What the opposite sex dreams about

UNSURPRISINGLY, men and women are dreaming of very different things when they hit the hay at night. Here’s what the sexes see when they get 40 winks.

Chances are he’s dreaming of sex with someone he doesn’t know

STUDIES and surveys have found that men and women dream differently, although we are not worlds apart either. Is this surprising?

As we embark upon our quest to understand the opposite sex, we may have noticed that the opposite sex is not only biologically different from us, but they also have a different experience within society.

Therefore, it stands to reason that they likely think, feel and perhaps dream differently than us.

Tapping into the dreams of the opposite sex may help us to understand how they really tick.

What is really on their minds? How do they really feel? What is important to them? What do they like? What do they hate?

Dreams can provide us with a lot of insight into the inner workings of the mind, heart and soul.

Study after study, survey after survey, we are finding similar themes among the dreams of men and similar themes among the dreams of women.

For instance, women may have a tendency to dream of emotions, relationships, and family members. In contrast, men may have a tendency to dream of violence, strangers, cars, and sex with unknown partners.

Not only is the content of our dreams different, but how we perceive and regard our dreams varies as well.

Women tend to dream of emotions and relationships while men say they dream of sex.

Women tend to recall more details of their dreams and regard them as more important, on average, than most men might. Women are also more likely to share, record, and discuss their dreams with others.

Additionally, women are more likely to define a dream as being a nightmare and are more likely than men to seek out dream interpretation and/or use a dream dictionary to help them to understand the meaning of their dreams.

Although men are sometimes more likely to dream of physical aggression, women are often more likely to dream of verbal aggression.

Research has also indicated that women dream of work more often now than in previous years — undoubtedly a reflection of the times.

Both men and women dream of work; however, men tend to dream of success or monotony, while women tend to dream of the challenges of balancing home and work, as well as emotional expression within the workplace.

Men tend to dream of:

Chances are he’s dreaming of sex with someone he doesn’t know

Strangers, success or failure

Sex with unknown partners

Physical aggression

Cars and roads

Violence

Shorter dreams

Less colour

Competition

Women tend to dream of:

What’s on her mind? Read on.

Family members, relationships

Kissing, flirting with someone, or sex with someone known to the woman

Verbal aggression

Emotional expression

Loss of loved ones

Longer dreams

More colour

Conversation

It is an exciting time to be interested in dreams. More and more studies are focused on answering questions we would love to know the answers to, including how differently men and women may dream.

Research can reinforce what we already knew or show us what we haven’t considered. When it comes to dreams, we are learning that gender is just one influence on dreams and culture, age, and life experience may have a stronger influence on dreams.

How about you? Have you had dreams that fall within the emotional and/or societal experiences of your particular gender? Comment below.

DreamsCloud is a place to log and share your dreams, keep an online dream journal, learn more about dream meanings and receive professional dream reflections. They offer a free app for iOS, Android, Windows and BlackBerry devices, in addition to a Facebook app.

This story originally appeared on the Huffington Post.