Were They Just Dreams Or Something More?

It's been quite a while since my last post on here. Where have those two years gone?

Nothing extra ordinary has happened in those intervening years that I had noticed until 4 months ago.

I was put out of work due to injury on the first of May this year. My surgery was two weeks later on the 19th. Due to the anesthetic my first few nights after the surgery were just straight up blackout sleeps. No dreaming or awareness of anything around me. On the fourth night, that Sunday, I felt like the anesthesia was out of my system enough that I finally wanted to try some of this Jack Daniels cola I had gotten a few days before my surgery. So I drank one before bed (it was decidedly meh) and laid down for the night. I had my door closed because the pull chain for my ceiling fan lights stripped out and if I wanted to have my fan on while I slept the lights had to be on too. I don't remember what time it was or what I was dreaming about, but I was awakened by four quick, sharp raps on my door, like *raprap**raprap*, jerking me out of a very deep sleep. I sat up in bed and listened for any follow up sounds but all I heard were my parents sleeping in the other room. I don't know if I dreamt the knocks or if they were perhaps a warning to wake me from a potentially longer, more permanent nap due to the alcohol and anesthetic. I told my mom about it the next day and she shrugged it off and said it was probably the dog slapping the door with her tail, but I know the difference between the dog's tail thumping against the door and someone knocking.

The other incident happened about a month and a half later and requires a bit of exposition.

I have a sort of love/hate relationship with night time. On the one hand I love that it's quiet and not so busy like during the day, however, to me the night has a sort of imposing feeling to it. Like a weight that settles over everything and makes things feel oppressive and lonely. I also hate sleeping at night as that's when I have the darkest (no pun intended) dreams.

I won't get into details, but the dreams will generally start normal and then will get darker, both literally and figuratively until I usually force myself to wake up. I typically wake up between 2:30am - 4am and my head feels heavy and my heart is racing.

This last time was the same but with a slight twist.

I don't remember exactly what I was dreaming about only that I was talking to someone, or something, when suddenly, for some reason, I lunged at the other with my right arm out as if to grab them. That sudden motion is what caused me to wake up as my body had followed suit in the motion. What makes this different from the other dark dreams is that even though my head was heavy at first the feeling passed almost as soon as I woke up whereas normally it would take a few minutes. Another thing is that at the moment I woke I was aware of something moving in the periphery of my right eye. It looked like something moved across my dresser and out the door (I had it open that night and my lights/fan off). I only caught brief motion and no definitive shape or features unfortunately. The last thing was that when my dream self lunged it had reached forward with its right arm, but when I woke my right arm was reaching towards my door to the right of me like I was reaching for whatever just ran off.

I don't know what to think about these two experiences. There hasn't been anything else happen since and I even questioned submitting them as they are dream related and I know the site's rule about those. Let me know what you guys think.