I recently have been experiencing some terrifying night terrors that I used to have as a child in middle school. To say the least, they are quite disturbing. I am almost out of high-school and believed these dreams to be gone and done with, but it seems they have returned but more intensely.

I'm going to try to explain these dreams as best as I can.

Each dream either seems to take place in three different locations: My Bedroom, and empty locker room, or outside my house at night.

In the beginning of the dream (the one including the locker-room) it starts out as a normal day of working out in morning gym class. However, I seem to forget to dress in my work-out clothing, so I journey to the locker room alone. Inside, the floor is always concrete and cold. My shoes seem to disappear and I'm left with few pieces of clothing. My surroundings are always plain and simple (black and white walls with a normal set of lockers) Then, the cold temperature suddenly drops to freezing, and that's when a horrid ringing sound arises in my ears. Shortly afterwards an invisible force presses me down to the ground, forcing all of the breath out of me. I'm pressed to the wall and dragged to the ceiling only to see myself still on the floor. It's if I'm looking at right at myself. In order to get out of the situation, I close my eyes, hold my breath, and concentrate extremely hard.

It seems to be more frightening when I'm in my bedroom and I'm staring at myself lying peacefully in bed while I'm dragged to the wall by this....thing. I've only seen it once when in the dream I was outside. I can't remember it very well since it happened a rather long time ago, but I remember the eyes quite well. It had small eyes that were extremely round with a large nose. It's pupils were quite small, and it's teeth were long and gritted. It barely seemed to be human.

I think I just needed to spill it out, because I seem to be bottling it up. I don't want to admit these nightmares scare me, but I'm now finding myself unable to sleep without some sort of light on. When I was in middle school, it got so bad that I would sleep on the ground near my parents bed, and leave before they woke up.

The coldness in the dream makes me think of you feeling numb or detached about something.

However, a lot of the things that happen in the dream are associated with sleep paralysis - ringing in the ears (auditory hallucinations), feeling that you are being crushed and can't breathe, a scary evil monster.

I know that this is a dream and not sleep paralysis (because with sleep paralysis you would be awake and aware of your surroundings) but these things and the coldness make me think there could be something physical going on. Or have a made a mistake and are you partly awake when this happens?

Do you recall being particularly stressed in waking life around the times when you have had these dreams? Maybe leaving high school and thinking about your future is bringing them on.

Have a look at the pages on Sleep Paralysis and Night Terrors (which are not the same as nightmares, by the way) in the Lucid Dreaming section of the Meaning of Dreams website.