Sleep Issues: including Nightmares and Night Terrors, etc.

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I am wondering about common sleep issues within the AS community. Personally, I have had a range of sleep issues throughout my life and recently seem to of started having nightmares again. I looked into the differences between nightmares and night terrors and am wondering if the symptoms of the two can mix? I will post explanations below for some of the symptoms I have had and when.
When I was a child I had a lot off issues with the pre-sleep phases and nightmares that made me absolutely terrified of falling asleep. For example I would start seeing a sparkly haze and strange shapes that sort of appeared to be like mangled shifting body parts that sometimes morphed into flowers before falling asleep. I am guessing this was part of my mind's way of shutting my eyes off.
As I got older I was medicated and at one point when I was 12 I was put on a medication called Geodon (Ziprasidone). I believe it's actually intended for bipolar disorder but anyway while I was on it I actually felt pain during dreams... like having body parts cur or ripped out of my body during dreams. From this time on through recent years I have had many episodes of suddenly bolting up in a cold sweat after either a falling sensation due to the end of the dream being me falling (like out of the sky or onto my bed) or with no memory of my dreams beyond a strange auditory "echo" that I would talk myself through. If I didn't do this the dream would start over when I would go back to sleep. As I have gotten older the bolting up suddenly episodes have faded (the last one was probably 6 months-a year ago). I also started having gravitational insecurity attacks from the time when I was about 15 where either my legs would be the only thing that was paralyzed or I would be unable to differentiate the space between my bed and the floor. It would also include the sensation of being pulled out of my naval and falling back "into myself" if I was lying flat on my back. I eventually found a cure of the gravitational insecurity stuff. I have also had constant bouts of insomnia my entire life and except for the period between the ages of 12-19, was unable to get more than 5-6 consecutive hours of sleep in a row. I was most stable at 18-20 when I slept a good 7-8 hours regularly. At ages 12-18 I slept with bouts of alternating insomnia and crash bouts of 9-12 or even 24 hours straight (I was ultra sensitive to Actifed, main reason for 24 hour knockouts).
Has anyone else experienced anything like these issues? Also, could someone who has experienced night terrors please clarify the difference between nightmares and night terrors. I have been reading on it and feel that most of my "bad dream" episodes are nightmares but am not sure if a few of the bolting up episodes may have in fact been night terrors?

(clicky)this page might be pertinent.
i have found i can tamp down the nightmares by repeatedly reciting this incantation [to myself] every night before falling asleep, until i fall asleep-

"sweet lucid remembered good dreams, god willing!"

This might be useless info for you but since I totally stopped watching movies with violent scenes I got a lot less nightmares. I will remember scenes from such movies for years and years, and I have always been puzzeled about the fact that people can watch loads of this stuff without being affected.

When I was small I used to have colour and sound nightmares.

Most of the time, I have nightmares, but it's always random, never after watching something frightening or the like.
My nightmares are always horrifying, and they're always about the same kind of thing.
When I wake up from them, I'm always in a state of panic (at times it's even reached near heart attack levels), feeling as though the evil in my nightmares were staring at me from the darkness (unless I wake up to daylight).

If I am to stressed I too will have nightmares that ends up in a massive panic attack. When I was a child it was worse. I remember having meeltdowns because the bed feelt like nedlees. That still happen somtimes but now my parents are not there to force me to stay in bed.

I have always had a difficult time falling asleep and and then staying asleep.

The vast majority of my dreams are nightmares (always either bittersweet or "bad" in nature -nearly all of them have some sort of reference to psychological/physical pain on my part and a lot of them are about me desperately struggling to survive). I do have "good" dreams sometimes though and I've never had a dream that wasn't vivid (eerily real, like I can actually feel what's happening). Fortunately, over the years I've gained the ability to lucid dream, and so now even those that start off "bad" can end "good". I also frequently experience night terrors and sleep paralysis. It also doesn't matter what I watch/read beforehand, sometimes there are aspects of them that get carried into the dreams, but they seem to have no actual influence/effect.

However, I just thought this was one of my "quirks" (no one else I know is like this), I was not aware that there was any correlation between sleep issues and AS.

*Hint* - Click the bold words for their definitions.

I frequently have nightmares which range from just strange to terrifying. (I've read that H.P. Lovecraft had nightmares that he based his stories on. I'd rather have that SORT of nightmare.) I wake up a lot, have to roll over, get comfy again and go back to sleep. I have sleep separately from the Missus as I wake her up.
I have a recurring nightmare of waking up in some strange place and trying to find out where I am. Often it's a broken down house in ruins with crumbling walls and dirt floors. Sometimes it's a strange building with glass walls. As you might guess, this actually wakes me up and I have had problems telling that I'm really in my own bedroom.

(Starts quietly chanting "there's no place like home.)