When I was a kid I use to have a recurring nightmare. My bedroom was purple color and there was an outline of a witch floating at the window screeching like wind, looooking at me. I was terrorized, couldn't move, couldn't wake up, couldn't scream, could barely turn my head to look away.
Also something i'll never forget when I was a kid. One time I thought I was awake, I was on the top bunk of the bed, I thought I saw a darkened head eye level with me heavily breathing. I definitely remember that one cause out of complete terror from the 9th level of hell, I stealthily went under the covers and sweat my brains out until I thought I fell asleep from complete terror.
It was a terrorized state of mind, like a deer looking at headlights, frozen, unable to move. Can't move, can't speak, just frozen with terror. It's horrible. Right now my ears are ringing, and in that state of terror it sort of feels like my whole body is ringing or vibrating (while semi-conscious)
I thought I trained myself to stay away from that terror but it's starting to happen again in my 30's. Happens about once a couple weeks now and it sucks. If I remember correctly I trained myself to immediately wake up when the symptoms of that semi-conscious terror dream state started. It usually starts with the feeling of terror and something in the corner of my eye which would frighten me, like a demon, a creepy sound, a shadow, then i'd wake myself up somehow ASAP. I think i'd do this by giving myself an adrenaline rush to wake up. I'd don't wake up screaming, or moving, or jumping out of bed.
The longer I stayed in this semi-conscious dreamy terror state, the harder it would be to leave, and the terror would just get worse, and this just makes it even scarier. The demon would get closer, the terror would get worse the longer it lasts. A few times I figured i'd just see how terrorized I could get, give in, but that just makes it worse, and the thought of that increases the terror, hehe a vicious circle.
Once I wake myself up i'd still be in that semi-conscious state, and it is very easy to just fall back asleep because well i'm still semi-conscious, however if I just fell back to sleep i'd just go back to where I was; the demon, the shadow, the creepy sound, the terror. So I also trained myself to stay awake for 30 minutes, watch TV or something. Get on the computer, do anything to take my mind off it before going back to sleep.