In Dreams...

So I have not told that many people about this re-occurring dream I've been having a few years now. I just had one the other night where I was dreaming that I was dreaming and I woke up in my dream but knew I was dreaming in my dream. Confusing, I know, try having them a lot. But when I wake up in reality I am totally confused on what is reality and what is not. The fortunate part of this is that it's only a dream and I am never very jaded by it. However...
I've had another dream in the past few years, maybe 3 or 4 of them. They are the most horrifying dreams, well nightmares, I have ever had. It has nothing to do with death, torture, blood, sickness or anything life-like, its far worse. I am dreaming that I am dreaming that I am dreaming. It's all black. I can't talk, I can't move, I can't do anything other than see pitch black. I try and try and try to toss and turn and wake myself up. In my dream I am trying harder than ever to shake myself awake and then I do but I am not in reality, all I have done is awaken from one dream into the next and it's the same vicious dream. Pitch black, can't talk, scream, or move, nothing but I see black. My eyes are closed but I try harder and harder to to shake myself awake, nothing. This dream is horrifying to me because it makes zero sense to me and I usually awake from them quite early and am too frightened to go back to bed. So at 6AM I sit on the couch and watch TV hoping the nightmare will not come back.
I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping the past 6years or so and people tell me to dope up on Tylenol PM or ambien or whatever but I can't bring myself to take sleep aids. I think I know what has caused my sleeping problems but I haven't a clue what this nightmareish dream represents. It's just horrifying to be unconscious and be 100% helpless and not be able to see, hear, smell, etc anything. All I see is darkness but my eyes are closed and I keep "awaking" to more darkness.
There is something there... Something either waiting for me to explode or waiting for me to break through the darkness...