Disturbing..

I had an absolute nightmare last night. It's been quite a while since I've had one, and I can honestly say they scare the crap outta me! Who likes having nightmares anyway? That's the reason that I don't watch horror movies or anything disturbing- because of my insanely vivid imagination.
So onto my dream... Someone was trying to murder me last night. I know you hear about these dreams where you drown or have that falling dream that makes you come awake, but this one beats all of those out of the water..
It was dark and I was in a room with stream and all sorts of pipes- I'm thinking it looked a lot like a boiler room. It was really dark and I was fighting a person hand to hand combat style. I was all sweaty and bloody and so was he. He was choking me and I was gasping for air. At this point I remember the feeling of pure determination that he wasn't going to win. I was going to fight. Fight to survive. If that meant killing him, so be it.
At this point I woke up gasping for air, because I realized that I really hadn't been breathing.
This nightmare provoked other thoughts...should I take a self defense class? I think karate would a fun way to get in shape and learn how to defend myself. Has anyone else out there had a nightmare like mine? any recurring nightmares out there?