Most are, some are fears of what could happen.

Its usually a real event that triggers a strange interpretation within a dream.

After the first Gulf War, i always had dreams of going back there some day. And i did.

Hmm...not sure. My nightmares are pretty weird and seemingly nonsensical, but no doubt that their presentation is influenced from real life things. Usually films or video games. >_> Usually though, probably repressed emotions and so forth, so in a way, I guess so.

Partly so. Nightmares and dreams are nothing more than tidbits of information the senses have picked up while your awake. Our senses act as probes picking up all kinds of information, some already been picked up before and some new. while asleep our minds sort all the information and works along side our deep memory. All this action in our sleeping mind will allow visions to pop up and our mind tries to piece it all together like a puzzle. when it has pieces that will not fit it grabs pieces from fantasies and fills in the spots. this is why we are able to do things like fly or float, breath under water etc.. while dreaming. Nightmares are present when our emotional state of mind or chemical enhancement is added to our system which increases our blood flow to the brain before we drift off into R.E.M. Many things can cause this like emotional stress and even certain foods and make the blood flow a little quicker. Drugs are also a big factor. Body positioning can also alter rather you dream or have nightmares. College testing in body positioning has proved that if you are sleeping on one side when waking from a nightmare just by flipping to the other side and falling back to sleep will lessen your chances of having another nightmare. lessen by 85%.

yes in a sense. they are influenced by real events. one guy i was with for a while and broke his heart which i regretted i had a nightmare about the next day. he took my place in my family and i went to an insane asylum only to break out and kill everyone just as i was about to kill myself , quite literally when i heard the gun bang i woke up.

yes

I don't have nightmares that I remember often, but when I do, it is always something off the wall.

I imagine they must come from somewhere..we read that one remembers everything one experiences, if only at the subconscious level. The problem with my nightmares is they never make any sense at all..therefore, I cannot possibly trace them to the cause! :)

I see myself dying, I see my family dying.

Not usually, but since I'm a sleep walker my enviornment around me can really screw with me. The scairiest dream I ever had happened in my bathroom. I walked in to my bathroom in my sleep. A monster started to come out of the wall behind me and I couldn't move. When I woke up I was standing my bathroom sweating, and I still couldn't move because I was so confused and frightened. It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out what had happened.