Nightmares and Awakemares!

Hi all, I'm new here and I have been having very weird nightmares, they don't happen often, about every 3 month but what is particularly strange (and terryfying for me) is that not only am I feeling the palpable fear of the dream when I wake up (reality and imagination is blurred a few minutes when waking up), but I also feel some physical effects for several minutes after waking up.

I wanted to find out if anyone else has had similar experiences and if anyone can offer an explanation or interpretation please, the dreams are starting to freak me out and seem to be getting progressivley scarier.

I'll try and be as brief as possible outlining main points of last 3 dreams, as I said they happen roughly every 3 months. Usually my dreams are mix of very pleasant ones, bizarre randmoness and some intuitive of things happening in my life. The mood and atmosphere of these dreams are very different to my normal ones.

1st Dream

At my flat, sleeping next to my baby son (1 1/2 years) and my wife. In my dream I wake up and get out of bed to find my wife already up, I start talking to her and but then she walks backwards out of the room, I realise I'm still dreaming and sense that it is a mallicious entity that is impersonating my wife and say to it "you're not my wife!" I wake up again and get out of bed, my wife is already up again and was changing our baby's nappy. I start to tell her about the weird dream I just had but then her legs start to float behind her and her whole body floats to the ceiling, I realise I'm still dreaming and wake up again. This time I jump out of bed and find my wife (or her apparition) in the middle of the room just staring blankly at me, I straight away realise it is not her but something impersonating her trying to trick me, this whole dream is "it's" theatre. I wake up again... this happens for 7 or 8 times, the last time I woke up, and coudn't even bring myself to look towards the thing impersonating my wife (it was doing frantic spasmodic movements!), I think to myslef it is trying to trap me in its world and feel helpless and about to cry, I close my eyes tightly and shout "God!" I then really wake up, takes a few seconds to be sure, I look around the room, see the sunlight coming through windows, my wife and baby still asleep and the fear recedes.

2nd Dream

At my parents house, sleeping next to wife and baby. I don't actually remember anything from the dream, just that at the end of it something was pressing down on me while I slept, I woke up (middle of the night) paralysed and could only move my eyes, I could see my baby son was in distress in his sleep, moving around as if he is trying to get something off of him (he had been doing this for last few nights in his sleep, he usually sleeps well all through the night).
This time I was not scared but angry that some thing was trying to harm my son. I tried to speak but felt something holding my tongue, I just about got to pronounce a sound but then my whole mouth filled with hair (note: I was feeling this whilst awake). My son was tossing and turning quite violenty now, he kicked my wife which made her stir, I tried to get her attention with muffled shouts but to no avail, then I drew all my strength and shouted her name. Immediately, everything stopped, my son was still, I felt the weight lift off of me and was able to move again. My wife, still half asleep, moved our son to his place (his legs were on top of her at this point), she looked at me and muttered "oh my boys" then fell asleep! I was exhausted and unable to speak, just fell asleep after a few minutes.

3rd Dream (this occurred recently)

At my in-laws house. In the dream I was in some sort of ritual exorcism, an entity was inside me, it was inside my right knee and was trying to take over my body. A friend of mine who I had dinner with that night, was in the dream, he was reciting something trying to get the entity out of me, I felt his words having immediate effect and this thing inside of me was being forced out.
The feeling of this thing being removed was nothing short of horrific, I could feel my whole body contort especially my face, I had to close my eyes because it was too terryfying to look at my body make these weird shapes. I could feel it being removed then my friend hugged me tightly and I felt safe. I woke up feeling petrified, the 'good feeling' at teh end of the dream was replaced with fear at the realistion that the exorcism was just a dream and this thing is still inside me, but then fell asleep a few seconds later and the whole dream replayed again, the vantage points I was seeing the people in the dream was slightly different and near the end of the dream a girl appeared in the excorcism waiting to go next, we looked at her and someone said "you're not suppose to be here". I woke up again, feeling terrified and felt a sharp pain on my right knee, I moved my leg and pain lessened but started to feel slight pain in my bones all over my body.

This was the most scared I have been from all previous experiences, I had to wake my wife up and tell her I had a nightmare, I was visibly shaken. I needed to go to the toilet but because I felt so scared that my family might be in danger I picked up my son and took him and my wife with me, they sat nearby, I needed to know they were close. I don't usually get scared easily, to me I was acting rationally due to a real threat. I was in this heightened state of fright for the next hour, couldn't sleep, I meditated for half an hour and felt strong and ok after it, then feeling of exhaustion hit me and fell asleep straight away.

Hope that didn't scare anyone too much. So any ideas what's going on with me?!

Thanks

You could just be going trough stressful times, In my opinion try and relax and don't think about anything scary before you go to bed. I know it might be hard.... Your dreams are created by your sub contentiousness so try to not "feed" it anything scary (Movies, etc)