How can I help my girlfriend with her possible night terrors/nightmares? (NSFW)

Okay, well I’m 18, and my girlfriend Melanie is 19 (and yes, we’re lesbians. If you don’t like that, please don’t answer.) Her and I were friends for about a year and a half, and we started dating about 6 months ago. However,because we were really close friends before we started going out,I know her really well,and I know that I’m crazy in love with this girl. She’s beautiful and adorable,and sweet and quirky and so kind and understanding. She’s so much more than I could ever ask for. She’s the strongest person I know. She’s been cancer-free for five years, now, and I admire the strength she’s had even since she was a little girl to get through that. You can just see how much her family loves her, because they came so close to losing her during that time, and she appreciates every little thing in life, because she says she’s just happy to be alive. About four months ago, she also opened up to me and told me about her ex girlfriend, Jess, who was very nice and everything, but almost right after the first time that her and Melanie got intimate at all, she started putting Melanie down.

She verbally abused her, and told her that she was fat all the time. Melanie is very small. She’s only 5’ and she’s VERY fit; she dances and works out and eats extremely healthy. She just happens to have very curvy hips and thighs on the larger side (not chubby, at all.) She told me that Jess started hitting her and physically abusing her. She says she stayed with Jess because she had convinced Melanie that she was “annoying” and a “loser” and that no one else would “put up with her.” Luckily, she realized that the abuse was getting out of control, and got the strength to leave her. However, now I see the lasting effects that the relationship had on Melanie. She always seems very confident around friends and all, but once her clothes come off, she gets extremely self-conscious. I mean, she still initiates intimacy a lot, but she hides her thighs and doesn’t like the attention to be on them or her hips. I tell her all the time that her curves and her thighs are ridiculously sexy to me (and it’s true, she’s so sexy to me), but she still hides them. Also, sometimes, she’ll cuddle up next to me on the couch, and I’ll shift or move my arm to put it around her, and she’ll flinch and move away from me a bit until I tell her “Mel, it’s fine, I was just moving my arm.” She’s just so fragile and self-conscious, even though she puts on an excellent act of confidence around everyone else.

Well, we spend a lot of nights together, either me sleeping at her house or vice versa. I love sleeping with her (I mean in a non-sexual way… although I enjoy that, too. Haha) because she’s sweet and she’ll cuddle up to me all night. However, lately, I think she’s been having terrible nightmares or night terrors or something, because she’ll wake me up sometimes, unintentionally or otherwise, and she’ll be sweating and shaking and mumbling or crying about things that I don’t understand. Whenever this happens, I’ll spend some time talking to her calmly, until she relaxes a bit, but she clings to me the rest of the night. A couple of nights ago, Melanie and I slept at our friend Naima’s house, and Melanie woke me up crying, and she had scratched her face with her nails in her sleep, and I helped her clean herself up and everything, but she never tells me what she’s having nightmares about. I’ve asked a couple of times, but she just says “Oh, nothing, I’m fine.” I don’t want to pry, but I’m really worried that something is seriously wrong or that she’s going to hurt herself in her sleep. It’s to the point where, when I’m with her, I set my alarm for every three hours all night to make sure she’s alright. What could be bothering her this much? Is it something to do with her past? What can I do to help her? It’s breaking my heart seeing her like this and I want to help her…