Thank you Shari for the beneficial advices. Personally, the more one strives on building inner strength, the better one can deal with nightmares in fantasy and reality. However, similarly as I grew older it's easier to know when dreaming and not. Way back in college days (15 years old -time flies!) I was also going through instability at home, so it may have affected me to the point that reading a history book could be captured in a dream whereby all my senses were applied. The smell of fire, the burning on my skin, hearing slaves screaming for help, when I woke up there were tears in my eyes (from the non-existent heat) and was coughing (from non-existent smoke), my heart was racing, for a while couldn't tell who I was. Hmm, maybe I can write a science fiction on this, I'll call it something related on "dream teleportations"....haha, who am I kidding, got no time for that, got plenty other stuff to focus on!!. Thanks again for your useful advice to us.