Sexual Daydreaming Scale of the Imaginal Processes Inventory

Abstract

The Sexual Daydreaming Scale (SDS) is a standardized 12-item psychometric subscale embedded within the broader Imaginal Processes Inventory (IPI), originally developed by Jerome L. Singer and John S. Antrobus (1963, 1972) and extensively standardized across the human lifespan by Leonard M. Giambra (1977–1980). Designed to evaluate normative cognitive-affective functioning rather than clinical deviance, the SDS measures the frequency, vividness, physiological impact, and situational triggers of spontaneous and deliberate erotic fantasies. Respondents evaluate 12 self-report statements using a 5-point Likert-type response format ranging from “Definitely Not True For Me” (0 or 1) to “Very True For Me” (4 or 5), yielding composite scores spanning 0 to 48 (or 12 to 60 depending on scoring convention). Psychometric investigations consistently indicate outstanding internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha estimates ranging between .87 and .93 across diverse demographic cohorts. Over prolonged multi-year intervals (one to three years), the SDS exhibits moderate-to-high test-retest reliability (r = .58), reflecting a stable dispositional cognitive trait modulated by developmental age and biological milestones. Construct validity is supported by strong negative correlations with biological age (r = −.56 for men, r = −.52 for women), robust positive associations with behavioral sexual expression, coital frequency, and masturbatory elaboration, as well as distinct loadings on broader second-order factors of inner experience, specifically Positive-Constructive Daydreaming and Attentional Control. This article provides a comprehensive academic review of the SDS, delineating its theoretical foundation within cognitive stream-of-consciousness paradigms, psychometric architecture, structural validity, developmental trajectory across the adult lifespan, and practical applications in clinical sexology, personality psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.

Keywords

Sexual Daydreaming Scale, Imaginal Processes Inventory, Jerome L. Singer, Leonard M. Giambra, erotic fantasy, daydreaming, mind-wandering, internal mentation, sexual desire, psychometrics

Authors

The Sexual Daydreaming Scale was developed, refined, and psychometrically standardized through the collaborative and independent empirical programs of two prominent researchers in cognitive psychology, personality, and human development:

• Jerome L. Singer, Ph.D. — Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Yale University, Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), and a pioneering figure often recognized as the “father of daydreaming research.” Singer dedicated decades to legitimizing the scientific exploration of human interiority, mental simulation, stream of consciousness, and imaginative play.
• Leonard M. Giambra, Ph.D. — Formerly Senior Research Psychologist at the Laboratory of Personality and Cognition, National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Baltimore, Maryland; later affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Science at the United States Coast Guard Academy, New London, Connecticut (Contact: 15 Mohegan Avenue, New London, CT 06320; email: [email protected]). Giambra spearheaded massive cross-sectional and longitudinal lifespan normative evaluations of the Imaginal Processes Inventory, establishing empirical benchmarks for daydreaming across young, middle-aged, and older adults.
• John S. Antrobus, Ph.D. (Co-developer of the original IPI framework) — Professor Emeritus of Psychology at The City College of New York (CCNY), whose work in psychophysics, sleep mentation, and cognitive psychology was instrumental in standardizing the initial item pools and factorial structures of the overarching inventory.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Sexual Daydreaming Scale (SDS) is to quantitatively capture individual differences in the frequency, sensory clarity, cognitive intrusion, and physiological resonance of sexual fantasies in psychologically healthy, non-institutionalized populations. Prior to the systematic construction of the Imaginal Processes Inventory in the 1960s, prevailing psychological models—heavily dominated by orthodox psychoanalysis and strict behavioral operant paradigms—frequently conceptualized waking fantasy either as a compensatory defense mechanism stemming from neurotic deprivation or as an unproductive, maladaptive mental lapse. Singer and colleagues radically disrupted this deficit-oriented assumption by proposing that daydreams, including those of an erotic nature, represent an intrinsic, healthy feature of human mental architecture and self-regulation.

From an applied research perspective, the SDS operationalizes sexual fantasy not as a clinical pathology, but as an ongoing component of the subjective stream of thought. The scale serves several key functions across distinct behavioral and clinical sciences:

• Normative Sexological Mapping: It provides a baseline assessment of erotic ideation without pathologizing the respondent. Researchers utilize the instrument to establish how sexual thought content shifts across age cohorts, relationship statuses, and varying endocrine or physiological states, such as the menopausal transition in women or androgen decline in men.
• Personality and Cognitive Trait Assessment: Because sexual fantasies involve both voluntary mental construction and involuntary task-unrelated thought (mind-wandering), the SDS permits investigators to examine how erotic imagery intersects with executive attention, creative capability, sensory absorption, and broad personality dimensions such as Openness to Experience and Neuroticism.
• Clinical and Marital Therapy Diagnostics: In clinical settings, marital counseling, and sex therapy, the SDS aids clinicians in differentiating between individuals experiencing generalized low sexual desire (hypoactive sexual desire disorder) and those experiencing situational behavioral dysfunctions who nonetheless retain robust internal erotic imagery. By distinguishing private fantasy production from overt relational behaviors, therapists can better tailor cognitive-behavioral and systemic interventions.
• Cognitive-Aging and Lifespan Developmental Research: Through the extensive lifespan norms compiled by Giambra, the SDS allows gerontologists and developmental psychologists to study the natural trajectory of internal sexual mentation across the adult years, separating normative biological declines from psychological withdrawal or neurodegenerative conditions.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the Sexual Daydreaming Scale is multidimensional in phenomenology, though unified psychometrically into a coherent aggregate score reflecting waking erotic mentation. The construct encompasses the frequency, vividness, attentional intrusion, contextual triggers, and somatic feedback associated with sexual and romantic mental representations.

1. Sensory Vividness and Experiential Realism

A cardinal dimension of the construct is the phenomenological clarity of the imaginal representation. Items such as “My daydreams about love are so vivid, I actually feel they are occurring” and “My sexual daydreams are very vivid and clear in my mind” gauge the degree of quasi-perceptual immersion experienced during internal mentation. In cognitive psychology, this relates to an individual’s mental imagery capacity—specifically the generation of vivid multimodal representations that recruit visual, tactile, and kinesthetic modalities within working memory.

2. Somatic and Physiological Resonance

Unlike purely abstract daydreaming (such as philosophical musings or spatial problem-solving), sexual daydreaming possesses a distinct neurovisceral substrate. Item 12 (“My daydreams tend to arouse me physically”) assesses the mind-body translation wherein purely endogenous cognitive cues activate the autonomic nervous system, resulting in genital vasocongestion, pupillary dilation, and cardiovascular acceleration. The construct thus bridges conscious mental narrative with autonomic peripheral reactivity.

3. Attentional Intrusion and Mind-Wandering

Sexual mentation frequently emerges as task-unrelated thought during periods of cognitive underload (monotony, boredom) or spontaneous attentional drift during demanding work. Items such as “While working intently at a job, my mind will wander to thoughts about sex” and “While reading, I often slip into daydreams about sex or making love to someone” measure the penetrance of erotic themes into ongoing goal-directed cognitive tasks. This component highlights the dynamic competition between endogenous imaginal processes and exogenous task demands.

4. Interpersonal Desirability and Erotic Self-Schemas

Erotic fantasies are rarely detached from self-identity. The construct incorporates psychological projections of personal attractiveness, interpersonal validation, and reciprocal erotic attraction. Items such as “I imagine myself to be physically attractive to people of the opposite sex” and “In my fantasies, I arouse great desire in someone I admire” measure the ego-syntonic, socially reinforcing facets of the fantasy life. These fantasies serve an anticipatory role, bolstering the individual’s sexual self-concept and social self-esteem.

5. Situational and Chronobiological Triggers

The scale captures the environmental and chronobiological occasions that reliably evoke imaginal erotic activity. Items explicitly measure daydreaming during routine commutes (“Sometimes on my way to work…”; “While traveling on a train or bus [or airplane]…”), during emotional states of under-arousal (“Whenever I am bored, I daydream…”), and during the hypnagogic transitional state prior to nocturnal sleep (“Before going to sleep, my idle thoughts turn to love-making”). The construct recognizes that idle, low-stimulus environments provide the cognitive bandwidth required for sustained internal simulations.

Theoretical Framework

The Sexual Daydreaming Scale is rooted in Jerome L. Singer’s overarching cognitive-affective theory of daydreaming, human imagination, and the stream of consciousness, synthesized with William James’ foundational conceptualization of continuous subjective experience.

The Stream of Consciousness and Inner Experience

Singer posited that conscious awareness involves a perpetual interplay between external sensory stimulation and internal cognitive mentation. The human brain operates as an active, self-generating organ that constantly produces internal narratives, simulations, memories, and anticipations. Within this framework, daydreaming is conceptualized as an adaptive, resource-dependent cognitive capacity that serves several critical functions: planful rehearsal, emotional regulation, creative problem-solving, self-soothing, and internal stimulation during sensory deprivation.

Second-Order Factor Architecture of Daydreaming Styles

Extensive factor analyses conducted by Singer, Antrobus, and later Huba and Aneshensel identified three major second-order dimensions governing private internal experience:

1. Positive-Constructive Daydreaming (PCD): Characterized by pleasurable, vivid, creatively fulfilling, and emotionally adaptive fantasies. Individuals high in this dimension utilize daydreaming for constructive rehearsal, wishful contemplation, and genuine personal enjoyment without debilitating guilt.
2. Guilty-Dysphoric Daydreaming (GDD): Marked by intrusive, anxiety-ridden, hostile, or self-punishing mental content. Daydreams in this domain evoke shame, guilt, and emotional distress, often centering on fear of failure or forbidden aggressive urges.
3. Poor Attentional Control (PAC): Characterized by cognitive distractibility, an inability to sustain focused attention on complex tasks, fleeting mind-wandering, and an unstable mental stream.

Crucially, the Sexual Daydreaming Scale primarily loads on the Positive-Constructive Daydreaming dimension, while also exhibiting secondary cross-loadings on Poor Attentional Control due to its mind-wandering items. When erotic fantasies occur in psychologically healthy individuals, they represent an ego-syntonic, emotionally rewarding mental pastime that enriches inner life and reflects healthy hedonic capacity. However, in individuals with compromised attentional systems, sexual daydreams can also manifest as disruptive intrusions that derail goal-directed behaviors.

Lifespan Cognitive Development and Biological Plasticity

Giambra expanded Singer’s theoretical framework into a life-span developmental model. Grounded in empirical data collected across eight decades of life (ages 17 to 92), Giambra proposed that daydreaming frequency and sensory vividness are governed both by neurobiological vitality and social-developmental task demands. During late adolescence and early adulthood, individuals face evolutionary and psychosocial challenges associated with mate selection, reproductive fitness, and sexual identity consolidation. As biological aging progresses, changes in systemic endocrine levels (such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone) and shifts in social motivational priorities lead to a normative, predictable decline in spontaneous sexual ideation, illustrating the intersection between cognitive processing, endocrine function, and developmental stages.

Validity

The construct, convergent, criterion-related, and discriminant validity of the Sexual Daydreaming Scale have been substantiated across multiple empirical studies involving diverse non-clinical cohorts spanning young adulthood to advanced old age.

Construct and Developmental Validity

In a landmark normative investigation comprising 565 men and 745 women aged 17 to 92 years, Giambra (1979–1980) documented marked, statistically significant negative correlations between SDS scores and chronological age: r = −.56 for men and r = −.52 for women. Because general daydreaming frequency also declines with advancing age, Giambra computed partial correlations controlling for total daydreaming frequency. Even with general imaginal activity held constant, the negative relationship between age and sexual daydreaming remained pronounced (partial r = −.41 for men; partial r = −.40 for women). This confirms that the decline in sexual fantasy across adulthood represents a distinct developmental and biological trajectory rather than merely an artifact of generalized cognitive slowing or overall reduction in mental simulation.

Criterion-Related and Behavioral Validity

Validity is further demonstrated by robust correlations between SDS scores and verified behavioral metrics of sexual expression:

• Male Sexual Activity Lifespan Study: Giambra and Martin (1977) investigated sexual behavior in a large, well-characterized adult lifespan sample of men. Men who reported significantly higher scores on the SDS demonstrated: (a) a greater lifetime number of coital partners, (b) a higher frequency of sexual intercourse during the initial one to two years of marriage, and (c) a significantly higher frequency of weekly sexual events between the peak reproductive ages of 20 and 40. These findings demonstrate criterion validity by confirming that internal erotic cognitive activity mirrors overt behavioral sexuality.
• Masturbatory Fantasy Elaboration: Campagna (1975) explored the cognitive dynamics of male masturbation fantasies in a university cohort. Using factor analysis combining behavioral reports and IPI scales, Campagna demonstrated that high SDS scores clustered strongly with the frequency, narrative complexity, and “story-like” structural elaboration of masturbatory fantasies. Individuals with elevated SDS scores not only fantasized more frequently during solitary sexual behavior, but their fantasies also exhibited greater thematic continuity, emotional engagement, and creative sophistication.
• Female Menopause and Neuroendocrine Status: In a cohort of 477 middle-aged women aged 40 to 60, Giambra (1983a, 1983b) demonstrated that SDS scores were sensitive to biological transitions. Scores were significantly associated with menopausal stage (premenopausal, perimenopausal, postmenopausal), systemic menopausal symptom severity indices, masturbatory frequency, subjective interest in sexual relations relative to that of their partner, and premenstrual mood fluctuations. These findings confirm the instrument’s sensitivity to physiological, endocrine, and affective shifts in women.

Convergent and Discriminant Relationships with Personality and Fantasy Subtypes

Investigating the intersection of sexual orientation, fantasy styles, and cognitive control, Rosenberg (1983) applied the Short Imaginal Processes Inventory (SIPI) and erotic fantasy indices in young adult males. The study revealed that men characterized by high scores on the Guilty Daydreaming dimension experienced fantasies accompanied by shame and were significantly more prone to coercive, domination, or self-punishing masturbatory fantasies (r = .34). In contrast, SDS scores loaded consistently with Positive-Constructive Daydreaming, associating with an open, non-defensive, and accepting psychological orientation toward sexual experiences.

Reliability

The Sexual Daydreaming Scale exhibits exceptional reliability across both internal consistency and temporal stability metrics, as detailed below:

Internal Consistency

Across repeated psychometric evaluations involving independent, heterogenous demographic samples, the SDS has demonstrated high internal consistency as quantified by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient:

• Singer & Antrobus (1972): Initial normative sample of young adults and college students yielded a Cronbach’s alpha of α = .87, reflecting strong item homogeneity and low measurement error.
• Giambra (1977–1978): In a broad lifespan sample of adult males across eight developmental decades, the scale achieved an internal consistency coefficient of α = .93.
• Giambra (1979–1980): In a massive cross-validation study comprising 1,310 adult men and women, the internal consistency was replicated at α = .93 for both genders.

These values fall well above the accepted .80 threshold for basic research and satisfy the stringent .90 psychometric benchmark recommended for individual assessment, indicating that the 12 items uniformly tap a singular, coherent latent dimension.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability was evaluated by Giambra in an empirical longitudinal follow-up involving 45 adult men tested over an extended interval ranging from 1 to 3 years. The test-retest reliability coefficient was r = .58. A paired-samples evaluation revealed no statistically significant shift in mean scale scores across the multi-year testing window (t < 1, non-significant). Given the substantial duration between testing sessions—spanning up to 36 months, during which individuals inevitably underwent varied relationship, health, and environmental changes—an empirical stability coefficient of .58 indicates that sexual daydreaming operates as a remarkably stable cognitive disposition while maintaining appropriate psychological plasticity.

Factor Analysis

The architectural placement of the Sexual Daydreaming Scale within the broader taxonomy of human imagination has been rigorously evaluated via Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and higher-order structural modeling.

First-Order Factor Derivation and Item Selection

The construction of the SDS adhered to systematic psychometric procedures established by Singer and Antrobus (1963, 1972). Initially, several hundred normal adult participants recorded detailed qualitative descriptions of their recurrent, spontaneous waking fantasies. A secondary independent validation cohort evaluated these fantasy statements by checking those they personally experienced and indicating their subjective frequency on a 5-point scale. Items explicitly addressing erotic, romantic, and sexual themes that exhibited:

• Satisfactory item-total intercorrelations,
• Absence of severe floor or ceiling effects (relatively normal distributions across the 5 response options), and
• High factor loadings (> .45) on a discrete primary sexual daydreaming dimension,

were extracted to establish the final 12-item scale. In Giambra’s (1980) comprehensive factor analysis of the individual IPI items across a massive cohort, the 12 SDS items displayed exceptional item-factor congruence, uniformly loading on a definitive first-order factor representing erotic mentation.

Second-Order Factor Loadings

Within the full 28-scale Imaginal Processes Inventory, the SDS occupies an informative position. Unlike scales that align exclusively with a single higher-order construct, the SDS cross-loads across two second-order factors:

• Positive-Constructive Daydreaming (PCD): The SDS loads strongly and positively on this factor. The generation of vivid, aesthetically pleasing, and physiologically arousing erotic narratives shares variance with problem-solving daydreams, interpersonal curiosity, and visual-auditory imagery vividness.
• Poor Attentional Control (PAC): The SDS exhibits a secondary positive loading on this factor. Because items 3, 4, 6, and 8 explicitly query mind-wandering during work, reading, and transit, the scale partially captures the tendency of erotic thoughts to spontaneously breach executive attentional filters during mundane or cognitively demanding tasks.

Due to this dual second-order loading, Singer and Antrobus (1972) historically cautioned that using the SDS entirely in isolation from the full IPI requires researchers to carefully account for both attentional control and broad imaginal positive affect in their analytical models.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Sexual Daydreaming Scale (SDS) is an objective, standardized self-report psychometric questionnaire designed for adult respondents. Its operational parameters are detailed below:

• Scale Name: Sexual Daydreaming Scale of the Imaginal Processes Inventory (SDS-IPI)
• Developers: Jerome L. Singer, Ph.D., John S. Antrobus, Ph.D., and Leonard M. Giambra, Ph.D.
• Instrument Type: Standardized self-report rating scale / subscale of a comprehensive cognitive-personality battery
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil questionnaire, computer-assisted self-interview (CASI), or secure online assessment
• Administration Time: Approximately 3 to 5 minutes for the SDS standalone subscale; 25 to 40 minutes when administered as part of the full 336-item Imaginal Processes Inventory (IPI)
• Target Population: Adult non-clinical populations (normative data validated from ages 17 to 92 years)
• Number of Items: 12 items
• Response Scale: 5-point Likert-type scale with the following response options:
  • Definitely Not True For Me (assigned a value of 0 or 1)
  • Usually Not True For Me (assigned a value of 1 or 2)
  • Usually True For Me (assigned a value of 2 or 3)
  • True For Me (assigned a value of 3 or 4)
  • Very True For Me (assigned a value of 4 or 5)
• Scoring Protocol:
  • All 12 items are keyed in the direct (positive) direction; there are no reverse-coded items.
  • A total composite scale score is calculated by summing the integer values assigned to each response.
  • Depending on the numerical coding used by the researcher (0–4 vs. 1–5), the total score ranges either from 0 to 48 or from 12 to 60.
  • Higher aggregate scores reflect a greater frequency, sensory clarity, attentional salience, and physiological impact of sexual daydreams.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The foundational research culminating in the Imaginal Processes Inventory began in the early 1960s, with formal normative validation monographs published in 1970 and 1972 by Jerome L. Singer and John S. Antrobus. Lifespan normative extensions were published by Leonard M. Giambra between 1977 and 1983.

Copyright and Accessibility: The full Imaginal Processes Inventory (IPI) is copyrighted by Jerome L. Singer and John S. Antrobus. The instrument, along with its standardized short form, the Short Imaginal Processes Inventory (SIPI; Huba, Aneshensel, & Singer, 1981), has historically been distributed for academic, educational, and clinical research purposes via The Measurement Group (www.themeasurementgroup.com). Qualified academic researchers and clinicians wishing to reproduce or administer the scale within non-commercial scientific investigations are permitted to do so provided appropriate formal attribution and bibliographic citation are maintained. Authors requesting authorization or archiving normative data are traditionally encouraged to contact Leonard M. Giambra (U.S. Coast Guard Academy, New London, CT) or provide copies of resultant publications to the originating research teams.

References

• Campagna, A. F. (1975). The function of men’s erotic fantasies during masturbation (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Yale University, New Haven, CT.
• Giambra, L. M. (1977–1978). Adult male daydreaming across the lifespan: A replication, further analyses, and tentative norms based upon retrospective reports. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 8(3), 197–228. https://doi.org/10.2190/8V6X-E97R-36N6-XHQD
• Giambra, L. M. (1979–1980). Sex differences in daydreaming and related mental activity from the late teens to the early nineties. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 10(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.2190/6H5G-44TK-1G7C-3VR6
• Giambra, L. M. (1980). A factor analysis of the items for the Imaginal Processes Inventory. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 36(2), 383–409. 3.0.CO;2-Y” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-4679(198301)39:1<11::AID-JCLP2270390103>3.0.CO;2-Y
• Giambra, L. M. (1983b). Sexual daydreams in 40- to 60-year old women: The influence of menopause, sexual activity, and health. In J. E. Shorr, G. Gobel-Whittington, P. Robin, & J. Connella (Eds.), Imagery: Theoretical and clinical applications (Vol. 3, pp. 297–302). Plenum Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4532-9_28
• Giambra, L. M., & Martin, C. E. (1977). Sexual daydreams and quantitative aspects of sexual activity: Some relations for males across adulthood. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 6(6), 497–505. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541154
• Huba, G. J., Aneshensel, C. S., & Singer, J. L. (1981). Development of scales for three second-order factors of inner experience. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 16(3), 181–206. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr1602_3
• Rosenberg, L. G. (1983). Sex-role identification, erotic fantasy and sexual behavior: A study of heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual males (Unpublished predissertation research). Yale University, New Haven, CT.
• Singer, J. L., & Antrobus, J. S. (1963). A factor analytic study of daydreaming and conceptually related cognitive and personality variables. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 17(Suppl. 3-V17), 187–209. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1963.17.3.187
• Singer, J. L., & Antrobus, J. S. (1972). Daydreaming, imaginal processes, and personality: A normative study. In P. W. Sheehan (Ed.), The function and nature of imagery (pp. 175–202). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-638950-0.50013-X

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)