Wet Dreams and Semen Retention

Last Updated on July 17, 2026 by Wechuli.B

“We’re all fallen. Many devotees have lost semen so many times in their pre-devotional lives that even though they want to, they can’t stop their bodies involuntarily discharging it now. Even serious devotees who are averse to losing semen may nevertheless inadvertently do so, due to external influences on the body and mind, such as residual contamination from pre-devotional life, physical disorders that render the body weak, bodily heat, and subtle contaminations through eating the food of sinful people….There is no cause for excessive lamentation if loss of semen is not a result of a conscientious endeavor for or meditation on sex. Inadvertent discharge of semen may be as accidental (and undesirable) as, for instance, the loss of a tooth. Considering that the body is always producing semen, occasional spillage may be taken as natural overflow.” – Bhakti Vikäs Swami, Brahmacharya inKkrishna Consciousness

Don’t worry if you are experiencing wet dreams/nocturnal emissions on your semen retention journey, because they do not prevent you from experiencing the benefits of semen retention. They are a normal part of the journey, and even the most disciplined yogis throughout history are said to have experienced them. Do not let wet dreams kill your confidence and make you feel like you have failed.

Wet dreams are mainly caused by sexual fantasies. If you retain your seed but still overthink sex, you build excess sexual energy in your body. If you don’t transmute this energy – through yoga, meditation, physical exercise or fasting – the body will have to release it during sleep, resulting in a wet dream.

When I retained my seed and embraced mental semen retention, which involves ensuring that I do not think about anything sexual, I never experienced wet dreams. This helped me confirm that wet dreams on semen retention occur primarily because of the body’s need to release the sexual tension built up by the mind.

This is why wet dreams occur when you retain your seed but still watch pornography and sext constantly. These activities create sexual images in your mind. The images then become real people in the dream world as the mind transforms them into real sexual experiences. The sexual experiences lead to ejaculation in your dream, causing ejaculation on your bedsheet.

Sometimes nocturnal emissions occur despite avoiding sexual thoughts, fantasies, porn, or sexting, because your body is used to frequent ejaculation.

You might feel very uncomfortable when you retain your seed because, through fapping, you conditioned your body to release sexual energy when it builds up. The body will notice this discomfort, and it will interpret it as something that needs to be relieved. And because the body was used to relieve the discomfort through ejaculation, it will ensure ejaculation when you are asleep.

Experiencing nocturnal emissions once or thrice a month on your semen retention journey is normal. Wet dreams won’t affect the benefits of semen retention because you won’t lose a large amount of life-force energy: the accumulated life-force energy is responsible for several benefits of semen retention, and wet dreams don’t fully deplete this energy. You also won’t lose too much semen. I am sure about this because I experienced several benefits of semen retention despite having wet dreams on my 18-month semen retention journey. Besides this, many yogis assert that we only lose a small quantity of semen during wet dreams.

For instance, Swami Sivananda, in the book, Practice of Brahmacharya, writes, “in a wet dream, it may be the outflow of the prostatic juice only. Even if there is loss of the vital fluid, there is not much draining. The actual essence does not come out during wet dreams. It is only the watery prostatic juice with a little semen that is discharged during nocturnal pollutions.”

Swami Sivananda believes that nocturnal emissions are not detrimental to your spiritual progress because they don’t stimulate sexual desire. He claims that wet dreams do not awaken the mental impressions or psychological imprints that lead to sexual obsession.

Julian Lee, in the book, Bliss of the Celibate, informs readers that wet dreams are not bad. He writes, “The great celibate Saint Ramakrishna even specified that such nocturnal emissions – “wet dreams” —released much less life substance than a stimulated orgasm while conscious, and should not be a cause of alarm, dismay, or despondency in those striving to be celibate.”

Although you will still experience the benefits of semen retention even when you have wet dreams, it is said that frequent wet dreams (more than 10 wet dreams a month) might prevent you from fully experiencing the true power of semen retention. Nevertheless, even this high number of wet dreams will not take away all the benefits of semen retention: you will be far better off than you would be if you were still masturbating frequently, as many of the key benefits, such as mental calmness, heightened energy, heightened creativity, and social confidence, will not go away.

To avoid recurring wet dreams on your semen retention journey, you must learn to replace sexual fantasies or thoughts with thoughts about the life of your dreams or anything that is not sexual.

When sexual thoughts arise, visualize your dream life or think about anything else, and the sexual thoughts will lose their power and eventually disappear.

Moreover, avoid drinking too much water before you sleep, avoid pornography, skip erotic scenes in films, take cold showers, and do ten minutes of deep breathing every day to release the sexual tension that leads to wet dreams.

And if you are serious about your semen retention practice, and you want to experience its full benefits by avoiding frequent wet dreams, you must guard the gates of your mind as fiercely as you guard your seed. The battle is won or lost in your thoughts long before it ever reaches your body.