Shot in the Dark

Last night, I dreamt I was shot in the back. It was unlike any other dream where pain is inflicted upon me, because I swear I felt it, and I had a lot of time to think about the fact that I was about to die.
I am not totally sure what or who I was running from, but I was certainly scared shitless and I knew that whatever was behind me was armed. As soon as I heard the shot, I felt the bullet burn into my back, shatter my shoulder blade and enter the tender, although blackened flesh of my left lung. I could visualize the broken arteries pumping blood into my lungs and out of the smoking hole in my back. I felt it filling my body and moistening my clothes. I fell to the ground, crawling on my hands and knees wondering how long it was going to take for me to die. I didn't wonder where the ambulance was, because it was not coming. I didn't think about why I was shot, because it didn't fucking matter. I was crawling, slipping in my own blood, waiting for death to roll over me. And it fucking hurt, the wound, the eminent loss of life, it hurt.
Then I sprung upright, elbowing Holly in the head. Sweaty, cold and nervous, I had to check for the spurting wound. It wasn't there. Not on my back anyway.
My dreams have been awfully violent lately, even more so than usual. They have also been vivid enough for me to remember in the morning and for days to come. This usually does not happen, I can almost never remember my dreams. But they have been different lately.
A few nights ago, I dreamt that I was robbing a bank and pretty much killing everyone in it. The sick part of it is that I fucking loved every damn moment of it; every shot brought pure joy to my heart. I was just completely fucking elated to kill everyone in sight, so much so that Holly said I had a sick, Jack Nicholson-type smile on my face while I lay asleep. Yes, I was enjoying myself. I haven't had a whole lot of that lately, save a ride in a rusty, once red and pedal powered wagon. And killing people in my sleep every night.
Do dreams mean anything? Do they reflect our daily lives in some twisted way? Sometimes I believe it. Holly and I are splitting and I am angry, sad and tired. I am taking it out on these fictional, faceless people and on myself. If I looked back, would I have seen me with the gun pointed at me? Hard to say.
Somehow I was surprised when someone else put a plug in me for once. Somebody got the best of me and then some--in my dream even--and this is a realm that I am supposed to have some kind of control over. I swear, I did not want to die, but there I was, dying. It hurt. I felt it.