Am I awake or dreaming?

I currently am researching my dreams or trying to study them. Does any one have any suggestions for a childhood filled with traumatic experiences? I can smell a scent or hear a sound and be brought back to a place I never would have thought about till the day I died if it was my choice. I can automatically be brought back to a place where I can hear screaming and smell the scent of what ever was there at the time. I continuously have a re occurring dream about a man picking me up in a van and if any one has seen High Tension it pretty much explains my dream. It comes at least once a week. I have not had the feelings I am dealing with for many years. In fact when I usually dream I can’t remember my dreams when I wake, as of late I can’t shake them. I go through the day reminding my self that they are just dreams. I can’t go back to sleep once I wake up from them and my boyfriend is the one who has to wake me because I can’t do it on my own. I literally am forcing my eyes to stay open so I don’t have to re visit my dream. As I do that my dream flashes scenes of this man with out a face and he is just a creepy, dirty, grimy man sometimes with long unwashed smelly hair filled with streaks of blood. Other times he is just balding and sometimes he reaches for me but other times he just reaches right passed me, HELP!