[volatile]

Not literally. I'm just confusing the difference and It's really upsetting me. I need them to stay as DREAMS, not possibilities or some kind of alternate dimension or 'true reality' that I am somehow lost to.
I try to write them all in a dream journal so I can get me OUT of my head but It doesn't work all the time. I just want to be normal and not freak out every time I have a dream.

[Perna]

I had a scary three days once where I couldn't figure out if I was living to dream or dreaming to live; "the" dream continued each night where it left off, like a soap opera and I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to be there or here.

The best way I know to shake it is to realize that you are sleeping when you're sleeping :-) so even if it were "true" it can't be in your waking life because you are awake and using a whole different "system" of perception then, etc. Dreams are literally just dreams; even were we able to forecast the future (we can't) it hasn't happened yet and how it goes down won't ever be exactly as imagined (whether in a dream or by us/some "magic" future predictor person while we're awake).

[volatile]

a lot of the time I don't think I'm actually sleeping. I'm convinced it's lost time. which just makes everything more complicated

[Perna]

But if you can remember what you were thinking/dreaming/doing during that lost time, it isn't lost time, just alternate thoughts (dreaming, including day dreaming/fantasizing). When you lose time, you literally can't remember what happened but if it happened during the night, you just don't remember those dreams (it is estimated we dream 6-8 times a night), which doesn't sound like your problem.

[volatile]

well it's a little more complicated than that. The time obviously wouldn't be completely lost but most of it is.