I'm going to answer a lot of your questions, but not in any particular order. Sorry.
I have nightmares several times a week, and always have (since I was a very small child). They're worse in times of high stress. For example, when I was studying for the bar exam, they were so awful that I was harming myself in my sleep (I'd wake up bleeding where I had clawed at my arms and neck, and pulled out my hair on a couple of occasions).
At that point, because I was harming myself, I finally went to the doctor about it. He suggested I meet with a psychologist, which I didn't have time for because I was working and studying for the bar. He also suggested an anxiety medication, which I declined to take because I was afraid to start something before the exam (I was paranoid that it'd affect my brain somehow and erase all my legal knowledge. Yeah, I know that's silly.
)
So, I ended up just wearing gloves to bed and putting my hair in a pony-tail. The nightmares didn't go away.
I do have recurring themes to my nightmares. I often have dreams where I'm being attacked or my family members are being attacked. I also have a lot of tornado dreams. And occasionally, I dream I'm drowning. I never have the exact same dream twice, but the themes are often the same. And they're very, very graphic and real. In my tornado dreams, for example, I can actually feel the debris pounding against me and/or cutting my skin.
I once had a dream where I was being burned at the stake, along with thousands of other people. It was a field of people tied to stakes; I was somewhere in the middle of the field. The fire started from behind, so I couldn't see it coming, but I could hear the screams of the burning people behind me. The screams intensified the closer the fire got to me. I could smell the burning flesh. Eventually, the fire was close enough to me to feel its heat. Then it was close enough for my skin to blister. Then I was on fire, and writhing on the stake, screaming in pain. So, anyway, my dreams involve all the senses.
You asked about people waking a person up. I think that's a bad idea for the other person, really. I do feel like I'm being attacked, and I fight back.
I'm also an insomniac, due to nightmares. It's not as bad now, but when my life was more chaotic, I was afraid to go to sleep. Also, I've often woken in the middle of the night from a nightmare and been unable to fall back to sleep. I think it's different from other forms of insomnia because there's the fear element.
It doesn't bother me to talk about my nightmares, but a few minutes have to pass so I can calm down. Sometimes it helps to talk about it, so there's someone to remind me that no one is trying to kill me...
Being plagued with nightmares is a hassle in lots of ways. Not only is it miserable for me, but it effects those around me, particularly if I'm sharing the bed with someone. It's been an issue in relationships before.
Mostly, though, it's just something I deal with. I'm used to it now, and I've learned ways to cope. For example, I don't watch scary television programs or movies, or read scary novels, before bed; it helps a little not to fuel my imagination. Cutting caffeine has helped a bit, too. I also had to learn my limits with stress. I can handle high loads of stress in "real life"; it's only my dreams that are effected. So, now that I've learned these things, the truly horrible nightmares for me (the ones where I wake up screaming or hurt myself) are rare, and I can predict with a fair amount of accuracy when they're going to happen (high stress times), and I resort to wearing gloves to bed again.
The nightmares I have regularly are far more manageable... they'd scare the hell out of other people, but I can handle them.
I do wish I knew what caused them. I've always wondered if it's somewhat hereditary. My mother and maternal grandmother also have horrible nightmares, and my grandmother also sleepwalks.
Smish