Study finds sleeping on your stomach prompts erotic dreams

WHAT side of the bed did you get out of this morning? Did you have a smile on your face? And do you know why?

Sweet dreams

WHAT side of the bed did you get out of this morning? Did you have a smile on your face? And do you know why?

You don't need to slip between the sheets with 50 Shades of Grey to wake the next morning with a smile on your face.

More: How to decipher your dreams

All you need to have sweet, sexy dreams is - to sleep on your stomach.

The research by Calvin Kai-Ching Yu, of Shue Yan University in Hong Kong, involved questioning 670 students - two thirds of them female - about their dreams.

Those who slept on their fronts were more likely to have erotic dreams than those who slept in any other posture.

The prone sleepers reported dreaming of subjects including `sex', `persecution' and `being tied up'.

And those who sleep on their fronts are also more likely have dreams involving a secret, famous admirer.

The study, published in the journal Dreaming, suggests the increase in sexy themes could be because those who sleep on their front don't get as much oxygen - making the mind send confused messages about being constricted into the interpretive pool of your dreams.

"I believe that the brain during sleep is not at all totally detached from the external world, and stimuli, including those stemming from the environment, are probably incorporated into dream content more often than people observe or are aware of, Kai-Ching Yu said.

"The unconscious brains of the dreamers try to make sense, and even make use of, the external stimuli."

The researchers measured how often the erotic dreams occurred, how intense they were and what subject matter was involved. They also asked how often they slept on their side, face down or face up.

More: How to have better sex (and more of it)!