Nightmares Are Not Dreams, But Reality

There is an interesting trend I have discovered in my life:
I have consistent nightmares when I am dealing with difficult life situations. Seems obvious, and normal; and it is.

Well last night I had this horrible dream that consisted of a large decapitated Gnome head in "my" backyard, a poltergeist throwing my Tums at me and a spider attacking me in the car. Oddly, I know what most of this means; partly from reading many a dream interpretation book and also because I am fully aware of the turmoil in my waking life.

"I knew that I saw him," I stated about the Gnome.
This ghoul that had been creeping around my backyard, haunting me. Either I or others had tried to convince me that this creep from my past was gone, over....dealt with. It was not. It was there dead now, but finally a reality that I had to face. I really was seeing a ghoul; why was he there? How was he affecting me?
The Gnome, like our relationship is dead. It is a reality, and he's been misconstruing my thoughts and actions therefore. Now that I am aware that this was not just a shadow...what do I do? How do I proceed?

As for the poltergeist, I was running to find my antacids after I saw the Gnome head , and this noisy ghost took my tums out of the medicine cabinet and threw them into the shower. I was scared and frustrated and screamed for it to stop and then I left. It was the fist time I ever confronted a dark spirit in that manner, with that amount of confidence, in a dream before; and it was all because of how incredibly angry I was.
The poltergeist has been controlling and manipulating how I function in relationships. It is my fear that is crippling me, and my anger that is feeding it. It may also be the anger that helps me begin to conquer it. It is not letting me achieve what I am after, the thing that heals me; in this case my Tums!

And that damn spider? Well I am afraid of spiders. I was in the passenger seat of a car that my mom was driving and my sister was in the backseat. I was screaming and jumped up on the seat while my mom kept driving and looked my way and my sister fell silent. I killed it. And sat back down, and went on with my life.