Lately, I've been having nightmares almost every night, generally at the start of the night. These generally turn lucid and i wake myself up, or else i just wake up on my own. Every single time, though, the awakening is false. These false awakenings (which range from just one to maybe up to 8 or 10 in a row) are more unpleasant than the initial nightmares, because of their extreme realism. i used to have false awakenings which i would recognize, because i'd be somewhere other than where i went to sleep, or something would be obviously amiss with the room. These recent ones aren't like that at all. Everything is absolutely normal and accurate, from light quality to my boyfriend's position in bed, if that's where i'm sleeping. It's not sleep paralysis, because i can get up and move around. The only thing that's ever amiss is that there's always something horribly wrong with me. Sometimes i'll notice it right away, sometimes i'll dream of getting up to have a cigarette or get some water before i notice. In the past couple of weeks, i've had false awakenings in which i was blind (which i think is relatively common), one where i could feel the inside of my head vibrating as if i was about to have an aneurysm, one in which i was missing an arm, one where i was floating about six inches off the ground and being dragged repeatedly into a cupboard door (that one was kind of funny later), and a few where i either felt like i was heavily drugged or completely insane. Occasionally i'll still have a false awakening which is weird in some other way, but these are bad too, as they invariably turn into nightmares pretty much immediately.
it's a pattern now- i go to bed, have a nightmare in the first hour, have a few false awakenings until i wake up my boyfriend with my screaming, he's fortunately really nice about it for a couple of minutes, we go back to sleep. usually it's okay after that, until the next night.
this isn't bothering me as much as i would think it would, but i am getting a bit worried. also, i feel chronically sleep deprived. not tired really, just the other symptoms- heightened senses, periodic depersonalization etc.

does anyone have any idea how i can break this cycle?