What Do Porn Stars Dream About?

In Semenovka, Ukraine, Nastya Lazarenko had a dream in which her house was destroyed nearly a year before it happened. At a secret prison in Afghanistan, the warden, Colonel Yaya, described recurring nightmares of his Taliban inmates escaping. He would always wake up and order an immediate headcount. In New Orleans, Voodoo priest Dr. John T. Martin claimed that he has the power to enter into the dreams of others. “If you ask someone a question in their dream,” he remarked, “they cannot lie to you.”

These are just a few of the many dreams, nightmares, and hallucinations that I’ve collected from around the globe for my World Dream Atlas project. I first noticed the power of dreams when I began working as an EMT in New York City. I thought that when I took off my uniform and went home, all the gruesome scenes I had participated in would remain in the bedrooms, streets, and ERs where they happened. But in sleep, those scenes returned again and again. I terrorized my girlfriend, grabbing her neck ten times a night to check her pulse, or trying to use the bed sheets to soak up the pools of blood that I thought we were lying in. In half of my dreams, I was trying to save people. In the other half, I became the patient. In one, I remember being shot in the abdomen just like a patient of mine. He had died, but I kept reassuring myself, “You can control this! Just concentrate on staying alive! People only die because they believe they can! They give up!”

Cultures throughout history have believed that dreams contain hidden meanings. Ancient Egyptians thought that they were messages from the gods. Many pre-Columbian Native American tribes believed that dreams were a way to communicate with the dead. Indian philosophers from nearly three millennia ago wrote about them as manifestations of internal desire. I n 1899, Sigmund Freud established the most prevalent contemporary belief about dreams with the publication of his book, The Interpretation of Dreams. The psychoanalyst theorized that dreams contain our repressed subconscious thoughts—our deepest wishes and fears. Thinking about that concept, I became curious about the people who are paid to enact what the rest of us repress. That curiosity brought me to the Exxxotica convention in New Jersey earlier this month. I wanted to ask porn stars and other adult performers about the other sorts of escapades that happen in their beds.

Scarlet LaVey, Porn Star

“I have a lot of sexual dreams with people that I’ve been sexual with in the past. Maybe I didn’t have such a great experience with them, but in the dream they make up for it. Sex in dreams is a lot more emotional than porn sex. I’m kind of catering to what I would want in real life. I can’t really feel what’s happening physically. I can only feel what’s happening inside. I’ll wake up crying because of the emotional feeling.”

Candis, Exotic Dancer

“I recently had a dream. It was a nightmare. In my dream, I was driving and I accidentally hit a child. I kept going because there were a lot of people around. Eventually, I found out that the child was me.”

Venus Lux, Porn Star

“I don’t get along with my father. I remember one dream where he became a blob. I was trying to mold him into a human form again, but he just dried up in my hands.”

Sydney Leathers, Famed Anthony Weiner Sexter

“I don’t remember my dreams because I smoke way too much weed, and everybody knows it. I don’t think I had any dreams about Anthony Weiner, but I probably told him that I did. I would say whatever I thought he wanted me to say in the moment. I was a pleaser like that.”

Charlie Grace, Fetish Model

“I wake up crying and screaming every night. In my dreams, I’m always being hunted by something. I’m kind of a masochist, so I kind of like it. I’m always confused that they never catch me, though. Obviously, I’ve had raunchy dreams too—mostly rape. With males, I like to be completely dominated. It makes me feel inferior, in a good way. I would either get tied or held down, with my face pushed into a pillow as I’m fucked hard.”

Goddess Aiden, Professional Dominatrix

“All of my possessions were floating down a river. I saw my hairbrush in the water and got really mad because I couldn’t brush my hair.”

Rachele Richey, Porn Star

“I had the weirdest dream last night! I was a man, and I married a woman. I got her pregnant. She had the kid, and we abandoned the kid. Then I turned back into a woman!”

Natalia Starr, Porn Star

“I moved to New York in 2000, so that was right before 9/11. I had a friend who was working at the [Windows of the World] restaurant and he died. I always have dreams that I was in that restaurant too. I was eating as the plane hit. I wake up when I hear the kaboom.”

Jade Clapp, Miss Boston Ink 2014

“I always have dreams that end up coming true or that warn me of something. I had a dream when I was ten that I was in a forest—no, it wasn’t even a forest. It was more like a sunflower field without sunflowers. There was this little girl there, and I just felt total peace. Now I have a two-year-old daughter. She looks just like the girl in that dream, and when I’m with her, the feeling is exactly the same.”

Onyx Muse, Porn Star

“Sometimes I have lucid dreams—that’s when you know you’re sleeping, and you have some control over your dreams. And sometimes, they’re wet dreams! That’s when it plays in my favor. You definitely get to do things that you’re too afraid to try out in real life. If you’re in a dream, you’re just like, fuck it. No one’s going to judge you for it. For example, I like to squirt, and a lot of guys are iffy about it. But in my dreams, I just squirt like a fountain!”

Sierra Cure, Porn Star

“I watch a lot of horror movies, so I have a lot of serial-killer dreams. I once had a dream that I was really good friends with Leatherface, and I was helping him kill people. If I were alive back in the 60s, 70s, and 80s when all the main serial killers were around, I always thought it would be really cool to study them, hang out with them, and try to get on their level. I don’t think I’d have the balls to ever kill somebody. But I am really into animal rights, so if I saw somebody abusing an animal, I’d probably pick up the nearest heavy object and hit them with it.”

Briana Lee, Porn Star

“Sometimes, I have nightmares of falling through the ice and not being able to find a way up to breathe.”

Rita Daniels, Porn Star

“Dreams? I don’t remember any, but I could probably make up one. Let’s see. I had this dream that seven dwarves were walking through the woods. They captured me and took me to their hideout where they all did a huge dwarf gangbang all over me. It was awesome!”

Amanda Topchik, Exotic Dancer

“I don’t like being on the ground. I’d rather be up in the air. I have these flying dreams that are great. They’re a natural high. I never fall in my dreams, but in real life, yes.”

Jeselyn, Fetish Model

“I used to have a recurring dream when I was really, really young. I was with my family, and we were at an aquarium. We walk up, and there’s this little red rope, and we have to stop there. And there’s this massive, massive tank, and there’s a huge octopus in it. Anyway, so I walk up to it. All of a sudden one of the tentacles shoots out and grabs my dad, and takes him, and eats him. I think my stepmom was the octopus taking my dad from me. As I started to like her more, the octopus would grab my dad, take him in, and start throwing one of those colored beach balls back and forth with him.”

Follow Roc’s latest project collecting dreams from around the globe at World Dream Atlas.