A sleep orgasm may seem a distant fantasy – but it is much more common than you realise, according to researchers.

The phenomenon, where you wake up climaxing, is not just a regular pleasure for hormonal teenagers.Around 37 per cent of women will climax while dozing by the age of 45, according to researchers.It occurs primarily in women aged between their 40s and mid-50s, Broadly reports.Jade, 24, told the magazine sleep orgasms can occur a couple of times a week, with or without the help of self-pleasure.She said: “It’s a bit like a present from your brain.”There are a number of ways your chances of having a sleep orgasm can be increased.These include lying on your front when you sleep, being particularly tired before bed and when you haven’t experienced an orgasm for awhile.Kinky thoughts as you’re nodding off also increase the likelihood.Researchers and writers for The Orgasm Answer Guide say: “There is good reason to believe that orgasms while sleeping are not, in fact, the result of genital stimulation, but instead are created in the brain.”Only 25 per cent of women consistently orgasmic during sexual intercourse, with experts stating that is much more complex for women than men.But Dr Debby Herbenick, associate professor at Indiana University, told Broadly: “Orgasms generally gets easier with age and experience, and when women have sex with regular partners who they feel care about them, thus we see higher rates of orgasm among those in their mid to late 20s, 30s, and 40s.”So here are things you should know about sleep orgasm:

1.    Women can have sleep orgasms pretty much anytime.Yep, ladies can have wet dreams, too, and they’re not limited to puberty. A 1986 study in the Journal of Sex Research found that 37% of women in their study had experienced one — and that was just a small sample of college women… in the 80s.

2.    Dudes are more likely to have them when they’re not sexually activeWet dreams are way more common during puberty and adolescence, before a guy is regularly masturbating or having sex. But it’s possible — yet unlikely — than it can happen to older guys, too.

3.    When guys have them, they’re called nocturnal emissions or wet dreamsThis is when a guy actually ejaculates in his sleep. There’s not a ton of research on exactly how common it is, but most men can anecdotally tell you that this is definitely a thing (at least during puberty). A 1982 study in the Journal of Sex Education and Therapy noted that it’s a sex topic that’s not really discussed or understood all that much.

4.    People typically have ~feelings~ in their genitals during REM sleep.More blood flow to the vagina and penis usually happens during this sleep stage, when you do most of your dreaming.

5.    There’s not a whole lot of research on sleep orgasms, because, how would you even do that?In case you haven’t noticed, most of these studies are pretty dated with super-small sample sizes. Because, obviously. Anyone who’s ever had a sleep orgasm knows that these things are damn unpredictable, so this isn’t really something that’s easy to study in a lab.

6.    They most likely happen along with a sex dream, even if you don’t remember it.Maybe you have a sex dream first, then you experience more blood flow to erectile tissues, and then comes an erection or an orgasm. OR it could be the other way around: The increased blood flow actually prompts a sex dream, which then sometimes brings on an orgasm. Again, researchers aren’t entirely sure what’s going on

7.    Some sleep positions might be more likely to bring on the sex dreams… and the sleep orgasms.A 2012 study in the journal Dreaming found that sleeping on your stomach is associated with having more intense dreams, like those about sex, being tied up, being unable to breathe, etc

8.    Don’t feel like you need to TRY to have one.Just like conscious orgasms, they’ll happen if/when they happen, but forcing them probably won’t help. Don’t stress about it, let it come to you.

Source: Buzzfeed & Mirror