Terrified of sleeping, need help understanding!

Hello, I am desperate for an interpretation. I am new to the forum :) hope you guys can help me out with ideas, I can't sleep since this dream. I woke up in tears Tuesday, absolutely helpless.

Before I go on with my dream here's a bit about who's in the dream. I'm 33, I recently broke up with my boyfriend of 3 years ( let's call him Jim) because he has commitment issues, I'm still very heartbroken about this. Basically I wrote him a message stating why I was unhappy and he was quick to dismiss me, without even an actual talk. We were very much in love but we do have history of fights over misunderstandings and we're not "fire and ice", just both fire, very stubborn and I'm a girl with a lot of character.
Years ago I went out with a complete nutcase, very toxic person. Haven't spoken to that guy in over 5 years, let's call him Dick. He's a manipulative person that left a few scars emotionally and mentally but I don't think of him much if ever, and when I do I am glad I got out of that relationship.

In my dream I wake up in an empty room, a bit like a hospital room but there's no machines or instruments. There's a window to my left, it's a bit dark inside, only light is the one that comes from the window through the while blind. Feels like I'm recovering from something but I have no apparent scars nor am I in pain, I just feel tired. There's an empty chair in front of me to my left and there's an open door in front of the bed. To my right is Jim, sitting on a chair close to me. He's talking to me softly but I can't focus on what he says because there's Dick, standing behind him in silence, just creeping. In my dream I'm confused that Jim doesn't notice him, I gather my strength and ask Dick what he's doing there. Jim turns around, get's up, asks him to leave and Dick just walks to the chair, ignoring both of us, grabs it despite Jim trying to block him and sits to my left. Jim leaves to get help. I'm too weak to get up but I start crying and ask him him to leave. Dick is wearing a hoodie and in the pouch I notice there's a gun. I ask him to leave again, he's still silent. I reach into the pouch to hold the gun and Dick grins at me with a psycho look. I'm very scared but I try to not flip out because I remember he loved provoking me, tears still roll out of my eyes as I can't help it. That's when I woke up, terrified.

I haven't had decent sleep since then, I felt such terror and helplessness that I don't want to feel again.

I hope I have enough details, thank you for your input guys!

Hi Msmac789! Welcome to dream views! :)

Well, I won't try to give advice on the emotional issues of the relationships themselves. But I will say that when I've had terrible night mares, I've been afraid to go back to sleep... However, when I finally went back to sleep, I had a totally unrelated dream. Usually not another night mare. I could have one night mare, wake up, record it, go back to sleep, and the night mare doesn't repeat. The next dream is like a totally blank slate.

So you don't need to be afraid that this will happen again. if it does become a recurring night mare then thats one thing... But in my experience after a night mare, I have a totally different dream the next time.

Does that help you not be afraid to go back to sleep? If you didn't think the night mare would repeat?

Dreams are sometimes your subconsciousness' way of communicating with you. You may still have things to work out with your earlier relationship, but with the recent breakup it seemed to have resurfaced. I can't tell you exactly how you can work it out, but it has more to do with waking life than dreaming state.