Arousal during AB

[LuvsCurvy]

The topic doesn't really explain this very well. I'm curious to know people's thoughts on whether it's necessary to maintain a certain level of sexual arousal during ABing to produce WDs. I know many state that edging is bad, and I'd be inclined to agree. The question I'd ask is whether allowing yourself to get aroused is bad. The reason I ask this is because, during my longest runs of AB, I have virtually banned myself from getting aroused. This made achievement of high numbers very easy, but also made for no WDs. I wonder, had I not been touching but had been allowing myself to get aroused, would this have accelerated the process of switching my body from MB mode to WD mode? A body isn't going to go out of its way to have WDs when it isn't aroused, and has forgotten what arousal feels like.

Just my thoughts. I'd be interested to hear from others. I'm not trying to justify watching screeds and screeds of porn every day or anything. But that perhaps actively seeking out soft imagery that arouses you may not be such a bad thing.

Thoughts?

[Muz]

I personally think that if you're going to get a WD, it'll happen whether aroused or not, however is more likely or will happen sooner if you get sexually aroused more often. That being said, I feel that it's not healthy to edge, or to watch heaps of porn. Better to feel sexual energy and use your imagination as this is what's active when you're dreaming, right?

[LuvsCurvy]

Perhaps.. Although I reached the point earlier this year where my sex drive was so low it actually needed a bit of porn/fantasy to bring it back to life again.

I agree with the idea in principle that, if it's going to happen, it will happen, with or without arousal. However, I'm beginning to wonder whether my mental circumstances have been affecting me more than I first thought. ABing long periods shouldn't be as easy as it was for me. I read the posts of others on here, and they report incredible urges starting from day 2, random erections, random pre-cum, particularly when sleeping. I've had none of that. I wonder whether the habits I taught myself to suppress my sexual urges have perhaps worked too well... and that perhaps, a little imagination (among other things) might be helpful. I really don't know.

[Darkblade]

I've been finding that if I don't allow a certain amount of arousal while ABing, I feel like I "forget" that it exists at all and I feel somewhat out of it as I go about my day. I've been trying not to repress my sexual urges too much, at the same time as not letting them get to the point where I really crave release. For example, a few days ago I woke up horny and spent more than an hour lying in bed concentrating on every sensation that was giving me, to the point where it was edging. And today, I didn't even try to do that.

That's a very delicate balance after 2+ months of AB, since it doesn't take much to bring me to the edge. But, I am enjoying the balance a lot better than ignoring arousal altogether.

I should point out, though, that I haven't had a sexual dream in weeks, or anything that felt close to a WD, so it doesn't seem to be helping me have a WD.

[relover89]

I would say I am in the boat you are talkigna bout

ussually over the days I am not mb and ab I at least ONCE want to mb

I am on day 20 now and have not ONCE found the need or urge to mb

but I get aroused when sleeping and hard

and get hard and aroused VERY easily and quickly when intimate with my gf (no sex)

I think maybe this is BECAUSE I get my high testosterone levels out though kissing her and touching her

I do think last night was weird....

I was falling asleep but felt lots of movement and stimulation in my abdomen and penis and balls

but VERY little precum if at all, and I didnt get hard much

I wore briefs to bed....

it was DEFINITELY something I had never experienced before and makes me wonder if in a few days I will indeed have a wet dream....

what do you think?

[LuvsCurvy]

I do think last night was weird....

I was falling asleep but felt lots of movement and stimulation in my abdomen and penis and balls

but VERY little precum if at all, and I didnt get hard much

I wore briefs to bed....

it was DEFINITELY something I had never experienced before and makes me wonder if in a few days I will indeed have a wet dream....

what do you think?

In my completely uneducated opinion, I would say that if this isn't something you've experienced before, and a WD isn't something you've experienced before, then the two could well be connected. I know if it was me that it was happening to, I would be inclined to think it suggested the onset of a WD. Fingers crossed.

There's definitely more to WDs than just witholding semen, that's for sure. The more time I spend on here, the more ideas I get on what causes them. I tend not to see many theories busted either, so the list usually only gets longer. I have tried to take the ideas and integrate them into a smaller list of points. A lot of them are inter-related too:

* Body is out of the habit of masturbating
I think this encompasses a lot of factors covered on here, and probably most of the ones I have listed below. A WD isn't just about not masturbating for so many days, it's about not being a masturbating person. Inidividual mileage may vary, but for me, it clearly isn't just a case of stopping for a period of 6 weeks. My body may well have still been in "MB mode", so perhaps needed longer "not being a masturbating person". There's a subtle difference. Potentially you could achieve this transition by gradually reducing the amount of masturbation you do, but it would obviously take longer. It might, however, be less hard on the body that way.

The second thing this implies is that porn and edging are probably out as well. Most people use porn to get aroused so they can masturbate. If you take away the need to masturbate, you also take away the need to watch porn. Edging is masturbation. Masturbation doesn't mean orgasm. That's called an orgasm. There; I said it. I see it too often on here where people talk about their run of "AB from MB" being at day such and such, then talk about edging in the same sentence. Sorry, but if you edged, you masturbated. Reset your counter.

* Mind experiences healthy levels of arousal
This is what we're discussing here. If you don't feel healthy levels of arousal, I'd speculate you're less likely to have sexual dreams. Your dreams often integrate real world factors into them. For instance, if you hear a knock at the door and you're asleep, the plot of your dream might shift to make it that the door knocking was part of it. I think arousal might be that real world factor that exists in real life, and gets integrated into your dream as a sex dream. If you don't feel much if any arousal, you may not have sex dreams, and you may be less likely to have wet dreams.

* Mind doesn't associate feelings of sexual desire with guilt, shame, or anxiety
A big one for me lately. These kinds of reactive emotions play havoc with your arousal, because they gradually teach you that feeling aroused is somehow a bad thing. I would imagine recovering sex addicts fall into this category, as would sexual abuse victims, people who were raised in extremely conservative households etc. I'm sure plenty of people try teaching themselves it's bad to be horny when ABing or rebooting or whatever. All of that negative self-talk adds up.

This isn't an absolute trait, mind you. If a person comes from a conservative household where MB is frowned upon and they don't do it, they will still feel aroused as a teenager and probably still have WDs. It might well be that it's more problematic for those who need to switch their body from MB mode into WD mode.

* Mind is able to, and even encouraged to fantasise about sexual encounters
This has been touched on in this thread too. As was stated, dreams come from our own imagination. If we spend so long NOT thinking about sex in order to achieve high streaks of AB, we might employ methods to keep our arousal levels low. While that definitely makes it easier to achieve large totals, it also can teach us that bad things happen when we fantasise about sex. Eventually, I would suggest this can have an effect on dream content. When I think back to my own dreams, there are very few if any things I have ever dreamed about that I haven't thought about at some point in my life. We all think about so much, perhaps even things we don't want to admit. But, speaking for myself at least, I can't think of many times where I have literally had to stop myself from thinking about things.... except when I was ABing and forced myself to stop fantasising about women I found attractive. Perhaps that "stop thinking about sex" becomes so second-nature (particularly when it's happening anyway because of associated feelings of guilt, shame or anxiety) that it stops us thinking about it in our sleep?

Porn also allows us to forget how to do this.

* Stress levels are manageable
This isn't absolute and for everyone, as I've read some people have more WDs when they are stressed. However, I say it purely from the angle that, when I get really stressed, I find it hard to get to sleep and stay there. If nothing else, that will make it harder to achieve the level of sleep needed to dream. I also think that, when you're stressed, you're less likely to feel aroused, and to fantasise. If a bad relationship is the cause of your stress, you could also be associating sex with anxiety, so it's doubly effective at stopping you from having a WD.

* Sleep is comfortable
This is the bed, but also your own comfort levels. I had terrible back pain last year, and only when lying down for long periods of time. Needless to say, I wasn't sleeping overly well.



So there you go. That came out considerably longer than I had initially thought. I'd like to arrange it into a model that illustrates the factors that influence one another. But before I do, I need to get that WD to prove my theories. Not going very well at that right now. Yesterday was a day for me.

[Jkwdoc]

Perhaps.. Although I reached the point earlier this year where my sex drive was so low it actually needed a bit of porn/fantasy to bring it back to life again.

I agree with the idea in principle that, if it's going to happen, it will happen, with or without arousal. However, I'm beginning to wonder whether my mental circumstances have been affecting me more than I first thought. ABing long periods shouldn't be as easy as it was for me. I read the posts of others on here, and they report incredible urges starting from day 2, random erections, random pre-cum, particularly when sleeping. I've had none of that. I wonder whether the habits I taught myself to suppress my sexual urges have perhaps worked too well... and that perhaps, a little imagination (among other things) might be helpful. I really don't know.

Some of this is our age, man - we're about at the same place. As we enter our 30s, our testosterone level begins to decline. This is one of nature's unkind ironies, as women begin to hit a sexual peak as they enter their 30s. So while we could insta-boner our way through our 20s, when we really need that talent, it begins to fade.

To your initial questions, I don't think that lighting a fire every once in a while during AB to get the heart pumping is a bad thing. At our age, it may even be necessary. I agree that edging is probably not advised.

[LuvsCurvy]

Zach, EngineerSTL and I had a really interesting conversation last night about some of the factors we think are involved in producing WDs. As I have a low priority side project to document all the factors that cause wet dreams, I thought I'd bring them into this thread to keep it organised.

We were initially trying to explain the role ABing plays in promoting WDs. I've had streaks of 33 and 44 days of ABing without a WD, while others have had them after as little as 4 days. This shows that ABing on its own is not the single determinant of WDs. Granted, if WDs were simply a factor of build-up of excess semen there would still be variations from one male to another due to varying rates of production, but 4 days versus 44 and counting is a pretty big variation and there must be more to it. I think ABing is useful for at least two reasons.

First, as I've already said, I think it's useful because it helps take the body out of the habit of expecting to be masturbated. A Lion that hasn't eaten for a while will look much harder for its prey than one that gets fed every day. A body that gets masturbated frequently (particularly to real stimulation like porn) effectively gets spoilt, and needs similar levels of stimulation to achieve orgasm. By avoiding that, you force the body to go hunting for its own images.

Second, by ABing you do inherently intensify your arousal. I actually think this is more significant to WDs than the simple build-up of semen.

Then, we talked about porn. I came up with the explanation that, with porn, you're reliant on someone else to give you arousal. You're not imagining much. You might be imagining plot-twists on what you'd do if you were with the person you are looking at, but they are a real person so that limits how hard your imagination has to work.

Then we got onto masturbation (and edging which is the same thing). When you masturbate without porn, you might be fantasising inside your head, but your primary stimulation is physical. The fantasies might be nice, but that physical stimulation feels pretty damn powerful. Which do you think your body is going to pay closest attention to? Even when you're actually having sex with a real person, you might not have your mind fully present in that moment. You might be fantasising that they are someone else, that you're in a different place, that someone is about to walk in etc. So how is masturbation with fantasy (with or without orgasm) really all that different? Masturbation is real, and I don't think real is so good when it comes to promoting WDs.

I think that, to achieve a WD, I (at least) need the following:

Abstinence from any kind of physical stimulation
Abstinence from porn
Healthy amounts of fantasy
Healthy levels of sexual arousal
No feelings of guilt, shame, or anxiety, associated with sex or otherwise
Manageable stress levels
Comfortable sleep environment