Dreams

For the last nine years of my life I have been having these dreams that I really can't explain. It started around about 2000 and the dreams consisted of someone trying to kill me. The dreams always started off with me walking somewhere outside and then someone would come up to me and start shooting. For some odd reason I never got hit but the person kept shooting. When I first starting having these dreams I kind of blew it off but I quickly realized that there was more to it. At that time I had been associating myself with people I probably should not have and there were a few dangerous situations that I found myself in. I was at a point in my life where I was riding the fence. I thought at that time that those dreams were related to those situations and some other things that I won't discuss but after I made some key changes in my life those dreams stopped for a while. Then, a few years later I started having another type of dream that I still have even now. I can't really describe the dream but according to my wife I start whimpering in my sleep and a few times I have awakened in a cold sweat or breathing hard. I know this is going to sound really crazy but in some of the dreams that I can remember, a dark shadow is standing over me. Normally in this dream I am watching myself sleeping in my bed and I watch someone come and stand over me. I almost feel myself being suffocated while this shadow is standing over me and I think my whimpering comes from trying to stop the dark shadow. This dream happens about once a month and I can't come up with a reason for it. I also have a dream where I am driving in my car in the rain and all of a sudden I crash into a car in front of me. I actually feel the impact of the crash and see the devastation and then I wake up. I really don't know what is causing these dreams. I have heard from people close to me that maybe certain situations that I have been through is causing my brain to have dreams like this. I really don't know but I admit it has me concerned. Sometimes it is hard to put in words some of the things that I have seen so maybe my dreams replay certain things as a means for me to learn something. I don't know. I really don't.