d the individual is living chastely, and is generally, though
not always, accompanied by erotic dreams which lead up to the climax, its
occurrence being, to some extent, influenced by a variety of
circumstances: physical, mental, or emotional excitement, alcohol taken
before retiring, position in bed (as lying on the back), the state of the
bladder, sometimes the mere fact of being in a strange bed, and to some
extent apparently by the existence of monthly and yearly rhythms. On the
whole, it is a fairly definite and regular phenomenon which usually leaves
little conscious trace on awaking, beyond probably some sense of fatigue
and, occasionally, a headache. In women, however, the phenomena of
auto-erotism during sleep seem to be much more irregular, varied, and
diffused. So far as I have been able to make inquiries, it is the
exception rather than the rule for girls to experience definitely erotic
dreams about the period of puberty or adolescence.[238] Auto-erotic
phenomena during sleep in women who have never experienced the orgasm when
awake are usually of a very vague kind; while it is the rule in a chaste
youth for the orgasm thus to manifest itself, it is the exception in a
chaste girl. It is not, as a rule, until the orgasm has been definitely
produced in the waking state--under whatever conditions it may have been
produced--that it begins to occur during sleep, and even in a strongly
sexual woman living a repressed life it is often comparatively
infrequent.[239] Thus, a young medical woman who endeavors to deal
strenuously with her physical sexual emotions writes: "I sleep soundly,
and do not dream at all. Occasionally, but very rarely, I have had
sensations which awakened me suddenly. They can scarcely be called dreams,
for they are mere impulses, nothing connected or coherent, yet prompted, I
know, by sexual feeling. This is probably an experience common to all."
Another lady (with a restrained psycho-sexual tendency to be attracted to
both sexes), states that her first sexual sensations with orgasm were felt
in dreams at the age of 16, but these dreams, which she has now forgotten,
were not agreeable and not erotic; two or three years later spontaneous
orgasm began to occur occasionally when awake, and after this, orgasm
took place regularly once or twice a week in sleep, but still without
erotic dreams; she merely dreamt that the orgasm was occurring and awoke
as it took place.

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