Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head: The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies

As other reviewers have rightly pointed out, if you have any doubt that your sexual fantasies may be odd, if not `perverted' and, mostly, that you are the only one to have them, Brett Kahr's Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head will no doubt comfort you.Kahr here presents a veritable smorgasbord of the human sexual imagination, from the tamest sexual fantasy ("I fantasise about making love to my wife') to what some might arguably think is seriously disturbing, and disturbed.However, if you are hoping, as I was, for a sustained analysis of the origins of our sexual fantasies, you may find Kahr's exposé wanting in several respects.First off, Kahr is not only a psychoanalyst, but his admiration for Freud, which he gleefully shares as early as he can in his book, soon borders on veritable idolatry. But more annoying still is the ease with which he aligns himself with the supposed brilliance of the Viennese patriarch. Applied to the interpretation of sexual fantasies, the whole thing becomes downright frustrating.There is something of a self-fulfilling prophesy in Freudian thinking; to use it's own jargon, something that smacks of wish-fulfillment. Psychoanalytic interpretations have the almost inevitable tendency of becoming circular arguments: we know this is why people do this or that; they do this or that; therefore, our interpretations are right. (The most famous example of this was Freud's belief that the very resistance he had encountered to his life's work was proof that he was right. Then again, you have to admire someone with that much self-confidence.) To this day, Freudian theories remain improvable. I do not doubt that, in the clinical setting, they have helped countless, but that does not necessarily make every one of its interpretations correct, or the only plausible one. Throughout Kahr's book, there is little if any attempt to imagine any other motivation behind his subjects' psychic, sexual scripts besides what the canon of psychoanalytic interpretations offers him. Eventually, we are left feeling that Kahr is stuck in an interpretive rut and it soon gets a bit too repetitive: example after example of the supposedly same expression of mental turmoil.And then, there is the writing itself. Although Kahr is a decent wordsmith, someone at Basic Books completely dropped the ball.Kahr begins his book by telling us that, 1) most people have sexual fantasies; 2) fantasies can be good or bad but that, 3) most people feel bad about their own and, 4) sexual fantasies find their source in one's early-life history. Kahr unfortunately takes over one hundred pages to present us with these almost self-evident truths. Part II, which comprises a full third of the book, presents us a litany of sexual fantasies but does nothing more than Nancy Friday had already done forty years earlier. You have to wait 266 pages before Part III and any sustained analysis of the origins, purpose, and effect of sexual fantasies. As if that wasn't enough, even in his own discussion Kahr also presents page after page of his subject's sexual fantasies (or, in some instances, absence thereof), then spends nearly as much time attempting to sum them up only to simply repeat them.Kahr also has a tendency of peeling apart every one of his ideas, examples and interpretations to a sometimes ridiculous level. "Overwritten" barely describes large portions of his book. While reading these endless passages, I was often left thinking, "Yes, yes! Get on with it!" The whole things leaves one with the feeling of an author who may be a bit too self-absorbed with his ability not only to interpret anything but to think at all. Kahr's editor (if he had one, something one begins to doubt quite early on in the reading) could have cut the book down by a third, possibly even a half, without loosing anything.In the end, if you feel you are alone with your occasional, sexual daydreams, Kahr's book will no doubt reassure you that you are not. However, I must admit that I am absolutely dismayed that, still today, so many think there might be something wrong with them for having this or that sexual fantasy, or thinking that they are the only one having them. Alfred Kinsey's published his stereotype-busting research on American's sex lives some six decades ago, and Nancy Friday added to this picture in the early 1970s. How long will it take us to accept ourselves as we are.If, however, the breadth of human sexual fantasies is no longer new to you and you are looking for a solid (if however skewed) discussion of the reasons why we harbour this or that sexual fantasy, you may want to arm yourself with a little patience or, as I did not half-way through Part I, simply go straight to the index to find what you are looking for. You will not loose anything in the reading.I give Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head three stars, if only for Kahr's admirable effort in culling data from over 20,000 research subjects.

Fascinating stuff!

This book covers a lot of important information for people/couples to consider. I use this book as a tool in psychotherapy homework planning and so much more is is revealed as people try to make sense of what they want or hope to expect. The book covers EVERYTHING!

Enjoyed this read a lot. This is a great mix of psychology and just fun erotica. For every odd or uncomfortable fantasy there is a thought provoking analysis.It was very interesting and offers a lot of insight into sexual fantasies and their purpose in the human psyche.

It is almost as if it offers an academic justification of a book I reviewed on 17th July 2017, Love Me Like You Hate Me, an exploration of BDSM. There is a gentler touch to that subject. Devotees of Netflix will recognise ‘Bonding’; a light-hearted, humorous approach to a topic important to some and even more, if only they would have the courage to admit it! In turn, this book may encourage more to admit their own fantasies to their love partners!

Must read for anyone that is interested in understanding human sexual thoughts.

I found this writing to be very dry and judgemental. Much of what was said was hardly new knowledge or failed to come to any conclusion at all. I have to admit I did not read it through as once I got past the first few chapters I skipped around looking for some hope. This is probably good for some, but just wasn't what I was looking for. There's also much too much introduction before even the slightest point.

I think that most people have sex lives that they are fairly happy with, and it surprises me to learn that 90% of the people out there are sexual fantasists, routinely screening some sort of interior porn film in their heads just for the sake of getting off. If you ever feel ashamed of having such fantasies, prepare to have an uplifting experience in reading _Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head? The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies_ (Basic Books) by Brett Kahr. The author is a psychotherapist working for over twenty years in a fairly classical Freudian tradition, but in 2003 he began to add to his clinical experience of fantasies by means of the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project, which eventually included American subjects as well, some twenty thousand subjects in total. Some of the research was done by exhaustive five-hour interviews and some was done on-line; the project is continuing, and the book includes the web address for participation if you'd like to help with some interesting research. And it is interesting. Many pages in this big book are devoted to verbatim reports of fantasies, which Kahr warns will cause in readers either sexual arousal or embarrassment; he could also have included shock and also laughter, for no one else has fantasies like your own, and the fantasies of those _other_ people, well, they can be downright weird. That so many people participate in this hidden activity must mean that it does something for our species, and for our sex lives, and besides commenting on the general purpose of fantasies, Kahr analyzes their purpose and meaning for individuals in many cases. His explanations are generally Freudian, of course, but explained with a minimum of jargon and with a high degree of humane concern and with good humor that makes the book delightful as well as instructive reading.The fantasies are broken into categories for chapters, devoted to subjects like group sex, infidelity, sex with celebrities, homosexual encounters, violence, humiliation, and so on. These are fantasies held by people who are not psychiatric patients or prisoners, just regular folks. Not all the fantasies can be described in a family-friendly review like this one, but here is a quick description of some of them. A woman imagines that her boss declares that today is Sex Friday, and everyone can have sex with whoever seems desirable. Another woman imagines Saddam Hussein having her "really really hard and just treated like a piece of meat". Another wants to be squeezed between the thighs of Serena Williams. Many fantasies are almost rated PG: "Seeing my wife naked" or "Being alone without the children." Others involve specific X-ratings, for they have been borrowed from porn: "About being in a porn film and being watched whilst I am made to perform sexual acts." There are plenty of distressingly violent fantasies here, but more of them are simply odd. "After nearly a quarter of a century of clinical practice," writes Kahr, "I sometimes believe that I have heard every possible fantasy imaginable, until of course the next patient comes along and reveals an erotic fantasy that I never knew existed." Even with all this data, he has plenty of puzzling questions, like whether it is we who control our fantasies or vice versa. He admits that there is controversy over the issue, but thinks that generally we cannot control fantasies, especially since he has seen many people who try but cannot get rid of fantasies brought on by religious or parental prohibitions or sexual abuse.Learning more about fantasies might even have practical application; I think Kahr is not half joking when he suggests that matchmaking services might incorporate potential partners' sexual fantasies as a criterion for a match's fitness. "Such factors may prove to be much more pertinent to compatibility than whether one enjoys films, eating out, and country walks." This humane, erudite, and thoughtful book, however, ought to have even more practical value in allowing us to regard our fellow creatures with increased sympathy and understanding. Think, for instance, of the twenty-year-old woman who blushed when she told Kahr that she had a "very perverse" fantasy that she knew would disgust him. Kahr says he braced himself, but found that she was talking about her fantasy of making love to a lecturer at her university. "Isn't that awful?" she explained. "I'm trying to get over it, but he's just so cute." Kahr gently wonders, along with the reader, if she might read this volume and, seeing how perverse (whatever that might mean) some fantasies truly are, whether she might come to view her own as a little more acceptable, playful, and fun. His explanations of the kinkiest of these visions provide a unique service in showing that all we fantasists are not so different from one another, and that it's a good bet that all of us are at least a little kinky.

Es ist für den Laien wirklich sehr erstaunlich, wenn sich ein Psychoanalytiker und Paartherapeut Freud'scher Schule mit der tiefenpsychologischen Deutung "sexueller Fantasien" auseinandersetzt. Angenehm zu lesen und hilfreich ausführlich!

Love this book! It was sent from the Library of Calgary (had the stamps on the book). I had to call Calgary's library because prof. said there should be another stamp saying it's authorized to be sold. I called, everything was good. The book was in good condition. It had a old, used smell but that's what I expected since it's USED