Does anyone else have this? this isnt the void, is it?

[tangerinegal]

Unlike a normal dream, these dreams dont end when i wake up, they continue, in full force, for 5-10 minutes after i am technicaly awake. Some of the last few times i experienced the dream, i was old enough (14-15) to know what was happening, and try to work through it on my own.
On one perticular night, i remember having the dream, this time it could most closely be compared to a grid i was standing on, and the grid was expanding, and again, it was accompanied by the most powerfull sense of loss, guilt, and horror that i could ever have felt. (hard for me even to relate to it, be cause ive never felt anthing close to it in daily life) Back to the dream, I was able to wake myself up, or lets say, i opened my eyes and sat up in bed. As i looked at my room it to had expanded, i felt everything that was there, was miles away, all malignant, all against me, and while i dont believe i made a sound, i felt as tho i was sobbing inside, and somehow this experenece was indifferent to my pain. So i get up, and walk into the bath room, flip on the light, use the restroom, splash cold water on my face, and the whole time im still in the dream as much as ever. I was aware of the other presence i was talking about, the expansion, and it was there, even though i was reasoning with myself, telling myself i just needed to wake up. It did go away after i went back to bed and just sat there, waiting it out.

Now, another thing that makes these dreams different than normal nightmares, is the fact that i can experience the emotion and sense the expansion from time to time, in normal every day life. Usualy it is a voice, if i hear a voice and its pitch changes in just the right way, bam, there ya go, i feel that dread, loss, terror again, and then its gone. Like a quick flash, nothing more. Or if i sit and try to remember one of the dreams, and really concentrate i can remember a detail of it with clarity and again i get a flash of it.
This is exactly what I've experienced. For me, the expanding is actually me. As a kid I used to sit up, and just like your experience, the nightmare continued as if I was asleep, and I would stare at my hands and run to my parents and tell them I was changing into a dinosaur, which was my understanding of my hands expanding. Nowdays, I've started getting them more frequently, and most of the time, and thinking back to when I was a kid, it happened this way then too. It happens just as I'm drifting off. So it doesn't happen in deep or rem sleep, it happens in stage 1-2.
It isn't just fear, it's terror. It's not a nightmare, I call it a waking nightmare. It's not a little hurt, its full of pain.
I can't believe someone else has experienced this. I'm so glad for your post.

[Waterfountain]

Well I'm not really sure if mine is the same but somewhat similar or maybe not at all. My dream has to do with this big scary haunted mansion that kept expanding no matter how I tried to escape even when giving up it kept growing. I don't think it is the same though.