I just had a very scary waking nightmare, and I never used to have these before the past couple of years, so it's a recent phenomenon for me. I don't understand what's causing them but they are very disturbing.
I physically opened my eyes in the middle of the night, halfway between unconscious and awake, and I saw someone clearly standing at the foot of the bed on my side, looking at me, and pointing a gun or a rifle straight at me, getting ready to shoot. I KNEW they were about to shoot me ( I wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman ), and, terrified, I jumped out of the bed to the other side, waking my partner up, repeating that I saw someone. He calmed me down, and I went back to sleep and dreamed normally with no more nightmares.
My normal dreams aren't filled with terror and stress or disturbing things, especially not lately. In fact, when I woke up this morning, I had been dreaming about sunbathing nude, laying on my belly to give my skin nutrients.
So, these occurrences really confuse me.
I have only had two other nightmares like this one, spread out over periods of several months. I will describe them here, and wish to point out that the link to all three of them is that it was something that was going to kill me. The terror came from a feeling that I knew I was about to die violently.
The last time I had a nightmare like this one, was several months ago. Again, my eyes opened in the middle of the night between asleep and awake, and my partner was turning over in the bed towards me, and my eyes saw something shiny sharp metal flashing in one of his hands, and I instantly knew it was a pair of scissors, and that he was about to stab me with them. I leapt out of the bed, terrified, waking him up, I explained the dream, and that time, it was so real that I felt compelled to go check to see if the scissors I had seen were still in the last place I had left them. They were.
And, finally, the first nightmare I ever had like that happened about a year ago, and, just like before, my eyes opened in the middle of the night, looking to the side, between asleep and awake, and I saw sitting in the computer chair a bag filled with long slender bombs. I felt instantly terrified, because I knew they ALL were about to detonate, and I leaped out of the bed, looking towards the kitchen area, seeming to know that there was another bag filled with bombs in there, too, and that in a moment, all would go off, and we all would die. I panicked, and had to be calmed down.
Does anyone have any ideas why I have been having these waking nightmares, and what is the reason, and what I should do about it?
Thanks, everyone.