Waking, dreaming...

The noise woke me. It sounded like a sigh, an expulsion of breath from a living thing, but seeing as I was alone in the house that wasn't possible. It was still dark so I fumbled around for the bed side lamp, turned it on and picked up the alarm clock. Bringing it close to my face, as I didn't have my glasses on and I have atrocious eyesight, I groaned when I saw it was only twenty minutes after I had switched off the light and gone to sleep. I had been dreaming about walking through a wood. It had been dark and rather musty in the wood. Light barely made it to the ground due to the thick canopy of trees. I was alone, or at least I thought I was until I heard the sigh behind me, and I turned and then I woke up.
Sometimes I seem to go straight into a dream, and then wake-up only a few minutes later. It feels like I've been asleep for ages, and sometimes I have dreams that are whole stories, all crammed into those few short minutes. I think dream time is stretched time, and far more can happen in dreams than can in the equivalent time when you're awake.
Anyway, I turned the light off again, rolled onto my left side and closed my eyes.
The soil was damp beneath my feet, and I had to keep my hands up in front of me to push away branches that were in my way. It seemed to be getting darker, and the smell of the forest became thicker and more pungent. Everything around me was either a shade of green or brown. Suddenly my right foot sank into the ground, right up to my knee. I tried to pull it out, but to no avail. I struggled for some time, but the more I did so, the more my leg sank into the ground. I suddenly turned my head to the left, and found myself staring into an old man's face. His eyes were milky white, his skin transluscent, wispy hair lank and plastered to his forehead and his open mouth a black hole. His breath stank of rotting meat and his lips were bleeding.
He sighed...