Alexis on the Sexes: Morning glory

Q: It hasn't happened in a while, but there was a three-week span in which every other day I'd wake up in the morning to find that I had just had a "happy ending" to whatever dream I was having. I know guys get morning wood, but what causes us chicas to finish ourselves off while sleeping ... without actually masturbating? It's super cool when it happens, but I have no idea how to get there again.

A: Ahh, female nocturnal orgasms. Further proof -- as if any were needed -- that the brain is the biggest sex organ in the body. It never rests, using your body's sleeping hours to take your subconscious on a freewheeling ride in no particular direction. It's not like you actually want to have sex dreams about that fat, sweaty co-worker whose cubicle always smells like cooked cabbage, but your brain doesn't care. Not only does it not care, it'll throw in some spectators (your aunt, the gas station cashier), a few obstacles (a giant ant, a baby) and then give you an orgasm so awesome that it wakes you from your sleep. How many times have you showed up to work or -- shudder -- a family dinner and not been able to look someone in the eye? Don't worry, you're not secretly harboring lust for your brother. That's just your dirty little mind up to no good while you're sleeping.

I was discussing your question with a girlfriend the day it came in, and she mentioned that the first orgasm she remembers having as a kid was from a sex dream. The dream was about Liv Tyler (circa the Aerosmith video for "Crazy," I'd imagine), which is important to note because my friend is firmly heterosexual. Perhaps she was watching MTV before she fell asleep, perhaps she was trying to figure out how to do her hair like Alicia Silverstone's, perhaps her brain just plucked Liv from the recesses of her subconscious and decided to turn her into a lesbian porn star for the night. The brain does not discriminate.

While not a ton of research has been done on this aspect of female sexuality -- surprise, surprise -- we do know this: Like male nocturnal emissions and nocturnal tumescence (morning wood), which are not necessarily related to erotic dreams, it is understood that female nocturnal orgasms can also occur in the absence of sexual imagery. I found a survey online about female nocturnal orgasms conducted a couple years ago by clinical sexologist Franceen King. It seems to be the most recent and thorough research on the topic since Alfred Kinsey took an interest more than half a century ago. In the partial results of her study (she is still seeking respondents), 22 percent of those women who experience orgasm upon waking report that the dreams they were having at the time had no obvious erotic content. How weird is that? There you are, picking poppies in the Grand Canyon with Detective Bunk Moreland from "The Wire," when your brain delivers an urgent message: Time to wake up and have an orgasm. Why? No one really knows.

The one thing researchers do know is that the more a woman thinks about sex during her waking hours, the more likely it is that she'll have erotic dreams and nocturnal orgasms. Having sexual fantasies, where you're actually using your brain to create scenarios as opposed to just watching pornographic scenes, will increase the frequency of erotic dreams and orgasms upon waking. So if you want to start your morning off right (and who doesn't?), then daydream away.