For years I have had terrible nightmares. I'm quite often murdered in my dreams and my daughter is often in danger and I have to kill a whole bunch of bad guys to save her. The best I can come up with is that it represents a general feeling of hopelessness and lack of control. But they never bother me, I can go back to sleep and accept it for what it is. A dream.
The ones that do effect me are the dreams about the ex wife. Those just depress me and can ruin my day.
I haven't kept a log to see if these occur at any given time or only when I was drinking. Hopefully I don't relapse again and I don't have any of those dreams.