I used to have massive, vivid, terrifying nightmares. From childhood until mid to late twenties. Started having less of them once I started working through stuff, and now generally only have anxiety dreams of varying strengths. Common, memorable elements of the nightmares included: sleep paralysis, sexual abuse scenarios, terrifying cult-like figures, running for my life, brain losing capacity for speech and voice getting caught up in something twisted, confusing I couldn't control, being pursued, something wanting to hurt, kill me, being covered in blood, crowd looking up, metal fragments embedded in skin, religious transcendence over the pain and violence, mind breaking apart, going insane, losing the thread of reality, heavy bodies on top of me and i can't fight or stop them, and so forth.
Those sounds horrible. You reminded me of a bunch of dreams I used to have where I couldn't keep my eyes open, and when they were open it was very difficult to see. It was rather annoying, but I'll trade what you're describing for 'rather annoying' with no hesitation.
I hope your anxious dreams get better. I hardly ever get nightmares anymore, ruling out sleep paralysis I've only had 1 mildly bad dream in the last 3 years.
Your compassionate, thoughtful reply has me all kerfluffled. Thanks. Bad dreams anymore usually involve being lost, needing to get somewhere but I can't get my mind to work enough to make it happen and I spend hours continually missing the mark, making one bad decision after another; I know I'm going to be homeless that night and I have an awful, desperate, anxious time trying to find a place to sleep; I'm trying to connect to people, and everyone ignores me, I can never fit in, and I spend most of the time in confusion, nowhere to go, alone. Oh, and the always fun 'you want to run, or even walk, but suddenly your legs are made of lead and stuck in quicksand, and you struggle, struggle, endless struggle to try to get your legs to work.' They still suck, but they're a damn sight better than they used to be. "I'll trade what you're describing for 'rather annoying' with no hesitation." That made me =). The whole eyelid, trouble seeing dreams you mention would freak me the heck out.