So first off, a new Bill and Ted movie is headed out in the next year. It is sad that George Carlin will not be there to reprise Roofus. I miss George, Joan, and Robin for their gift of laughter. Humor has a great use in daily life by bringing a smile and laughter, if only for a moment, to a person’s day. I think that is why we use “gallows humor” in medicine. The hope that by cracking wise, we can release the tension and pull the part where we “laugh about it later” to the here and now. That’s my thought. We need the release in the moment, not months later while we, “tell war stories at the nurses’ station.”
That’s why I try to present my blog and podcast with humor instead of being bland and angry. It was one of the best bits of advice I received starting this blog is, “no one wants to hear your ass drone along for 3 pages.” Trust me this is one Nursie poo that talks way too much about anything.
Much of what I do is pull news stories or personal incidents in health care and use them as examples. I am careful (as should you be if you are in the profession) to sanitize my stories so that PHI is not disclosed. With that, let’s talk about the big “O”. This is an article in Huffington Post, found here.
Can you have an orgasm in your sleep? Well if you were to ask 14 year old me, I would tell you it was a mess and be embarrassed, however, there has been a large amount of research done on this as well as anecdotal evidence, because after all who wants to orgasm in a lab… (Ok you, I don’t care how cute they are…) A great deal of orgasmic…I mean research in orgasms was done by Barry Komisaruk and Beverly Whipple.
Some of their research findings may help explain how nocturnal orgasms happen.
In a small study, Komisaruk and Whipple looked at women who said they were capable of “thinking themselves off” — in other words, they could have an orgasm from thoughts alone, no physical stimulation necessary. The researchers measured the changes in the women’s physiological responses — like heart rate, blood pressure, pupil dilation and pain tolerance — during a mental orgasm and during a physical orgasm from self-stimulation. They found that the magnitude of the increases in these responses was about the same, whether it was a thought-induced or masturbation-induced climax.
So just thinking about it, the real power of imagination
“What we found, to my great surprise, is that when [the women] thought about the stimulation of a body region, the corresponding region of the sensory cortex map was activated as if they were physically stimulating that body region,” Komisaruk told Fusion in 2015. “But there was much greater activation in the prefrontal cortex when the women thought about stimulating a particular body region than when they actually physically stimulated that body region.”
The orgasm is a tricky devil and often is difficult for women to achieve, not because of men being lousy in bed (too quick, wrong angles, pain…yes kids, sex can cause pain with women and may not allow her to be anything but a participant). Some women the research says report only being able to orgasm when they are asleep.
Ok, so why “shoot” this topic at us? Simple, healthy sex life can make a healthier life. Whether it is with a partner of either sex, yourself, or with a group if they can consent, sex can and is a healthy interaction that should be treated as a “release” of both stress and an expression of intimacy. In general, I have never heard someone say they hated having an orgasm.
When I talk about consent, I mean that they are an adult, able to verbally say yes and that there is a discussion about what is cool during sex and what is not. I would always encourage sexually active people to use protection which to prevent disease can include; condoms, PrEP, barrier protection, etc. Or pregnancy IUDs, BCP, or condoms to name a few. Ladies, I suggest you always prepare to protect yourselves, because men only use one brain during sex and it ain’t the one on his neck.
To “Climax” this post
Can you make yourself climax during sleep?
Unfortunately, you can’t do anything that will coax your brain into giving you a guaranteed sleep orgasm
— as wonderful as that would be. That said, we asked our experts to share some tips, and they did — with the caveat that these suggestions are not research-based. (But hey, they’re worth a try.)
- Sleep on your stomach — or any position “that puts some pressure on your external genitals,” Mintz said.
- Think about, watch or read something sexy before bed. “You could always try to get yourself aroused during the day and before bed, since we tend to work out things in our sleep that we were dealing with during the day,” Marin said.
- Aim to have more orgasms in your waking life. “While this seems counterintuitive ― i.e., you’d be ‘orgasmed out’ by bedtime ― we know that the more sex women have, the more they want,” Mintz said.
If you end up having a sleep orgasm, that’s amazing. And if it doesn’t pan out for you, don’t sweat it — really. This applies especially to women, who often feel pressured to climax during sexual experiences.
Sweet dreams