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Chances are, you had a sex dream this week. Fully eight percent of our dreams involve sexual situations, according to a new study from psychologists at the University of Montreal in Canada.

Interestingly, women have just as many sex dreams as men, with one important difference: Men are far more likely to have fantasies about sex with imaginary people, while women dream about current or past sexual partners, as well as celebrities, reports HealthDay News.

"Men used to report many more sex dreams, twice as many as women, and we don't find that difference anymore," study author Antonio Zadra, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Montreal, explained to HealthDay News. "Either women are having them more, or they're more likely to report them. Either way, it's interesting."

Even though sex dreams are very common, psychologists haven't paid much attention to them. For this study, the team asked 109 women and 64 men ages 20 to 89, all of whom responded to an ad about the research project, to keep a diary of their dreams for as long as one month. The total number of dreams exceeded 3,500.

What do we dream about?

• The most common sex dream involved sexual intercourse, followed by flirting, kissing, fantasies and masturbation.
  
• Four percent of sex dreams among men and women resulted in an orgasm.
  
• 18 percent of women's sex dreams involved unwanted sex, compared with just five percent of men.
  
• Nine percent of sex dreams among women and five percent among men involved fantasies about celebrities.
  
• Men were far more likely to dream about having sex with more than one person.
  
• Four percent of women's dreams featured a partner having an orgasm. None of the men reported this dream.

Zadra explained that if you dream about something, it probably occupies your waking thoughts as well. "If the sex dreams tend to involve unknown or fantasy characters, it is probably a reflection of your waking state, that your desires and fantasies are with strangers," he told HealthDay News.

The study findings were reported at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Minneapolis, Minn.

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