Dream within my current surroundings

Hi all, I do not know much about dreams and types of sleep and so forth, but I would just like to know what it means or what is happening when you go to sleep in your bed and bedroom for example and then you have a dream occurring in exactly the same setting, not a thing out of place. I dream of my bedroom, my bed, everything. The thing is, when I dream like this, terrible things happen to me in these dreams and it feels just like reality! I'm convinced I'm awake at this point, experiencing it for real .

I've have dreamt that a woman has tried to kill me already by standing over me, raising a long, sharp knife over her head and then bearing down to stab me in the chest, with me just stopping the knife in time with my hands. It happened in my own bed, in my room. These dreams happen in other places too. I spent a night at my university lab once to do some experiments. I've got an office close to the lab, and for a few hours I decided to catch some sleep in my chair, since my work was done. I left one light on in the hallway. I don't know if I fell asleep, but I suddenly saw the hallway with the light and a really tall dark man-shaped figure standing there. He was completely black, had no face or anything, he was an opaque black shadow about 7 ft tall. I asked him what he wanted and he couldn't answer me. This is weird, it's not that he didn't want to answer me, he couldn't. He kept making sounds like uhmm... uhmm... until I got really impatient with him and snapped at him "What do you want?!". It's at that moment that I got up, went out of my office, and looked down the hallway and saw nothing. This is terrible! It's like reality and the dream world are merging . I don't know if I'm awake or asleep. A friend of mine was deeply concerned and said it was a demon that came to me. They gain power over you by showing you your very real and current surroundings and convincing you they are there right now to confront you. What is amazing though, is my sense of fearlessness I seem to have during these dreams, I confront these "people" head on and stop them in their tracks for what they were going to do.

I've had similar dreams too, but one disturbing one in particular. It was not like the setting from the above dreams (like a reality setting) but an old place where I used to go on holiday as a kid. I am in my own body but there is a replica of me following me around. But this replica is annoying, he looks like me, but is pathetic, he keeps complaining, whining, shouting, crying and is just 100% unpleasant. The more I try to avoid him the more he follows me around. I begin walking faster and faster and he starts lagging behind but then speeds up to catch up. I begin running, he does too. Eventually I reach our trailer where we camped and he was hot on my heels. Somehow I end up with a knife in my hand and as he comes up behind me I turn around and stab my replica to death. This is a terrible dream, I'm no killer! I would never harm anyone. Does this mean I hate myself?

Sorry for the long post guys, but this stuff is disturbing. It just feels so real. I've had several other dreams too, about me dying, being chased, being late for school/work, falling into an open grave in a forest and others too. I don't get much sleep anymore, but these used to happen when I'm not very tired and had a normal nights sleep.

Hi, Stbguy. I hope you can get rid of these disturbing dreams before too long. It does sound like there's something about yourself that you are not happy about and you want to "kill" (get rid of.) It's good you are not scared about tackling the "stranger." That suggests to me that you would benefit from therapy, getting at what might be causing these concerns that show up in your sleep.

Hi Travellinglady, thanks for the insight and post . Yes, I've gone to therapy, but we never get to these topics. I've stopped going because we only ever end up in the same place, talking about the lack of relationship I have with my dad and the effects my parents' fighting had on me as a child. I never get to explore these things and I just keep them to myself rather, because people think I'm making it up when I say I see dark shadows and stuff in my dreams. Also, they just say everyone has nightmares.

Yeah, some therapists put more stock into dreams than others.