Vivid and Violent Dreams

I have begun having extremely vivid and violent dreams which have really begun affecting my normal life because I don't get enough natural sleep.

The weird part is that I live in an older home which was once a halfway home for the metally disabled, many many years ago. My dreams often include people that I would imagine to have been patients. Are these dreams just my subconscious feeling "creeped out" or is it possible that events that toook place 30-50 years ago are somehow actually affecting me today?