholic Writer
I’ve always taught about this issue and I know that when I’m dreaming I don’t have full control over my actions in the dreamland. And since before anything can become sinful it must be foreseeable, preventable etc .
Thanks.
The Lord has in the last few months released me from the masturbation habit, which I have had for a very long time. It has been so wonderful to be free of the guilt and shame. But I have a couple of questions. I have never had a wet dream, even though it has been several months now, and I have begun to feel a huge increase in sexual tension. I seem to be aroused really easily, occasionally by sexual thoughts which still plague me from time to time, but sometimes just nothing at all - I will be working and suddenly I get an erection, which rubbing against my clothes stimulates itself.
1) During these times, although I don’t feel the temptation to manually stimulate myself, I have found myself wishing that I would ejaculate (spontaneously). Is having that desire sinful?
2) I have read, that a lack of masturbation can cause a build-up of pressure in the prostate, but that it is possible to ‘milk’ the prostate whilst using cold water to desensitize the penis - allowing ejaculation without indulging in the selfish pleasure of masturbation. Is that sinful?
God Bless,
Hi Simon,
I’m not the owner of this blog, but I want to help with my point of view.
The thoughts aren’t a sin as long as you don’t consent them. After you realize that those are impure thoughts then you should stop thinking them, if you keep thinking after realizing they aren’t good that’s when it becomes a sin.
1) having a desire is normal. Feeling is normal. That cannot be helped, it cannot be a sin. But consenting the desire, feeding it up, thinking of it over and over again, actively desiring, acting upon it, that’s sinful.
“Feeling without consenting” is a motto used in Spanish (where it rhymes - “sentir sin consentir”
related to sins of sex. If you feel but you do not consent, it’s not a sin. Just like a wet dream. Sincerity with one-self is necessary to know if you are consenting or not.
2) I am not an expert on prostate physiology. If there’s clinically dangerous pressure there you should consult a urologist and he might give an appropriate treatment. But, in my experience, I haven’t masturbated in years and I don’t have any problem with my prostate that I’m aware of.
Wet dreams do take some time to start showing up after quitting on masturbation. For some people is months. Anyway, the body is wise, you might not be having wet dreams because you don’t need them. Maybe you haven’t accumulated enough sperm to need a release through wet dreams. Although, if you have sex you are releasing sperm, so no wet dream is needed.
Besides, not all wet dreams are remembered. Sometimes the only sign that you had a wet dream is a stain.
And for closing, desiring a wet dream can be sinful too. So, take it as something normal, just as any other process of the human body. Please, don’t lust over it. It may be hard, I know because I’ve been there. Keep it up, and ask God for help
hey I was wandering is masterbation a sin if you dont want a wet dream because i hate wet dreams. I usually try to control myself in the process of masterbation even though its hard and I fail sometimes, but I just don want a wet dream. please answer
Hi ed,
Thanks for responding to SImon’s query for me. Yes, you are right. As for the case of buildup of prostrate pressure, there shouldn’t be any worry because even if the semen is not discharged through wet dreams, it will be reabsorbed back into the body.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
Hi colton,
Yes, masturbation is a sin.
I can understand what you mean when you say that you don’t want a wet dream. It can be quite inconvenient at times, but having wet dreams is a normal bodily function, similar to passing motion or urinating.
No one in good health or in his right mind would resort to other methods of getting rid of excrement from his body just because he doesn’t want to pass motion. In the same way, resorting to masturbation just because you don’t want a wet dream is not the way to go about it, which is why masturbation is sometimes called self-abuse.
The best way is to accept that this is how the human body functions and to take good care of it, rather than try to make it do things that it is not supposed to.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
thanks
Here is a unique issue, which is puzzling me. I haven’t had an issue with masterbation for many many years. The temptation to do so has almost gone away totally. I do have frequent wet dreams and it can be frustrating at times (in convenient and messy), but I have learned to just “go with it”. Some times I have mutiple orgams in a night, which gets pretty frustrating (up to 3 times in one night). Recently, it happened twice and during the second one I woke up in the mddle of it. Once I woke up the ejaculation stopped, but it wasn’t finished. I now was very uncomfortable, in a strange excited state and confused because I was barely awake. At this point, after ejaculating once and partially but not fully a second time, I didn’t want another orgasm and I didn’t want to be feeling this extreme almost orgasm state that I was currently in. I wanted this all to be done with. So, I thought that perhaps a slight touch would finish the ejaculation and it did. Just by grabbing myself, the ejaculation finished. Is that sin, because technically I didn’t have to do what I did, it was just so frustrating to be mid-stream so to speak. If this were to happen again I am not sure what I would do now knowing a slight touch would finish what the dream started.
Hi Scott,
I get that kind of experience too, and it’s really frustrating. I would say that since you were in a “strangely excited state and confused”, there shouldn’t have been any sinful intention involved. What is important is that before you did what you did, you didn’t stop to consider whether this would be sinful or not, right? You just reacted in your confusion and sleepiness, right? But now that you have experienced it, the second time would make it more tricky, especially if you can remember what happened the last time as the second time occurs.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
I think it was just a reaction response what I did, I don’t remember what or if anything I thought at the time, other than “ugh just finish”. But I agree if this were to happen again it would be different, because knowing it is possible, I may do it for pleasure reasons in the future. This was not my intention (pleasure) when it first happened.
Thank you.
my question here is, is wetdreams a sin? because i know wet dreams do occur during boys/men are sleeping, but what if you are trying to stop from happening, because you immediately felt it was going to happen, so you tried to stop it, BUT still, wet dreams occur on me/you?
was it a sin?
well, i kept on praying to God for wet dreams not not happen on me, but still, wet dreams occur on me on unexpected times while sleeping, and when i wake up, i feel guilty or sinful that wetdreams happened to me..
please reply, …was it still a sin?
Hi abpl,
Wet dreams are not sinful. You don’t need to stop it from happening.
Free will (the ability to choose good or evil) is necessary in order to sin, and in a dream, there’s rarely any free will, if ever.
There is nothing sinful about ejaculation itself, provided that you do not masturbate to experience the pleasure after waking up. Even if you do, the degree to which you are conscious and aware of what you’re doing (and choosing to do) is important in determining the severity of the sin.
I suppose the most important thing is that pleasure itself is not the aim of having wet dreams. The pleasure comes as a consequence of having wet dreams, so we should not strive to obtain the pleasure itself, but take it as part of a biological process.
Hope that helps.
God bless,
Catholic Writer
There is talk about having some control over your dreams, and perhaps its a sin?
I’ll give this example, when couples get married, but are not fully aware or conscious, and did not make the decision properly or normally, they can get knolled. There is something to be said about the part of being “fully aware”. Psychologically, in our dreams we are aware, maybe even in control of some things, but it is far from reality, and far from “fully aware” if we are going to get technical; I wouldn’t worry about it Amanda.
Hi,
My question isn’t about wet dreams, but rather spontaneous ejaculation.
I have recently begun to start weight lifting again, after about 2 years of having lost the habit. However, in the intervening period, I have stopped masturbating. I now find that when I do certain exercises, with direct or even rather indirect strain on my abdomen, it leads to sudden arousal and often ejaculation.
Is this sinful, if I am aware that it may happen, and undertake the exercises anyway? Otherwise, it effectively means I am unable to undertake the training regime, which I would otherwise like to.
God Bless