Low mood and WD?

[hsmith]

Hi all - I mentioned in my intro post that I'd had 2 WDs in fairly quick succession a couple of years ago (my 2 most recent sadly...). I've only ever had maybe 3-4 WDs before that in total, so it was very unusual for me to have 2 together in relatively short space of time (maybe 4-5 days between them).

What I think might have triggered them both is that at the time I had a fairly low mood and wasn't feeling very positive - I'd gone through a breakup a few months previously and work was really busy and stressful etc. I hadn't really noticed at the time that my sex drive and horniness levels were pretty much non-existent, and I hadn't really felt an urge to MB.

I think it must have been about 2 weeks since I'd MB'd when I had the first WD, about 3-4 hours after going to sleep I think. Sadly I don't really remember the dream at all, and I woke up fairly soon after with a sticky load in my boxer-briefs. I don't think I MB'd in the days following (or once at most), and then to my pleasant surprise.... Bam, another one about 4 days later! Same deal as before, no real memory of the dream, but it felt great!

So I'm wondering if anyone has encountered anything similar?... A link between their mood and horniness/WDs? I think low libido/sex drive can be a symptom of depression/low mood, but interesting that it might lead to WD in spite of that. (Everything mood-wise much better now just to say).

Any thoughts welcome!

[Texanguy]

The connection to WDs might be as much due to the not MBing itself more than to the low mood leading to the not MBing.

[goodlife]

Yes, I guess mb in your case helped and your male functions caused you to wd.

[DryGuy]

I can relate to this. I mentioned it before in another post, but after ending an abstinence streak (that I was trying for, and resisting my way through), I hit a natural period of low sexual interest... like extremely low, where I didn't masturbate for a week and didn't even care (which is unusual for me). It was only then, that I had a sexual dream. Which I found frustrating, because on my usual "ab streaks", I don't get sex dreams usually (or at least that graphically).

I think there might be something to this, where we might be "abstaining" the wrong way. Typically my ab streaks are littered with a pent-up horniness that I try to enjoy for its own sake, as if to make peace with it. But I suspect in doing that, and indulging in that way, I might be sabotaging the mental abstinence.

[hsmith]

I can relate to this. I mentioned it before in another post, but after ending an abstinence streak (that I was trying for, and resisting my way through), I hit a natural period of low sexual interest... like extremely low, where I didn't masturbate for a week and didn't even care (which is unusual for me). It was only then, that I had a sexual dream. Which I found frustrating, because on my usual "ab streaks", I don't get sex dreams usually (or at least that graphically).

I think there might be something to this, where we might be "abstaining" the wrong way. Typically my ab streaks are littered with a pent-up horniness that I try to enjoy for its own sake, as if to make peace with it. But I suspect in doing that, and indulging in that way, I might be sabotaging the mental abstinence.

Wow, yes this makes a lot of sense! In my case I also just wasn't horny, and also to the point where I hadn't really noticed. Unfortunately though quite difficult to try plan for this and experiment!

[DryGuy]

Unfortunately though quite difficult to try plan for this and experiment!

I sometimes wonder if abstinence is different for other people. I imagine it might be. Maybe that's one reason we see such a large amount of personal variation. So far I've always thought of abstinence as being equal to semen retention, but that experience I had with not caring about it at all (singular though it was), made me consider mental abstinence a factor too. There are aspects of an ab-streak that I can take pleasure in, and I've had the suspicion that maybe I'm trying to exploit some kind of loop-hole, and ultimately just cheating myself and doing it all wrong.
In some aspects, maybe I've never truly abstained at all before. I've thrown will-power at the problem, and allowed the sense of "denial" to become its own thing, that I've twisted into something sexual, because that was easier to deal with.
And maybe other people don't do this. Maybe other people are able to detach more fully, and easily achieve that sense of not caring, not noticing, and not wanting.

I've done several streaks of 30+ days, and my record is 50+ days, and what I find notable is the general lack of sexual dreams. Maybe by week 3, I might get dreams that have small hints, or nudity that goes nowhere. But the dream I had after 1 week of not caring or noticing blew them out of the water. Which annoyed me, because I would have loved a dream like that when I was 7 weeks out.

I have been reading a bit about lucid dreams, and how people can invoke sexual dreams that make them ejaculate in real life. Not in every case, but in enough of them, to wonder how much our own intentions steer our dreams, lucid or not. I figure if you're not lucid during a dream, then your subconscious is steering the ship. I've woken up from dreams where I remembered finding one of my dream characters very attractive, or noticed they were flirting with me in some subtle way, but my intention didn't follow it, so the dreams never amounted to anything arousing.

I don't know what to do with this information yet, but I thought I'd just put it out there.

[Texanguy]

I think it's all complicated and individual. While some guys are observing that less sexual thoughts while awake might lead to a WD, others find that erotic thoughts, visualizations, or feelings can lead to WDs. Even seeing an unexpected stimulating situation, such as a sexual scene in a movie, might trigger an unexpected WD is some people.

Some people tend not to remember dreams very often. Sometimes I'll notice some dried semen in the morning without recalling anything. Working on improving dream recall might help with dreams, and WDs.

One of the most prolific MBers turned WDers here was a young guy who simply decided to quit MB and then started getting WDs (named Shadow-15). He quit MB, started sleeping naked, and started getting WDs. It was easy for him. He was not sexually active, but regularly started dreaming about having sex with his girlfriend.

He reported later that he got his WD rate up to 3 or 4 WDs per week, and sometimes 2 WDs in one night, by visualizing having sex before going to sleep. He had also developed an active dislike of MB, and didn't even like to think about MB.

He didn't seem to be a particularly complex thinker, and had basically traded MB for WDs. He didn't make a big thing of it, but I suspect that being horny for WDs while having an active dislike and distaste for MB helped him get his WDs.

He eventually became bored with posting here, posted less and less, and we don't know what happened to him. But he was total convert from MB to WDs, and didn't seem likely to go back to MB.

Lucid dreams
If you read about it, it seems like lucid sex dreams are the number one desired type of lucid dream. I think it's more of a goal than an achievement for most people, but it seems likely that visualization plays a role in those who achieve lucid dream sex.

All in all, it seems like the best way to get WDs is to lose the MB habit, stay horny, fantasize, be young, and have a well connected subconscious and easily recallable dream life.

But everyone is different, so these are basically just generalizations.

[DryGuy]

While some guys are observing that less sexual thoughts while awake might lead to a WD, others find that erotic thoughts, visualizations, or feelings can lead to WDs. Even seeing an unexpected stimulating situation, such as a sexual scene in a movie, might trigger an unexpected WD is some people.

Oh yeah, I've seen people report that too, but we've no idea where their baseline is when it comes to general arousal or sexual thoughts.
Looking back on my ab streaks, I've definitely been leaning into that deprivation in a sexual way, in a way other people possibly don't. I thought I found a way to have my cake and eat it, but it seems I was just wasting my time.
I've been coming around more to your thesis that a fundamental attitude-shift may be necessary, and mere "semen retention" might be an insufficient sacrifice.

On lucid dreams: from what I gather, it's pretty much like being Neo in The Matrix, or a Star Trek character on the Holodeck, where you can will things into existence. The dream follows your intent. The hard part is staying calm and focused enough that you don't wake yourself up, or forget you're actually dreaming, and slip back into normal uncontrolled dreaming. Or having your dream characters turn nasty. I haven't had many lucid dreams, and they are extremely rare still, but I've seen the potential.
My curiosity here is if your dreams reflect your momentary intent, it may be very possible to help or hinder these dreams in an unconscious way... so maybe your daytime thinking matters a lot in how these dreams play out. We already see examples where people don't pursue sexual dreams because they remember they're not supposed to ejaculate due to abstinence... which in some cases they're doing to get a wet dream in the first place! I've had that happen a few times, which is pretty annoying.

I don't know what to make of any of it really.