Dreaming of making love with someone you know is usually read as a sign of closeness, admiration or unfinished feelings toward that person, or toward a quality they have, far more often than as a secret wish to sleep with them. Sometimes it is attraction, and then the dream is just being honest. Who the person is, a friend, a coworker, an ex, your boss, tells you which reading fits.
It’s a common dream. In a Sleep Foundation survey, close to 20% of people said they had dreamed of sex with a friend and 25% with an ex, while only 2% had dreamed of sex with a boss. Romance in general takes up a lot of dream space: in the Dreamly analysis of 189,480 dreams, a partner, love or an ex appears in 13.6% of an average dream journal.
This page is about the person in the dream. For what sex dreams and orgasms in dreams mean in general, see our guide to dreaming of making love or orgasm.
What does it mean to dream of making love with someone you know?
A sex dream about someone you know usually says something about your relationship with them, or about what they represent to you. Three readings come up again and again.
The first is closeness. You’ve been spending time together, confiding, working side by side, and the dream turns that into the most physical form of closeness it knows. The second is a quality you’d like to have. Sex in dreams is often about merging, and the person may carry something you want more of: their confidence, their calm, the way people listen when they talk. The third is unfinished business. Tension, a fight, a crush that never went anywhere, a breakup that ended badly.
And sometimes it’s attraction. If you already feel drawn to the person awake, the dream isn’t revealing a secret. It’s repeating what you know. The useful test is simple: compare how you felt in the dream with how you feel about them when you’re awake. If the two match, take the dream at face value. If they don’t, look for what the person stands for.
What does an intimate dream mean?
An intimate dream usually means a need to feel close, seen or trusted, whether or not the dream includes sex. Being held, sleeping next to someone, a long kiss, a conversation that felt like it mattered: all of these count. Dream author Karen Frazier told Elite Daily that sex dreams “are more about intimacy and vulnerability” than about the act itself.
So an intimate dream about someone you know often points to the kind of openness you have with them, or wish you had. It can also point to what’s missing elsewhere. A dream of tenderness with a colleague during a lonely stretch at home says more about home than about the colleague.
Making love with a friend, a coworker or your ex
The role the person plays in your life changes the reading more than anything that happens in the dream.
A friend
A sex dream about a friend usually reflects trust: this is someone you can be open with. The Sleep Foundation adds that it may mean you feel close to them, or wish you were closer, and sometimes that you’re attracted to them. If the friend is off-limits, a friend’s partner for example, the dream may be about wanting to take a risk or break a rule, not about the friend.
A coworker
Coworkers show up in these dreams because you spend hours with them, under pressure, often sharing small victories and frustrations. A sex dream about a colleague most often reflects admiration for how they work, or the forced closeness of a shared project. If it’s someone you compete with, it may be a way of making peace with them, or of taking on some of their drive.
Your boss
A sex dream about your boss rarely means you want your boss. The Sleep Foundation says dreams about an authority figure likely symbolize something else that you want, and the usual candidates are power, recognition or approval. It often comes when you’re waiting for a decision from them. More on that figure in our page on boss dreams.
An ex
Making love with an ex in a dream can mean you miss them, but not always, as the Sleep Foundation notes. More often it’s about who you were in that relationship, or about a kind of attention you’re missing now. Our page on why an ex shows up in your dreams covers the timing.
A family member
Sex dreams about a family member are upsetting, and very rarely about desire. The Sleep Foundation describes them as a possible metaphor for a feeling of closeness with that person, or for a feeling of violation, and notes that researchers haven’t studied them much. Family is the second most common theme in our dream analysis, at 21.2% of an average journal, so relatives are simply often on the night’s cast. If the dream brings back something that really happened, that’s a reason to talk to a therapist.
A crush, or someone you don’t even like
A crush is the plain case: you think about them, so you dream about them. Someone you dislike or don’t find attractive is stranger, and usually means the dream borrowed a quality from them, or replayed a tension between you in a very unexpected form.
Dreaming of being in love with someone you know
Waking up half in love with someone you barely think about is common, and it has an explanation. In a study of 320 dream reports from 35 people, David Kahn and colleagues found that emotions are almost always evoked by dream characters, and that affection and joy were often used to identify familiar people, even when those feelings didn’t match how the dreamer felt about them awake.
In other words, the dream can attach a strong feeling to someone who doesn’t usually carry it. The glow is real, but it often belongs to a need (to be loved, to feel chosen) more than to the person. Give it a day or two before deciding what it means.
Does it mean they’re thinking about you?
No. There’s no evidence that dreams pick up other people’s thoughts. A dream is made from your own memories, feelings and concerns. One grounded version of the idea comes from clinical psychologist John Mayer, quoted by Elite Daily: our perceptual system “picks up everything we encounter in reality”. If the person has been sending signals, you may have noticed them without registering it, and the dream put it together.
Spiritual readings go further and see these dreams as a soul connection or a bond between two people’s energies. That’s a belief, not a finding. It’s worth knowing it exists, as long as you don’t act on it as if it were a message from the other person.
If you’re in a relationship
Dreaming of making love with someone else while you’re with a partner isn’t cheating, and it doesn’t mean you want to. It’s one of the most common reasons people feel guilty about a dream. But the mood can spill over. In a 2014 study described by the British Psychological Society, Dylan Selterman and colleagues found that dreaming of infidelity, by yourself or your partner, went with lower feelings of intimacy the next day.
So notice the guilt, then put it down. Ask what the other person stood for, and whether something is missing in your relationship right now. Our page on cheating dreams goes into this in more detail.
What to do after the dream
Don’t act on it straight away. You don’t need to avoid the person, confess the dream or reinterpret your whole friendship. Write down three things instead: who it was, how it felt during the dream, and how you felt when you woke up.
Then ask what this person brings out in you, and what they have that you’d like more of. That question answers most of these dreams. If the same person keeps coming back, a private dream journal like Dreamly helps you note each dream and the feeling, see whether it follows certain weeks or events, and get a reading of your own dream rather than a dictionary entry.
Should I tell the person I had a sex dream about them?
Usually not. The dream is about your inner life, and telling them can create a closeness or an awkwardness that the dream never asked for. If you do have feelings for them awake, that’s worth talking about on its own terms, not through the dream.
Why do I keep dreaming about making love with the same person?
Most likely because the feelings behind it are still active: attraction, admiration, a conflict or a loss you haven’t finished with. Recurring dreams about one person tend to fade once something changes, a conversation, a decision, or simply more distance.
Is it normal to have a sex dream about someone of the same sex?
Yes, and on its own it says little about your orientation. Like any sex dream about someone you know, it often reflects closeness, admiration or a quality you’d like to have. If it does match feelings you have awake, the dream is simply agreeing with you.
What does it mean to dream of making love to your crush?
It usually means what it seems to: you’re thinking about them and hoping for closeness. Spiritual readings call it a soul bond, but the simpler explanation is enough. What the dream felt like, easy, nervous or rejected, often mirrors how hopeful you feel awake.
