I'm sure everyone has seen movies or TV shows where a character is having a nightmare and wakes up from it suddenly, and instantly sits up in bed and screams. I was just wondering if anyone has experienced that? I figured that this was purely exageration until it happened to me once, but I'm sure it is very uncommon. It happened to me a few years ago... I happened to be browsing around another forum that I visit and found an old account of the experience, from long before I actually became interested in dreaming:

The only [dream] that ever woke me up suddenly (like they do in the movies where they suddenly sit up in bed) was one I had a few years ago.

In the dream, I was down near my local library. For some reason, it was like it had been converted to an entrance to a small ruined castle and the area was all bricked off so I couldn't get out. There were some kids messing about pushing shopping trolleys down a small slope (about 9 foot high slope, 30 degrees or so)...

Anyways, I was standing at the bottom and one came right towards me as though someone was trying to deliberatly push it into me. I couldn't see who did it over the top of the slope, but I shouted to them something like "Stop being an idiot" and started walking up the slope. Then I saw the another shopping trolley being lifted into the air, as though there was something or someone invisible picking it up. It was thrown at me quite violently and I dodged it and panicked shouting something like "Why are you doing that!? I didn't do anything to you!".

Nowhere to run, so I tried to run inside the small castle-like thing, but the entrance was bricked off. I turned around to see if I could see anything, and heard a creepy voice in my left ear as though the invisible thing was standing right there saying something (I don't remember what was said), and I woke up very suddenly.

The funny thing was, everything I said during that dream, I said in real life too, cause I woke my brother.[/b]