I would like to learn about male nocturnal emissions ("wet dreams"). I
would like answers to at least 3 of the following 4 questions:

1) What specifically causes them? I know they are more likely when the
is not otherwise ejaculating, but what phases of sleep, biochemical
states, etc, are responsible for a specific episode ocurring when it
does?

2) What is the usual latency between the beginning of NE-promoting
activity and ejaculation?

3) What are the pathways involved? Is the physical stimulation
required for orgasm internally-generated by the brain, or does some
other system kick in that bypasses it?

4) In situations where the NE is accompanied by an erotic dream, does
the erotic dream imagery occur before or after the beginning of the NE
process?

Hi,

There are multiple reasons give for nocturnal emissions. The most
common seems to be that the body was partly designed for nocturnal
emissions because a man needs to ejaculate from time to time even when
he is not sexually active. It basically suggest that a body can hold a
maximum amount of semen and when this maximum amount is reached, it
needs to get rit of it.
Others say it is natural way or releasing sexual tension. 
The more a man ejaculates during "normal" sex, the less nocturnal
emissions he will expierence.

More specifically, nocturnal emissions are stimulated only from the
brain. They happen when a man is actually dreaming (which is not all
the time while he is sleeping!). Nocturnal emissions can happen
regardless of the type of dream although these dreams are usually
sexual.
There is one exceptions to all this: sometimes nocturnal emissions
seem to happen when a person is physically stimulating his penis
during his sleep. This can be compared to sleep walking. There are
even reports that some people actually have sex _while they are
asleep_  although these seem to be very rare.

The following section further discusses the reasons for nocturnal
emissions:
"The reason for 'wet dreams' is that during REM sleep there is intense
activity in areas of the brain that control the autonomic nervous
system. Heartbeat and breathing, for example, can be quite irregular
during REM sleep. In the course of the autonomic activity of REM
sleep, there is normally an activation of the erectile system of the
penis and the secretory and erectile systems of the vagina. In some
cases the self-stimulatory activity of REM sleep may also lead to the
experience of an orgasm and an activation of the ejaculatory system in
males."
Pacific Sleep Medicine Services
http://www.sleepmedservices.com/101questions/dreams.html
 
Nocturnal Emissions are always a result of (sexual) dreams so the
dream comes before the emission.

What's weird is that men with higher educations seem to experience
nocturnal emissions more often than other. This is probably because a
higher educated person is more trained and used to using his brain in
an abstract way, like sexual visualization.

Around 80 % of all men experience a nocturnal emission sometime in
their life with the majority during puberty.


For more information, please visit:

A Young Man's Guide to Masturbation:
http://members.fortunecity.com/tms3/young.html


Google search terms used: 
"nocturnal emissions" "wet dreams" reason 


I hope this answer is to your satisfaction!
paul_b_18-ga

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Request for Answer Clarification by enkidu-ga on 04 Jun 2002 23:11 PDT

I'd like to know more about the events leading up to ejaculation, and
how they compare to the process of waking ejaculation, if you can find
it.

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Clarification of Answer by paul_b_18-ga on 05 Jun 2002 11:41 PDT

Hi,
give me a day and I will try to find more information on this subject for you.

Thank you,
paul_b_18-ga

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Clarification of Answer by paul_b_18-ga on 06 Jun 2002 15:12 PDT

Hi,

I did some further research and basically came to the conclusion that
the factors which cause a nocturnal emission are not much different
from those that cause normal ejaculation.
They are both triggered by the brain as a result of (usually) sexual
excitement. In the case of normal ejaculation, this sexual excitement
would usually be based on a combination of touch, view, smell and
imagination while in the case of nocturnal emissions the excitement
would solely be based on dreams.

When somebody has a nocturnal emission, he is a lot more sensitive to
this sexual excitement than usual. The reason for this is that the
concerning body had, bluntly put, a large reservoir of semen which it
needed to get rid of. That's the reason why a man sometimes gets an
ejaculation from a simple dream: he had a lot of semen in his body and
therefore was sensitive to sexual excitement.

Other than that, there aren't any large differences between a
nocturnal emission and a normal ejaculation.


I hope this is the answer that you wanted.

Kind regards,
paul_b_18-ga

paul_b_18-ga writes "There are even reports that some people actually
have sex _while they are asleep_ ..." This is more commonly referred
to as "marraige."

:-)

"It basically suggest that a body can hold a
maximum amount of semen and when this maximum amount is reached, it
needs to get rit of it"

This is sort of true, but not exactly. If you have enough semen inside
you, you will simply not produce any more. It's is not as if not
ejaculating for an extended period of time will cause the testicles to
"burst" or anything like that. Rather, sperm cells have a specific
life-span, and after a certain amount of time, sperm is no longer as
potent as it once was. Thus, nocturnal emissions, along with
masturbation, keep the supply of semen "fresh" in order to have the
greatest probability of fertilizing the egg.