I'm an adult who still has frequent nightmares

Oh yeah that’s normal as hell

Smoking weed can make you dream less. But in general is strange, or maybe you have some repressed fears or everything is going good but is boring, trying to give some adrenaline in your dream, or maybe you watch too much horror movies or similar? That can influence too.

My nightmares are all about feeling awkward, embarrassed and inadequate.

Nightmares are the brains way of trying to tell you things

I think it's somewhat normal do you get sleep paralysis too?

It happens when there is stress occurring in our waking lives.

'Aight I'm gonna do some uninformed speculation so bear with me:

A lot of people (or at least myself) live much of their day to day lives in autopilot, having sunk into the role of a passive, impersonal observer of their own existence. Their dreams will probably reflect this: bad things may happen, and they may be viewing events through the "lens" of someone subjected to these bad things, but since they're used to feeling like a passive observer they feel too detached from these events to be uneased by them.

Conversely, someone (such as you, probably) who feels a greater sense of agency and is more of an actual human in their day to day life will probably feel more immersed within their own dreams, so when bad things happen in their dreams it'll feel more "real" to them, and therefore more disturbing.

That's my hypothesis

Until fairly recently my nightmares had stopped. I had night terrors as a child and considered myself lucky they had stopped. I've recently had to be put on anxiety medication though, and the nightmares I've been having lately are a side effect of my anxiety.

I’m a 32 year old dude and I’ve always struggled with nightmares and dreams too.

I’m the type that has multiple dreams all night long that are super vivid and I remember them completely each morning. Last night I was dreaming I was buying a bunch of German Shepherd dogs with broken legs in a public park. It sucked.

I’ve noticed my nightmares usually come in batches, like I’ll have 3 bad nights in a row then have normal dreams for weeks. For a dream to be considered a nightmare it has to wake me up abruptly.