Was it a dream?

Well I don't know where to start with this. I must of been around 5/6 years old, the best I know was it was around the time my mum passed away(2003) due to heart problems, just for some more info my uncle(mums brother) and nana(dads side) all passed this year, all from different circumstances to do with bad heath.

I remember it so vividly it is a core memory that I can still 100% remember to this day. I had a high rise sleeper at the time which was right next to the window, I remember waking up in the middle of the night looking out of the bedroom window to the end of my garden and noticing something, there was a streetlight outside my garden on the other side of a snicket that was about a couple of metres wide and next to it was something, still to this day I cannot say what this something was, but it was there, the closest thing I can attribute it to being was the Michelin man/Pillsbury dough boy the size of a fully grown male, all white, but instead of a face it was a rectangle light I remember so vividly I looked at it for around 10secconds trying to work out what it was, I still to this day cannot explain properly what it was and then it noticed me looking and started to fly towards my window, I didn't know what was going on I completely crapped myself so as fast as I could I climbed down of my bed, ran across the hallway to my dad's room, banged on his door as it was always locked, I remember him waking up shouting at me trying to find out what was going on and then waking up in his bed, which was also another thing I vividly remember as it was the only time it ever happened after my mum passed as I hated that room as it was where my mum used to sleep and brought back memories.

I have never seen anything like this one after and hope to never again and I have also never seen it in a dream either that I can remember. It feels too real to be a dream, but if not what was it?

There is also one more occasion I have had something unexplainable happen to me, this was when I was alot older 17 at the time, I had just got with my ex (my children's mother), she was stopping over at my dad's house with me and I remember getting woken up in the middle of the night and someone was sat on the end of my bed, a woman I had never seen before I got a good look and crapped myself, I remember pulling the covers over my head to hide and trying to wake the ex up but to no avail I remember being frozen not knowing what to do with myself so I tried to nudge/kick her to wake her up, not bad but enough to wake someone and she stayed asleep then we woke up in the morning I explained to her what had happened during the night and she said she didn't know I was trying to wake her up, I then explained to her what I saw, as I explained it to her she started to cry as it was familiar to her, I perfectly described her nana, everything I said matched I still to this day remember her sitting on the end of my bed.

Just to add my ex's nana had passed away, a couple years before I got with her I believe and although in the early stages of the relationship she had mentioned her as she was her closest family member I had never seen a picture of her or know anything about what she looked like and her style, she was a complete stranger basically and I can recall exactly what she looks like to this day.

Anyway there is my story, I don't know what I am expecting from this as it does sound like the biggest load of crap ever but it's my life and what I have witnessed or dreamt. If anyone has any logical explanations for what I saw would be appreciated as I still cannot understand it, was it a dream, was it reality?