Why do men get erections when they sleep?  Q: Why do men get
erections when they sleep? –H.T., 25  erection in sleep  A: He’s
dreaming of someone, or something, that makes his tent go pup.
For a more detailed explanation, I talked to James Barada, M.D.,
a urologist and director of the Center for Male Sexual Health in
Albany, New York. “Nocturnal erections are a normal, healthy
process that occurs during REM sleep. A man’s erecto-genic
center of the brain sends signals to the penis, causing the
surrounding tissue to relax and allowing the blood vessels there
to fill the penis with blood. This causes an erection,” he says.
Just like Viagra, I point out. “Exactly. In fact, a way to judge
a man’s future impotence is to count how many erections he gets
per night,” says Dr. Barada.  So, on some sleepless night, if
you decide to count erections instead of sheep, you should
notice that he has three to five per night, each lasting 10 to
20 minutes. Otherwise, that means his penis isn’t getting its
RDA of oxygen. “When