I've started having nightmares...

[ErstwhileGoth]

That's it really. The last 3 or 4 nights, I've only had about 3 hours sleep because I keep having nightmares that wake me up.

Last night, I woke up 5 times in the first hour of being asleep.

Some of them are supernatural with amorphous masses trying to strangle me, some are 'poltergeist type events with things flying around, winds, objects being disassembled or broken of them are just nightmarish 'real life' scenarios. Some of them involve sleep paralysis - the other night I dreamt I was being strangled by an unknown threat - it was a dense black cloudy silhouette that came in under the front door. Had an obvious hwad and arms but no features and I was trying to scream but couldn't get a sound out. At one point, in one nightmare, I did manage to scream and that was what woke me up.

I am aware that in one of these last night, I was aware that I'd already been awoken by nightmares previously. And a couple of times I realised I was dreaming before waking up.

Any idea why these are happening? Or, more importantly, what I can do to stop it?

Nothing in my life has changed over the past few days that I would have triggered it, I don't think.

I'm shattered!

I'm waking up and falling back to sleep but just entering another nightmare.

At some point in the night, they seem to just stop and I get a peaceful sleep for around 2 hours before waking up but prior to that, I have a couple of hours of very disturbed and disturbing unrestful sleep

I went through a phase in my early 20s where I would have sleep paralysis almost every time I closed my eyes. It eventually became less frequent until they stopped but I still get the odd one.

My triggers for nightmares or sleep paralysis are normally stress and trying to go to sleep when I am not sleepy thus entering a light sleep state that leads to sleep paralysis.

The way I found to deal them is to go to sleep later so I am really tired and sleep deeply or to have an empowering phrase whenever they happened. I eventually managed to drill into my head to use my phrase on repeat. It sounds weird but it helped my dream self to get some control over the situation and 'banish' all the monsters and snap out of the paralysis.

If you have a comforting phrase, or a little prayer that you know or even try to get your dream self to summon forth people you love to act as your protectors. It's not easy and it takes time but try before you fall asleep to think that you are in control of your dreams and you can do whatever you like. Keep repeating the safe phrase.

I am mentioning all this because you said no big changes as far as you are aware!

Agree with pp that stress can cause or make nightmares worse! But sometimes the stress can be that every time you fall asleep, you have a nightmare iyswim!

Are you taking multivitamin supplements at all? Zinc can make dreams vivid!

I had a phase like this - stress and flat living with noisy neighbours all accumulated to night terrors. Is there any noise where you are?

I use the Nothing Much Happens podcast to drop off if I’m having a hard time. But maybe you could use comforting soundscapes throughout the night?

If you become aware or aware-ish that you are in the middle of a bad dream, it is possible to change the events.
When I went through a phase of dreaming that I was being chased by scary people, I could sometimes make helpful friends, or armed guards or a lit up cafe, full of friends appear.
For supernatural scaries, I could sometimes zap them with lightning bolts from my fingers.
On a couple of occasions I found that if I stopped running and just turned round and said “Yeah?” they would immediately become harmless and sheepish, sometimes asking me an innocuous question, like are you wearing red socks.
I've never had sleep paralysis, touch wood, but I might try zapping the nasties with my brain waves…?

I get this when stressed or distracted with something. Occasionally when having drunk too much that evening. You haven't changed any medication recently? Even OTC stuff can affect sleep. What about the temperature in the room?